*****

"You're saying no?" Anya takes her hand off Xander's crotch and lays it on his forehead, clearly concerned that he has a fever. It would be charming, really, but she has been doing this ever since Thanksgiving... and only when he says or does something she doesn't care for.

"I just want to get out of my clothes and..."

"Now you're talking."

"...maybe have a shower..."

"I could be dirty, too."

"Ahn, give me a break here. In the last four days I've--" He stops when he sees her wide-eyed, hurt expression, can't make himself say the rest.

*In the past four days I've been vampnapped, bitten, and fucking molested. I've been to another reality, where I became a Slayer, sorta, killed probably thirty vamps including the Master. Plus getting an eyeful of Giles' face as Jenny Calendar died. Again.*

Instead of spilling, he pats his mould-infested couch and says "Sit down."

She perches on it, light as a bird and just as likely to flit away.

"Ahn..."

*such a shitty time for this, she just saved my life...*

And yet, there is no non-shitty time. He takes a deep breath. "Before you and I got involved, there was someone else."

"Cordelia."

"After Cordelia, before you."

"Willow."

"No, Ahn. No. Just try to do the listening thing, okay?" He pries her exploring hands off his soot-smudged knees. "This person was important to me, okay? Real important."

She giggles then, but it's a nervous and brittle sound. "Key word being was. Was important."

"When I went away last summer, I thought it was over. But it's not. Anya." Long swallow--she's already going pale, but... "I thinking I'm in love."

He braces for the screaming, for the slapped face. He knows he's finally doing the right thing, and it feels like shit. Maybe she'll kill him. He'd certainly deserve it.

But she gets up slowly, rolls her head from side to side once. Snapping her purse open, she fumbles for her car keys. Usually she's graceful, but now her movements are stone-blocky, as if she's turned to a statue.

"Anya," he says, but she shakes her head once, curtly, and then unclips a key from her ring.

"Here, Xander. This is for you."

He takes it gingerly. "What is it?"

"It's a present." Her voice is so tight, like piano wire strung across a throat. "It's an apartment. The rent is half what your parents are charging, and all you have to do, um, all you have to do is make sure none of the tenants are vampires or. Or. Or demons, demons or anything."

"Anya, I don't--thank you, it's really thoughtful--but I don't think I can."

"Take it," she says breathlessly, tears welling. "Say you'll take it. You know you can't stay here."

"But--"

"Promise."

He nods.

She turns on her heel then and marches out. He hears her car start up, grind its gears and screech away. The silence she leaves in the basement hurts his ears. And shit, now that he's blown her off he half wants her to hold him, comfort him, tell him it's okay.

He peels off the remains of the policeman's uniform, fishing a green gem on a golden chain out of the pocket. The Whitehats gave it to him, saying it stabilized the spell that had conferred Slayer strength and reflexes on Xander.

He wonders briefly if he has to live with the thing near him all the time. It's rather a girly ornament. Then he decides to hell with it. Leaving it on his dresser, he gets into the shower. Scalding himself meticulously under the hottest water he can stand, he discovers that when he closes his eyes he sees Ms. Calendar frying in the alternate universe, sees Giles' face contorting with heartbreak. It's too much--he keeps his face out of the stream and leaves his eyes open, even when he washes his hair and gets soap in them.

*...Larry trying to cover her with his body, but vanishing, called home. Scent of burning fat and meat, breaking pressure on his own neck easing as he, too, disappears...*

And to think he once loved horror movies.

He steps out, watches the swirl and twist of steam escaping through the bathroom door. He is reaching to shut off the water when he hears Anya coming back down the stairs.

"I decided I wanted to yell at you after all," she yells. "Xander?"

He wants to go out and face her--he *should* go out and face her--but he's rooted to the spot, watching her through the crack in the door. She glares at the bathroom and then, sniffling, she gathers up things she has left here over the course of their affair. A scarf, a book, a ridiculous feather boa. She smashes a photograph of the two of them together and kicks his discarded clothes.

"Wretched human.... pigfucker!" Then her eye falls on the dresser, on the green gem on the golden chain. Her eyes go wide and she snatches it greedily.

"My amulet!"

Great. That's where he's seen the thing before, in one of Giles' books.

She fastens it around her throat. With an inhuman roar, she vanishes. Anya is a vengeance demon again.

"Okay," Xander murmurs. "Not quite how I thought round two was gonna go."

* * *

When he can move again he hightails it over to the boarding house, where Larry seems more than a little surprised to see him so soon. He is impassive as Xander relates the details of the dumpscene and subsequent Anya transformation, saying nothing when the story's over.

Finally, when prompted, he asks: "Is this another attempt at sabotage?"

Sabotage: Xander's mind is still Slayer-sharp, despite the loss of the gem, and it and his military sub-self tick over all the meanings of the word. Finally--coming up dry on context--he says: "Huh?"

"You know. This woman loves you, you love her, you push her away."

"Oh," he says, getting it. "No, it's not like that."

"What is it like?"

"Well, first off--I get what you're saying about the Xander fatalism. Personally I think it's winsome... but I'm willing to work on the self-esteem thing. If you think I need it..."

"Man, do you."

"Second--no, it wasn't sabotage. And third, I didn't love her. Which is kinda sorta why I told her the truth, Lare. Staying with her was scummy."

"You didn't love her?" Blue eyes blink as Larry tries to take this in.

"Never did, never would. Once you came back..."

"Yeah?"

The attitude has been keeping him at arm's length, but Xander sees the cracks now and he moves in close. He runs the back of his hand down Larry's stubbled cheek, lets his thumb linger on the lips.

"Once I came back *what,* Harris?"

"She never had a chance." Leaning in close, Xander kisses him while running the thumb down from lip to chin, from chin to Adam's apple, finally stopping to explore the hollow of Larry's throat. Those amazing eyes are inches from his, floating above cream and freckle cheeks, and in them he can see things that make him faintly mournful. He finds himself suspecting that Larry would've been happy to live in this confined little garret, gladly taking whatever time and attention Xander felt like parcelling out to him.

It makes him feel wretched and undeserving, but then he remembers he's supposed to be working on that.

I can *try* to deserve it, he decides. And he starts by saying what he should have long ago. "I love you, man. You."

Then he avails himself of the Slayer strength, scooping Larry into a bride-over-the-threshold carry and bearing him over to the biggest of the attic's windows. Laying him down on the polished hardwood floor, he shreds them out of their clothes. Side by side, they fall into long, gentle kisses. Xander's holding Larry's head in both hands; Larry has him by the shoulders. His naked toes jostle and bump at Larry's like dolphins and his cock is warm and tingling, firmly snug against Larry's parallel hardness.

They take their time, necking for as long as they can stand it. Xander nibbles the ridges of Larry's eyebrows, and Larry teases his earlobes with a wet, fast, tongue. They weave their mouths together, gasp for breath, and dive in for more. Drawing it out, each moment brings his desire more tightly into focus. He can feel pre-cum dripping out of his cock, can smell the two slightly different flavors of it mixing on the floor.

Finally he can't take it anymore. He grabs Larry's ass--and Larry grabs his at the same time. They grind themselves against each other, moaning.

"Fucking gorgeous man," Larry says fondly. Releasing him, Xander gets his hand around both their cocks, jerking them in slow, measured strokes. Not enough to bring them off, not yet, just enough to keep place with the rising need, need, need in them both.

Remarkably flexible, Larry lowers his head to Xander's nipples, tongues them, draws them into his mouth and then releases them with a pop of breaking vacuum. His hands find two unlikely erogenous zones on Xander's ribcage, just under the armpit, and press there. Xander's legs wiggle and jerk like they're a part of some other human, one he has no control over.

"Want to lick, oh, want to suck you," Larry says. Usually he's quiet during sex, chatty afterward. Now suddenly he's loquacious. "Touch you, taste you, want to go down on you, Harris."

Xander squeezes the two cocks a little harder, runs his free hand down Larry's back to encourage the monologue, and then digs in with his nails a little as Larry's thumb finds his navel and his teeth graze his nipple.

"Want to come in your mouth, man. Want to bend over for you, want to jerk you off." He arches his back slightly as the fingernails drag over his spine again. "Want to fuck you."

And this last, very much against Xander's will, makes him flinch. The inner trauma boy comes out to play, flashing him memories of the way he smelled just days before, when he returned to his body and the vampLarry was climbing off him. Older memories, too: his face pressed into crusty blue upholstery while an out of control Spike vivisected him with his cock. Every muscle in Xander's body stiffens, just a bit, and the hand jerking them off loses its rhythm.

Then the blue eyes rise to meet his, the hands squeeze him gently around the waist. "When you're ready," Larry says, and Xander finds he can agree to this, can nod stiffly even though he doesn't trust himself to speak.

Their lips come together again, and this time it's a hard and desperate kiss, it's all the passion that comes with war, with never being able to know, for sure, that you're going to see tomorrow. It's love and the bodies they've buried together and Anya's broken heart and Miss Calendar in flames. It's the Casablanca-stupid second chance of getting this other-world Larry after the real world one died; it's the vicious Sunnydale cruelty of knowing they still have to dust the original, and that battle will surely cost them something they can't afford to pay. They kiss and hump against each other, and both of them are leaking tears now, and then suddenly they're turning and twisting on the floor. Xander gets Larry's cock into his mouth just as he feels his own being engulfed in wetness and tongue. He cups the ginger-haired scrotum and drives his face against Larry's body, sucking desperately, his hand wrapped hard around the base of Larry.

And when it's obvious Larry's going to come first Xander slows down the bucking of his own hips, concentrating on nothing but his neck, his hand, his tongue, the hot feel of Larry's thighs on his forehead and the internal fire driving him. He draws out the orgasm, swallows the come, pulls on his ass so Larry's cock is shooting more deeply down his throat.

And then it's his turn, and it's like being at the center of a nova, like being a thunderhead or a tornado, something powerful and barely understood. He lets it all go, lets the tsunami of feeling wash through him, holds the back of his lover's head and cries Larry's name again, again as it all goes away, the whole world is gone. Nothing but Larry and his cock.

When it's over, they cuddle up in the blankets and pretend, for awhile, that neither of them is crying.

* * *

Later he heads out to the mall and picks up five brand-new cell phones with money from Corky's magic cookie jar. Screw fighting evil on a shoestring--he uses his father's credit card number to activate them and stencils the numbers inside the batteries before heading for Giles'.

It has been five days since he saw any of his friends--Buffy, Willow, the G-man--and it feels more like a month. Hopefully, nothing critical has happened since the minions of vampire Larry grabbed him...

Yeah, right. And the odds of that are....

He gives in to the pang of pessimism--sorry, Larry--and uses the cell to make some calls. He leaves a message for Riley, gets the answering machine at the girls' dorm. He tries Giles last, on the theory that it's the best bet. No answer there, either.

Shit. He's momentarily torn in multiple directions. Then a bike courier shoots past him, superfast. Hooray for Xander's still-sharp Slayer reflexes, because that was a road-pizza moment in the making for both of them. He catches the phone number on the guy's reflective blazer and dials it. With the last of the cookie jar haul he sends a biker off to deliver one of the cell phones to the boarding house so he can for fuck's sake call his boyfriend when he needs to.

Then--sudden inspiration--he dials the Summers house.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Joyce. It's Xander Harris. I'm looking for Buffy."

An odd pause. "She's not here, Xander. She was here yesterday..."

"Yesterday?" Christ, is she drunk? Why is she even home in the daytime?

"There was a problem at the house."

"Slayer problem?"

She laughs strangely. "You could say that, yeah."

"Okeydoke. Strike four. I'll keep looking."

He's moving all the while--bless you wireless telecommunications--and now he's at destination one. Which is Uncle Rory's garage. He unlocks it, gets out the car, and throws the remaining phones in the back.

Then he tries Giles again, gets no answer, and heads for the basement formerly known--or is that soon to be formerly known?--as Xander's apartment.

What? he asks his reproachful rearview reflection. I promised Anya I'd move into the place. Besides, they need an undead-savvy tenant.

Loading his stuff, which takes ten minutes flat, he is surprised when the phone he has designated as his own vibrates in his pockets.

"Yeah?"

"Harris?"

"Hey, Lare, you got it!"

"You are one lucky prick--"

"My prick and I both consider ourselves fortunate, yes."

"Uncle Corky almost turned the delivery guy into a slug."

"Ugh. Note to self. Never take pizza to your place." They share a companionable mutual chuckle.

"Where are you, anyway?"

"Looking for the team and running errands."

Larry's voice goes cool and serious. "You'll be inside before dark?"

"Count on it."

He gets into the car and points it toward Chez Giles. Halfway there he spots a familiar blond, trotting double-time in the opposite direction. Laying on the horn, he startles her. Buffy does a more ready than usual spin, fists raised... and then her face clears; she recognizes him.

"Xander?" She says it like it has been days and days for her, too. An awesome, playful grin breaks across her face....

...stop that, he tells his cock silently. We're taken...

... and she vaults into the passenger seat. "I love this car."

"What's not to love?" He pulls back into traffic. "It's got style, panache, an internal combustion engine, me--"

"Big back seat," she purrs.

"Yeah, sure." He spares her a glance. "You okay, Buff?"

"Five by five."

Nope, something definitely wrong here. He clamps down on the wheel and tries to guess the source of the creepy crawlies running up his spine. No go. More info is required.

"So," he says. "Joyce. Last night. What was the deal?"

She shoots him a glance. "You didn't hear?"

And thank you so much for noticing I vanished. "Can't contact anyone. They're all unavailable, please leave a message at the tone."

"They're out hunting..." Her voice trails.

"Hunting what?"

"Oh. A, uh, a demon broke into Joyce's place last night."

And, he wonders, why don't I believe that? Still, they're nearly to Giles'. He'll sort it out there.

"I mean Mom. Mom's place. The old pile-a-bricks." She gives him a false smile. "Guess it freaked me out a little."

"Joyce okay?"

"She's fine." Dismissive wave of the hand and then her eyes widen. "Where we going?"

"Where else?" He pulls in, parks.

"Ahhh... maybe I could borrow the car. I was supposed to check the beach caves before I came back."

"Buffy. You can't drive."

"Hey, it's got a stick and an engine. How hard can it be?"

"No way. I've seen your impersonation of a responsible driver."

"Come on, you know I'm great with hot rods." She leans over then, clamps her mouth over his, and winds her hand into his crotch.

*****
Part 2:

Oh. It comes together. The clothes. The 'tude. Five by fucking five. He panics, and in his altered state he tosses her out of the car when he pushes her away. She rolls, comes up on her feet.

"Faith?"

From faux-Buffy cute to Faith demented in half a second. "Guess it's true, huh Xander? You never do forget your first."

Faith in Buffy's body. He throws himself at her, twisting to compensate as she tries to dodge. Then suddenly he's got a starring role in one of those knock down drag out slayer versus slayer battles. And it turns out they are a hell of a lot more fun to imagine or hear about than to actually participate in. Bashing the hell out of not-Buffy, catching diamond-hard fists with his teeth, ribs, getting kicked in the legs. He blocks blows that could kill him if he wasn't magically enhanced...

... and then, suddenly, he isn't. All the strength goes out of him--the Slayer power and his own. Woosh, gone, and he's on his back on Giles' lawn, and he can't even lift his head.

Faith-in-Buffy is glaring down at him. "Had enough?"

Maybe he can bluff his way out of dying right here and now. Hell, it worked on *The Princess Bride.* My name is Inigo Harris. You bodyswapped my Slayer. Prepare to...

But Faith makes a blowing-him-off gesture with one hand, turning. He can hear a car coming up behind them, even before its horn honks. The cavalry?

No. Xander is lying below the level of the grass and can't see what's there, but somehow he knows it's a police cruiser. The sun has gone down while he and Faith were fighting.

Fuck. Not again. He rolls over with a Herculean effort, crawling inch by painful inch towards the illusory concrete sanctuary of Giles' building. Faith has run over to the car, apparently willingly. After a moment she climbs in; or at least, he hears a door open and slam shut.

He makes it to the door. Pulling himself to his feet he turns back, expecting not-Buffy and her new vamp buddies to turn up and drag him to the car. But she kisses the window and winks as the cruiser pulls away.

He is a little stronger now. He manages to stay upright when he opens Giles'--as usual--unlocked door. Unlocked is a good thing too, because there's broken glass everywhere. At the epicenter of which destruction is Giles. Who is--big surprise--bleeding. And more unconscious than ever before. One of his legs is bent back in a way that says "maybe this is broken." There's a gash over one eye.

"Giles?" Still too weak to lift the man, or even to roll him over, Xander struggles, shaky-kneed, to kneel and check his pulse. Finding one, he wets a rag in the sink and cleans the bloodied forehead. Giles eventually opens his eyes.

"Hey," says Xander. Bracing himself on the couch he offers the man a hand up, nearly falling over in the process. Still, some strength *is* returning. Was that it for the Slayer spell? Time will tell.

"Xander?' Still groggy, Giles hops to a seat. "Where were you? We could have used your assistance."

For what, doughnut runs? Bad Xander, his inner Larry barks, and dammit, Lare, you've made me self-conscious! Instead he asks: "Did Faith do this?"

Giles shakes his head and begins patting around for his glasses. "Watcher's Council goons. She came here for help and they took her."

"Took... Faith?"

"Yes, of course Faith."

"Okay, but Faith as Faith, or Faith as Buffy?"

Giles squints. "Don't take this as ingratitude, but what are you drivelling on about?"

Xander shifts, crunching glass underfoot, and Giles looks faintly alarmed. "My glasses..."

"I'll find them, okay? Just listen first..."

But just then Willow and Tara bomb through the door. "Giles, Giles! Faith stole Buffy's body!"

"Ah hah!" Xander says, rescuing the ex-librarian's specs just before Tara can clomp a sandalwood-scented sandal down on them. "Go on, Giles. Say the drivelling thing to them!"

Willow's face, however, is full of horror and shock. She's taking in the broken glass, the state of Giles, and Xander's own collection of new Faith-gotten stomp marks.

"What happened to you guys?" Tara asks.

* * *

Explanations eat time they shouldn't waste. Willow tells him about Faith waking up from her beauty coma, about her visit to Chez Joyce and Buffy's subsequent cruel behavior to Tara at the Bronze. She describes the spell they did to suss out the secret.

Giles then relates how the jumped-up Watcher commandoes showed up and held him at gunpoint until Faith--Buffy, really--came to beg his aid. She got captured amid much collateral damage to Giles, his leg, and sundry environs.

Then it's Xander's turn, and God, if he starts at the beginning the Hellmouth will open before he's done. He takes a second, sorting out the things they need to know from the things they don't while Willow shifts impatiently.

"Remember that other Willow that Anya was tied up with?" he begins.

They nod.

"Well... there's a Larry around here from the same place. He's not a vamp--he's a good guy. We've been hanging out--taking care of his uncle, and--" Trying not to be hurt now, at the 'how is this relevant' glaze that's forming on two thirds of his audience. He looks at Tara, who remains interested and eager.

"In fact, I've dumped Anya. Because of him. *For* him."

"What do you mea--" Willow stops. She honestly looks shocked.

He shoots her a challenging glare. "This is a problem for you?"

"No! I mean, it's a--it's good. I mean..." Silent plea for help to Tara gets her nothing but repressed giggles, and she gathers herself to speak.

Then Giles says: "I believe National Coming Out Day was last month."

"And yet not one word out of you about Ethan Rayne."

"Don't be uncouth, Xander. Why are you telling us this now?"

"Well, partly because this world's Larry is a vampire and I don't want my boyfriend catching a stake..."

"Oh!" Willow says. "Because that could really happen. Wouldn't want that, no sir. Especially with Faith running around. In Buffy's body."

"And also because Anya's got her powers back and who knows where that'll lead..."

"Bloody marvellous."

"But mostly it's background data." And then he tells them about vamp Larry and the state of all things law enforcement in Sunnydale. He tells them almost everything--getting caught, the cells full of hostages, getting bitten. He tells them the Chief of Police agreed to smuggle them tactical information. All he leaves out is getting fucked by vampLarry and the whole long saga of his escape via the other universe. Even without the ugly details, the other Scoobies look guilty as hell about not noticing he was gone.

And miracle of miracles, by the time he's done he's better than back to normal. He's back to Slayer strength again.

All they have to do now is figure out what to do.

***

Priority one, of course, is getting Buffy back from the Watcher goons. They swing by Riley's, find him vanished. This forces them to beg Forrest to mobilize the Initiative's high tech and contacts network to keep the English guys from going back to England. Forrest isn't super-inclined to help, but finally the idea of taking on a bunch of guys who've managed to kidnap a Slayer develops some appeal for him, and he makes the calls.

While they are there, Xander checks Riley's mailbox. There are three thick envelopes there, addressed to him. Tactical data on the police situation, as requested.

Within minutes the van containing Faith's bod and Buffy's anima is located, and they book out with Forrest in hot pursuit. With the Initiative's car power and the Willow Tara witchery one-two, it's fairly easy to stop the van. Xander is expecting that Buffy will be more than ready to take advantage of any opportunity they give her. But strangely, even after Xander has subdued the Council Commandos, she hasn't gotten herself loose. Willow and Tara have to steal the van keys and unlock her from both the van itself and the shackles.

Relieved hugs all around, then, and Xander immediately perceives the source of the wrong. Buffy's grip on his shoulders is plainly weak.

"They used that anti-Slayer drug on you, didn't they?"

She nods, turning her arms up so they can see the needle marks. "I've got to get my body back. If Adam tries something before I'm full strength..."

Oh honey, Xander thinks. As if that was our only problem.

"Your body's fallen in with a bad crowd," he tells her. And then his own almost gives out again, another brief fit of weakness which buckles his knees and makes his heart flutter.

Lucky thing Buffy's there so they can hold each other up.

***

With Buffy weakened and Giles unable to walk, Xander is less than eager to go back to the Watcher's place. He gives Forrest a heart-felt thank you and the number of his cell phone, and then bosses the entire gang into his borrowed convertible. Willow and Tara do a confusion chant to hide them from the vamp police and he drives to the boarding house. Then he calls Larry. They're going to meet him sooner or later--why not now?

Buffy and Giles are asleep by the time he pulls up at the boarding house, but Xander's getting a second wind. He feels Slayerly again. The bouts of weakness must be the consequence of losing Anya's gem. Maybe fighting wipes him out?

Remembering the delivery boy, he runs up to the porch to warn Corky they've got company. There's no need--the old drunk is out on a toot. Larry comes out and helps him haul Faith's body and Giles into the house. It's just about midnight, and the four of them who are still ambulatory--all the practicing homosexuals as it turns out--roll out an age-musted mattresses beside the patients for the girls.

They sit on its four corners then, opening the papers from the police chief. First there's a diagram of the building, entrances and exits and a rooftop helipad entrance which the vamps have carefully welded shut. The next day's envelope contains a list of which cops are alive and which have been vamped. The chief lost track of the hostages but there's at least one for every living cop, a friend or kid or husband or mother jailed away to keep them in line. The third day's note says: "He's going nuts trying to find you" and lists the places the cops have been watching, noting that he's leaked word to some of the day shift to slack off in the Xander-finding department. Thankfully, the boarding house isn't on the list.

And I was blithely wandering Sunnydale all afternoon, he thinks. I went home. Stupid, lucky bastard.

The last envelope contains only a scrap of memo paper: "Today he turned your father."

Xander stares at the words dully, knowing he ought to be having a *Field of Dreams* quality emotional breakdown over this. The old man dead. Larry must be hoping Dad can find me.

Laughable, that, but he doesn't laugh.

Instead he looks around the room, counting heads. Except for Anya--who can pretty much take care of herself now--and Buffy's body, everything that matters to him is right here.

Tara and Larry are giving him puppy eyes of sympathy. Willow's face is eerily calm. She reaches across the mattress and enfolds him in a hug, and he smells myrrh on her. "Don't feel bad if you don't feel bad," she whispers.

He nods. A three-year old Xander wails briefly for the invincible Dad who once clubbed an older kid for picking on him, but it's an old grief, long ago healed. That Dad's been dead for fifteen years.

"I'm sure he'll be a big disappointment to Larry, too," he murmurs.

After that nobody says a word; they're all too tired. Willow snuggles in with Tara. Xander and Larry climb the attic stairs. Xander is asleep almost before his good-night kiss, and his sleep is deep and dreamless.

***

Typical Sunnydale breakfast conversation: how do we get Buffy's body back to where we can switch them, can the mages look into the spell that made Xander Superboy, where the fuck is Riley, and how do we get into Larry's nest? They bat around ideas from the suicidal (frontal assault) to the techie-lame (flooding the ventilation system with mist made from holy water) without any ideas. Midway through Corky comes back and pisses on the kitchen floor. Which, in a movie, would give Xander a wonderful tactical idea. In real life it just smells horrible and embarrasses Larry.

"Maybe there's a sewer entrance to the police station," Buffy says. With that, Willow is on the laptop and they start to coalesce a plan. They have done this so many times now it is almost second nature--find the advantage, make the plan, assign tasks. Prepare, prepare, prepare.

By nightfall they are almost ready. There is a nearly direct route to the cop shop from the boardinghouse through the sewers, and Willow has found an interesting variation on Ethan's Janus spell which she thinks could be used to turn the hostages into insubstantial ghosts, capable of simply drifting out of the cells on their own steam. Giles has brewed up some amphetamines which restored Buffy--in Faith's body--to half her strength. Xander is trying to talk Forrest into staging some kind of fake hostage taking which will draw cops away from the police station.

Fine in theory, not worth shit. They're about to leave when molotov cocktails come through the boarding house windows on all sides. The old dry wood catches immediately, and like that they're in the middle of an inferno. Tara's dress is on fire and Larry leaps on top, rolling her with a sick and haunted expression. The spell materials, carefully gathered in a single foray to the shop, go up in a gust, and the spell book catches too. The firebombs keep coming, one after another, hot and smoky, driving them outside...

... into the vampires' arms. Thirty or forty of them, the entire night shift. All wearing their game faces and blue uniforms. Plus... as if that wasn't enough... Faith.

Xander puts out his arms in a wide basket and shoves all his friends back into the blaze. Already Tara is coughing. He lifts her and runs through the flames to the staircase. Buffy apparently agrees with him, because she's humping Willow and the weapons chest--good woman, good woman--with her. That leaves Giles and Corky for Larry, more than he can really manage, so he's heading up the rear and please don't die, man. Xander triple-times up the stairs to the top floor, putting two levels between them and the main fire. No obvious way out, but one problem at a time.

"Can anyone control fire?" Faith's eyes do a Buffy intense at the mages as she racks a crossbow, tossing its cousin to Xander. They've only got twenty bolts--even if they hit with every shot they are going to have twenty vampires left...

"I, um, maybe..."

"What, Tara?"

"With Willow. We could make the fire reach out to engulf some of them. But it won't put it out."

"Do it," she says. "How about you two?"

Corky looks ready to unzip again and Larry gives the old man a punch on the arm. Xander cracks a window and slags a vamp.

"One down, forty to go."

"Thirty-nine," Tara says dreamily, and a vamp goes up in flames.

"Larry, how long before the floor gives?"

"I'm thinking twenty minutes," he says.

"Okay. Hit the redial on my cell phone and beg the guy who answers to come and help us. And, um... call the fire department?"

"No!" Buffy says. "Not with the vampires out there."

"Right." Zing and he gets another one, but Buffy aimed for the same one and they've wasted a bolt. Shit.

And is that the sound of the door being kicked in? Must be... Buffy drags Giles into position and gives him the other crossbow, moving to the top of the stairs.

"Lare, you gotta put this fire out or find us a way off here."

No answer.

He lines up another shot, already coughing on the rising smoke. The vamps are getting wise to his position, so he slides across the floor--is it hot beneath him?--to a different window. Larry is grimly knotting blankets.

"I meant a magic way!"

"Harris, this is all I got."

Fuck and fuck. Drawing a bead on a vampire, he sees that it's his father. And it makes him hesitate, for about a second. Then he pull's the trigger. Daddy dearest is dust, and the three-year-old Xander doesn't even squeak.

Stupid, horrible fight. Being on the defensive sucks. His haven is burning around him and the air is acidic and thick. Faith is up here now and the Slayers, behind him, are going at each other like a pair of tanks. A piece of Willow's magic fixBuffy box comes sliding past his knee, and he spares a glance to see if she's back in her body. She isn't--and Faith's body, still-drug weakened, is getting creamed.

She catches his eye over Faith's shoulder, gives him a meaningful glance.

No.

"Do it," she mouths. And she's right--they don't have time to screw around. She manages one right-on blast to Faith's chin--her own chin, knocking her stolen body loose and away from her, and Xander takes aim carefully on a spot just below her heart. It'll puncture her lung and that should knock her out of the fight. They can evacuate her and do the body-swap if they escape.

When they escape. When, when, when.

Last nanosecond to check his aim and he pulls the trigger. He doesn't miss, but Faith is in motion. The stairwell collapses and the floor shudders as Buffy hits her again. Her knees buckle, just a little.

The bolt--hundreds of pounds of pressure behind it--goes high. Goes right through her heart. A perfect vampire killing shot.

But she isn't a vampire, she's a girl he loves and a girl he had sex with, rolled up in one and dying instantly at his hands. And for a second he thinks he's killed Buffy, that Faith is in her own body again and she tricked him--but then the golden hair hits the floor with a wet sound and the dark eyes in Faith's head meet his, the horror on her face mirroring his own.

"Xander!" Larry shouts. "Help me onto the roof!"

He throws the crossbow to Buffy--he can't bear to touch it anymore anyway--and runs to the next battle station. Killed her oh my god I can't believe I... shit, shit! "What's the plan?"

Larry holds up the looped blankets. "This end goes around the chimney. I swing down across to the post office next door. "We tie off on that metal bar and everyone slides down."

He lowers his voice. "Corky and Giles can't make that trip."

"You and Buffy will have to carry them.

He looks. The jump is do-able, sort-of. And if they can pull it off they won't be surrounded, at least not right away. They'll be on a non-burning building.

"Go," he says. "Don't fall."

Larry kisses him quickly and climbs nimbly onto his interlaced hands, headed roofward. As soon as his weight is gone, Xander rushes back to Giles. "You know that spell of Willow's for making things foggy?"

"Yes, Xander, but I don't have a candle."

"The whole building is a candle."

"Ah." Giles starts spewing Latin and fog rolls out across the street, hiding Larry from the vamps--he hopes--but also hiding them from their last few crossbow bolts. Buffy knocks out Corky with a quick jaw-punch and loads him into a blanket-sling--Xander helps her tie him onto her back. Larry makes the jump, a long arc off the roof and out into nothing, clinging to the blanket-rope.

And he makes it, he's safe. The blanket-rope holds and he's across and tying it off.

"Go!" he nudges Willow on to it first, heart in his mouth as she dangles and struggles--so not a Marine, so not a monkey. But she makes it. Then Tara, who is remarkably nimble for someone with a badly burned arm, wearing a long dress and clompy sandal things. She and Tara embrace on the other end and immediately start chanting.

Giles, he realizes, has never stopped.

Faith's eyes look at him, worried, before he turns and she hoists Giles onto his back. "The rope's stretching."

"You first."

"Xander..."

"The two of you are lighter than the two of us," he says, and she takes that in reluctantly and hikes herself out into the night, hand over hand. And the rope sags lower, deeper into the bank of fog, and she sinks for awhile. But then she climbs out and up, higher and higher, and then she's on the roof with the others.

Larry has gotten the roof access open. He mimes something at Xander--steering wheel. There are cars down there.

They might get out of this after all.

The building is trembling now, the smoke thicker than water and just as insistent on drowning his lungs. He doesn't even have time to look back at Buffy's body, burning; doesn't have time to look around the attic where he has been so happy, where he has felt safe and wanted. Giles is wracking their makeshift sling with his coughing and he has to just shut it out, walk away. Out onto the window-ledge as the light of flames bursts through the floor behind him. One tug on the rope to pretend-check its strength. Then out on a thread in the night.

Familiar treasured blankets strung together. First a fuzzy orange nylon thing. He closes one hand on crunchiness and realizes it's dried cum. Slight flavor of nostalgia as he hands himself up a knot to a green fun-furry thing. They usually used this one as their top cover, because it looked less shitty than the rest. Then the puffy white quilt which was the mattress.

Whiff of blood from the next one--Giles slept on it--and then the thin black sheet they used once to tie Larry's hands together.

Sinking now, farther than Buffy did. They're well into the cloak of obscuring fog but it's okay. She got out, we'll get out. The vamps can't see us.

He can't see the top of the post office building now. They're what... all of a dozen feet off the ground?

Now Giles is coughing again, softly, holding in the sound as his body jolts. Smoke trying to claw its way out of his body, Xander knows exactly how that feels. His own lungs feel for shit... only the please-don't-fail-me-now Slayer endurance is keeping him from giving in to the gag-monster too.

There's an unsettling shift of weight on his shoulder: the sling, unknotting. Xander tightens one hand on the rope and reaches back, snagging the offending strip. "Giles," he whispers. "You've got to hang onto this."

They cling there, holding position, slowly losing altitude until the Watcher can grasp both ends of the knot. Then Xander starts climbing again. Up. Up. He's almost out of the mist. He can see the roof again, four worried heads and Corky's peering over the edge of the building. Buffy. Willow. Larry. I'm coming.

But then there's an earth-shattering snap of breaking wood and falling bricks--the boarding house collapsing, and taking the chimney with it. Breaking windows hurl glass all around them, and the blankets tethering them to the burning building fall away. Xander and Giles do a slow-arc swing towards the bricks of the post-office. Tarzan time... more like George of the Jungle, actually. And Giles coughs as they swing and loses the sling. His weight falls away from Xander's just as they hit the brick edifice. There's an awful sounding crunch as he lands on the ground, eight or ten feet below, somewhere in the deep mist.

And above them, one of the knots in the blankets lets go and Xander falls too.

*****
Part 3:

He lands, catlike, on the side of the building, drawing the stake from his waistband as easily as saying his name. No vamps right in his vicinity. "Giles?"

No answer, so he tries again. "Giles?"

Then there's a scream.

He does a full Slayer flip in the right direction and comes down unerringly on one of the three vamps, arching back to dust it and landing on his feet. The second one is about to shout for help so Xander drives his hand against its mouth. There's a vicious, stupid wrestle for control of the stake--and he doesn't have time for this, there's a third vampire hunched over a still, gray form nearby...

He wins the wrestle, kills the vamp. Its warning shout disappears in a shower of dust.

And then the third one. It has its back to him as it rises to its feet, a simple target. He recognizes the golden sweep of hair and thinks of Buffy's dead body, even as he recognizes that it is Harmony in a policewoman's uniform. He stakes her dispassionately and bends over Giles. Not too late, he thinks. Not too late.

And it very nearly is. The broken leg is lying straight and proper and the throat is torn open. There is a weirdly square shard of glass buried in his stomach and his mangled hand is still wrapped around the stake it couldn't quite drive home.

"Gghhhangrr," he murmurs. The sound comes through the hole below his chin.

"Hush," he says. But Giles blinks, that oddly frustrated look he gets sometimes, and shoves his good hand into Xander's lap. There's a page of spell book there, a little packet of herbs and junk. His lips move, slowly mouthing words he can't give voice. "He sent nearly all of them."

Larry. Almost alone at the police station. It could take the surviving vampires awhile to regroup and get back. He nods to show he understands.

Then the intelligence goes out of the eyes, they glaze. A soft gurgle of air rushes over his fingers from the gored throat.

And oh, he thinks suddenly. This is what it's like to lose a father. Novocaine numbness all through his body and this big yawning hole at the base of his sternum, everything hot and cold at once. He falls back against a cold brick wall. His body succumbs to the weird recurring weakness and he sits there, waiting for vamps, waiting for death, his hand resting on Giles. Giles with his throat ripped out, Giles in a pool of spilled blood. I dropped him. Buffy gave me the ball and I dropped him. I killed her body and I lost her Watcher.

Distantly he hears an engine roaring to life, cracking through a wooden barrier and driving away. The others, escaping. He's grateful and relieved. Not because they're safe, but because they don't know yet. They won't know for awhile. Maybe a vamp will find him here, and he'll die before he has to tell them.

If a Watcher dies and nobody's around to tell the Slayer, can he still be alive? Please God?

He lies there until he can move again, staring at Giles, taking the good long look he couldn't spare for Buffy's body and the stupid just a fucking building boardinghouse. Then he takes the green fuzzy blanket, which is lying nearby; and covers Giles' body. He kisses the forehead once and tucks the stake into Giles' good hand, because you bury a warrior with his weapons and he doesn't have a book to leave him.

Sobbing, he goes into the sewers.

***

After awhile he thinks to a) pay attention to where he's going and b) look at the thing Giles gave him. It's a short spell, a scrap of Latin and some instructions on how to smear dust properly. Two broken birthday candles from Larry's cupboards . He recognizes two words--demonis vex--shakily circled in red pen.

Angry demon. Oh, Giles.

He slumps to the floor, thinking it over. Without the amulet, he's toast. Using the Slayer strength is wiping him out. Unless he gets vamp Larry on the first go-round, he'll fade like old curtains. If he really means to kill the fucker dead--which he so does--he has to stay calm and line up his ducks.

So--Anya.

He lights the birthday candles with blood-smeared hands, rubs the dust on his forehead and ankles. Reads the chant silently, twice, until he's sure of the pronunciations, then gives it a try out loud. His voice echoes in the tunnels and he hopes the Initiative has been keeping the sewers depopulated.

The air chills. A faint sound, like a gong. Then she's coming out of the corner at him, his Anya, with a veiny furious demon head and a voice like a strung-out cat. "Xaaaaandeeerrrrr...."

He doesn't fight when she lifts him by the throat. If she wants to kill him she can do it by saying no. He's gambling--heartless fucker that he is--that she's still in love with him.

And she squeezes hard enough that the non-Slayer Xander would have lost consciousness before she lets go and turns girl-like.

"What do you want?"

He flicks one eye at the amulet and looks at the floor as she barks disbelieving laughter.

"I just need it for an hour."

"Xander, is this the part where I explain we're through now, making you less than the dirt under my shoe?"

"Giles is dead." He holds up his bloodied hands. "Faith is dead."

"Mortals," she says. "It happens."

He opens his mouth to tell her how sorry he is, but then he remembers he's already done it, and how little it takes the hurt away. He takes off his lucky dogtags and presses them into her hand. "I hope your life is good as well as long."

Turning, he continues in the direction of the police station. Duckless, he finds he still can't do anything else.

Cat-voice follows him down the tunnel. "This won't make me change my mind, you know. Xander?"

He keeps walking.

"Xander?"

***

He's about to climb into the station when his ass buzzes. It takes him a minute to figure out why. Then, numbly, he takes the cell phone out of his pocket. Fighting evil on a shoestring...

... was that just this afternoon?

"Yeah?"

"Xander?" It's Larry. Just the sound of his voice brings the tears back and Xander has to bite his lip hard to pull himself together. "Hey, everyone, I got him! Xander, are you guys okay? We thought..."

"Where are you?" he asks.

"Magic shop. Answer me. Are you guys okay?"

"Giles is dead," he says. "Don't tell Buffy. She'll go straight to the police station."

"She already went. I think maybe... she knew."

Figures.

"We got the stuff again for the hostages spell. Willow thinks she remembers the incantation. It's worth a try."

"Yeah," he says. "Get them out if you can."

Willow's voice says something in the background and then Larry speaks again. "Where are you, Xander? We've been calling for an hour."

"I'm under the police station," he says.

"He's under the police station."

"What? This time he can hear her voice, sharp and bright with fear. "Tell him to get out of there! Tell him..." Her voice rises to a shout. "Xander, you don't have to do this."

Xander looks up at the trapdoor to the police basement, and it's Larry who answers. "Yes," he says to Willow. "He does."

"I love you," Xander tells the cell phone.

"Don't die," Larry says. "Promise. No, don't promise on second thought. But Harris..."

"I'll end it," he says. "He dies tonight. My word on it."

Long pause then, over crackling static-filled air.

"Live," Larry says finally. With that, he cuts the connection.

***

Finding vamp Larry is comically easy--Buffy is kicking the shit out of his minions as they return from the fire--and the sewers are his designated escape route. Xander has barely climbed into the basement before Larry climbs down. His blue eyes light up when he sees Xander, and fangs sprout from his gums.

And this is okay, he thinks. He doesn't necessarily have to win. If he stays in the fight until Buffy cuts through the rabble, she can finish Larry off.

Larry circles him carefully, taking his measure. "She'll be up there longer than you think. I got her Mom in one of the cages. Plus there's a little matter of a bomb to defuse."

"You are a total fucking pyroboy, you know that?" Stalling for time. "What happened to--you don't try to kill the Slayer? What happened to 'you're entrenched and we'll have to dig you out?'"

"You happened, Harris. You got loose, I knew you'd come back with reinforcements. I had to take your initiative away or you'd win."

"This is our town. We always win." He doesn't feel like a winner as he says it--he shot Faith, he lost Giles. How's Buffy ever going to forgive him?

"Getting you back makes it a win for me." The vamp's voice is gentle. "I'm glad you got here in time."

"Big plans, huh? Aren't you even going to buy me a ring first?" He keeps his face to the former bully's. The longer this goes without combat, the longer he's on his feet.

But time runs out, just as it did at the boarding house. Larry rushes him and he twists, blocking and throwing. He doesn't move from the trapdoor, because he's not going to let the fucker escape.

*Isn't there some kind of martial art thing where you do this?--you step outside your box, you lose?* It's a random whirling thought amid fast whirling punches. He blocks, throws, conserves his energy.

*Giles would know.*

Thinking of Giles breaks his discipline--he throws a bit of real strength into a punch and the vamp-Larry's mutated eyebrows rise in surprise. Now he takes it seriously. Another quick game of circle, cat and mouse, and they're at it again. Punch, kick, block. He forces Xander to move faster and faster, forces him to lash out harder and harder. He spends more and more energy holding his ground over the trapdoor.

Still no Buffy.

Then they're grappling, strength versus strength. He feels the first slide of the weakness coming, like a knot untying, and he makes one desperate grab for Larry's head. Maybe he can twist his nogg right off.

A hard blow to the ribs drives his air away, and then he's a rag-doll, flying away to the corner of the room. He can't close his mouth, which is dribbling blood, can't even move his tongue. His heart stutters; his diaphragm declines to contract. Spots swim in front of his vision.

*Pushed too hard.* His heart agrees. Thud. Long pause. Thud.

Spots are bigger now. Blacker. Is this what Giles saw?

Faint hope. If I die, I can tell him how sorry I am...

Larry doesn't get it. Through the spots, he's grinning all over, a lovely Larry grin. The smile of the man Xander loves. He lifts Xander into a fireman's carry. "You'll love it, Xander. You do for me what you do for them and we'll own the fucking world. I'm the quarterback, man. I always have a plan."

Paralyzed, Xander stares down at Larry's ass, his arms flopping. Thutterud. Heartbeat weaker now. Stop already, before he tries to turn me. The spots grow together and he's blind. His ears start to ring.

Then, in an instant, the strength is back. Small familiar hands press against his--something cool and square in the left, something wooden and oh-so-yes! in the right. Forcing himself to stay otherwise limp. He clenches both hands tightly around the amulet and stake. "Larry?" he whispers it weakly.

"Uh huh?"

"Remember the time you kicked a field goal in the last second of the game against Fisners?"

"Yeah?

"You really pulled it out of the fire." The shoulder tenses then as comprehension comes, too late. Xander drives the stake right through the vampire's back. There's a faint shiver that reminds him of the boarding house collapsing. Then Larry's dust. Xander falls flat on his face in the basement.

It's over.

Climbing to his feet, he stares up at Anya, who looks frail and human and vulnerable. She holds out her hand wordlessly and he drops the amulet in it.

"Thanks." Almost as inadequate as I'm sorry, but what else do you say?

She shrugs. "It's... about Giles--I feel... sad."

"Yeah."

Then she smashes the green stone against the concrete floor. Icy fingers tickle through him, and the Slayer strength flows away. His heart slows, and then starts to beat normally. His ribs and one of his knuckles starts to hurt.

"Why did you do that?"

"It can't be a good life if it's a long life."

"I have to get to Buffy," he says.

"I know."

"Will you be around when..."

She shakes her head. "I might go to L.A. I hear Angel takes in strays."

"Ah."

"You're supposed to look burning and resentful at that."

"I swear I hate the idea," he says. "Angel. Wretched vampire pigfucker. Don't go to him."

A grin breaks. He sees a smear of soot on her nose. "Go, Xander. You're needed."

"Goodbye," he says. "Good luck."

She disappears down the tunnel, and his furlough is over. Climbing the ladder, he goes in search of Buffy and the bomb.

Endgame's over, he thinks. Mop-up ahead. Dead to honor, oh Giles... but I didn't die. The baddie's vanquished, and he gets to go home. He gets to go home to Willow and an altered but still Buffy. Back to his assigned place in the cosmos.

Back to Larry.

He was right. They always win.

Xander knows there are worse things.

--end--