Soulmates

By Danii

Summary: After inheriting an old castle from his Great-Uncle, Xander discovers the very special secret that has been kept there for nearly five centuries…

Distribution: Anyone who wants it, tell me where you put it and put my name on it. That’s all I ask.

Disclaimer: I own no one. Don’t sue. I have no money, and I get none for doing this; all I get for this are headaches and odd stares.

Rating: PG-PG13

Ship: Xander/Other, Xander/Buffy (not sure what I’m doing yet, but it will nonetheless have B/X thoughts in it at least)

Note: I have never been to the UK, so if I get something wrong, don’t kill me. Feel free to correct, but don’t slice me to pieces with a chainsaw, okay? Thanks…

NOTE: Sorry, but this snuck up on me and my muse jumped it. I'll finish some of the other stuff soon, I promise. Things have been nuts, though... NOT BETA READ

Xander dropped his keys.

It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for the young man, but for once it wasn’t caused by a multitude of packages in his hand, a demon attack, or Anya. It was caused by the words that had just left his father’s lips.

"Get packed."

After the initial shock, Xander became first scared then angry. How dare his father throw him out of the basement? How dare he? He’d given the old bastard the rent for the next three months! There was no reason for-

Mr. Harris must have read his son’s thoughts from Xander’s expression, because almost immediately, he continued.

"No, I’m not kicking you out, you little asshole…though I shoulda done that years ago…"

Xander waited to find out what his old man was talking about.

"You’re heading to Scotland, kid…" Mr. Harris said in a rather disgruntled-sounding voice, "Tonight."

"Tonight?" Xander asked in complete shock. Tonight? What the hell was so important in Scotland that he had to go tonight? For that matter, what the hell was so important that his parents would actually pay to send him there at all? Dear god, not-

"Yes, you little dick, tonight…" Xander’s father continued in a grumble. He was, at the time, slightly drunk, and the younger man could smell it on his breath as he spoke. It was far too familiar for Xander to mistake it.

"Why?" Xander asked, making his way into the basement he called home. Okay, he didn’t call it ‘home’, but he did sleep there and eat there, so one could call it home…the same way one could call a dank jail cell ‘home’.

"Because…" Mr. Harris said slowly, as if speaking to a mentally impaired child, "Your Great-Uncle Ambrose is dying, and he wants to see you…"

"And?" Xander asked. He knew there had to be a catch. There was always a catch. His parents were money-grubbing, abusive assholes. They wouldn’t grant the old man’s wish simply to make him happy.

"And…" the elder Harris said angrily, "He said that if he DIDN’T get to see you before he died, he wouldn’t leave us a thing in his will…though God only knows why he’d want to see a moronic ingrate like YOU as the last thing on this earth…"

"So that’s why…money. You want Pap’s money!" Xander said, half to himself. It sure explained why they were dishing out the money for the plane ticket instead of spending the cash on good, old fashioned booze like they usually did.

But it was understandable. Pappy, known to most of the family as Great-Uncle Ambrose, was extremely rich, and the only Harris who was so. So his parents, and every other one of his relatives Xander knew like them, were careful to do what the old man wanted whenever he should give a request. And, luckily for Xander, one of those ‘requests’ had always been that Xander visit every other summer for two weeks.

Yet now the old man was dying. Not of any particular disease, but just of old age, things breaking down and no longer functioning. Xander had known he was in the hospital, but he’d been able to brush it off in his mind by saying that the old man would get better. But now, obviously not. And even though he was glad he was going to get to see Pappy once more, Xander’s heart sagged with sadness that the only family member who had ever shown him kindness was going to die.

"Yes…" was Xander’s father’s answer at last. He looked almost ready to hit Xander for saying it out loud, but another of the old man’s requests had been that no one ever ‘hit’ Xander, and while his parents would ignore it a great deal of the time, they would never chance it before a trip to Scotland.

"Fine…" Xander said, his voice dead and flat, "I’ll get packed right now. When’s the flight?"

"Five."

Xander gave his father a look.

"Cutting it close, but I’ll be there." Xander continued in the emotionless voice. He was hurting inside, both from talking to his hateful father and from finding out about his Pappy. But he wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of seeing him in pain. He got that too often.

"Good. Plane tickets are on the table. One way, for some reason. He ‘requested’ ‘em that way…" Xander’s father said quickly, beginning his way up the stairs.

"Good." Xander said as Mr. Harris climbed the stairs.

And then Xander’s father disappeared behind the basement doors, and Xander let out a small sob of sadness. Tears ran down his face quietly as the stomping of his father’s steps disappeared into the kitchen area of the upstairs. But Xander couldn’t give a rats ass about his father.

Dear god, Pappy was dying…

Xander walked through the hospital like a zombie, his bag in his hands and his only heavy coat on his back. He hadn’t had time to pack more than one (nor had he had time to tell any of his friends in person; he’d left them a note)

He’d come directly from the airport to there, not wanting to chance that the old man would die before he could see him. But now, filled with pain and experiencing jet lag, he wasn’t very much to see. Yet he made his way quietly to the room at the end of the hall that the rather sympathetic nurse had pointed out.

Though it was only a few meters, it seemed like an eternity of walking to get there. Each steps seemed to echo in the hospital hallways, which Xander thought were too sterile-feeling, and his uneasy breaths seemed to fill his ears. Yet he made it. He made it to the room, put his bags down in the corner, and took a look at the man he hadn’t seen in nearly three years.

"Hi, Pappy…" Xander said quietly as he took off his jacket and draped it on one of the chairs in the room. The young man didn’t want to look at his relative like that yet. He still had to steel himself to it.

"’ello, Xander…" replied a raspy, but cheerful, old voice with a slight Scottish accent. A raspy voice that held more love and caring for the young man in front of him then his parents had ever had.

"Hi…Pappy…" Xander repeated, adjusting his jacket on the chair just right to stall for time. Dear God, he was dying…he was dying! "I dunna have the breath ta waste on this, young man…" said Ambrose as he lay in his bed, "And I dunna have the time ta watch ya adjust that blasted jacket anna more…"

As he heard the words, Xander stiffened, caught in the act, which was not surprising since his Pappy knew him better than almost anyone. So Xander let go of the coat, turned around, sat and looked up to see his great uncle.

It was the same man he knew. The same brown eyes and the same dark hair. The same twinkle in those eyes, even if it was slightly dimmed with painkillers. The same smile, the same long fingered hands that would hug him close…that had once turned the pages as he read Xander a story next to the fireplace…

But then there were the tubes, and the machines, and the sensors, and the bottles. The controls, the room…Things which we NOT his Pappy. Things which wrenched his heart and made his soul cry out.

He felt a tear run down his face.

"Oh…" his Pappy said quietly, "Dunna do that…ya knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. But dunna let my last time with ya be all tears, Xander…"

He nodded as he wiped away the tears.

"Ya still callin’ yourself Xander, then? Didna change it or annathing, did you? I know how ya are about ya name…"

"No, Pappy…I didn’t change it." Xander answered quietly as a small smiled began to form on his lips, "It’s still Xander. I didn’t make it an unpronounceable symbol or anything…I’m not ‘The Guy Formerly Known as Xander’."

This made the old man smiled, and Xander’s smile widened in turn.

"Good…good. It’s good to see ya, lad. Very good. I’ve missed ya these last few years…"

Xander’s heart immediately filled with guilt at not going on his bi-annual trip last summer, and it must have shown on his face because Ambrose spoke up.

"Oh, dunna go getting’ upset about not coming last time…" he said with a small chuckle, "I’m not gonna deny ya a life…"

Then his voice got a little angry.

"Ya parents seemed to have that one covered…"

But then, the old man’s demeanor changed completely, and the anger in his voice was erased. They began on easy topics, and started talking. Work, school ("ya didna get into college? Why? What in hell were you doin’?"), girls ("What about that pretty blonde ya told me about?"), and other things. Then after a while, Ambrose’s voice got serious and he asked:

"Xander?"

"Yes, Pappy…"

The old man rolled his eyes, but continued. "Xander, I want ya to know some things before I go, which ah very important."

The younger man cringed slightly at the talk of ‘going’, but nonetheless listened.

"Firstly, my boy, I want you to know that I love you dearly."

"But-"

"Lemme finish…" he said, then continued, "Ya are, despite ya father’s best attempts, a fine young man. A lovin’ young man. A kind-hearted young man. One I am proud to say is related to me."

Xander sat there stunned.

"Secondly, I want ya to know that I’m gonna take care of ya now, when I couldn’t before. I’m gonna give you the two things you need."

It took Xander a minute, but he finally asked, "Which are?"

This made the old man roll his eyes good-naturedly and smile. Young people were so hurried nowadays…

"Ya’ll see…" Ambrose told him with a small grin of delight edged with a deep sadness, "But for now, I want ya to head to my house now, get settled in, and dunna worry about me."

"But-"

"Xander, ya’ve got jetlag, and yer upset…" the old man reasoned, "Do as I say please…"

So, without another word, Xander picked up his jacket, then his bags, and walked out the door. He was upset. So upset that he didn’t hear the faintly whispered word of:

"Goodbye…"

But then, as he made his walk to the elevators, Xander heard an alarm go off in the nurse’s station. Three of them, including the kind one who had pointed him to the room, ran quickly down the hall, and as Xander feared, into his grand uncle’s room.

Xander was unable to move, but he did listen. He listened to the frantic voices of the nurses. He listened to the thumps of who-knew-what. Then he listened to the silence, followed by a faint voice from the room that broke his heart in two.

"Ambrose Michael Harris died at…"

He didn’t hear the rest. He was too busy running out of the hospital.

Xander squirmed.

It was perfectly understandable. There he was in a foreign country, wearing his nicest (and most uncomfortable outfit) sitting in a lawyer’s office which was at least twenty degrees too hot for anyone who didn’t live on the sun, and he was waiting for his grand-uncle’s will to be read. His great-uncle who had been the only member of his family to show him any kindness at all. His great-uncle who had been alive just five days before. His great-uncle Ambrose who had been buried yesterday in a ceremony attended by all of three people.

As he sat, Xander thought on the ceremony. It had been very nice, pre-arranged by his Pappy during the hours at the hospital, but rather sparse. Xander guessed that the old man knew that there would be few there, and so hadn’t planned for many because most of his friends had died years before.

So it had been him, the priest, and a woman. A woman in a strange black dress with brown hair that seemed just slightly kissed with a bit of gold. A woman he didn’t know and hadn’t gotten the name of.

Heck, he hadn’t even gotten a look at her face. She had had it covered with a veil, not to mention the brim of her considerable (yet nice-looking) hat. And even when she seemed to look up, Xander didn’t seem to see her, as if she wasn’t really there at all. But the priest had seen her because as he spoke about the deceased, he had gestured to her, calling her ‘a friend’.

"I wonder who SHE was…" Xander muttered to himself, feeling a twinge of guilt at his curiosity about her right after his Pappy’s death.

You’re not supposed to pick up women at funerals…he thought to himself, but Xander was Xander, and could not help the mental ending of: but she was pretty hot. Yet just as Xander was about to think more on all that had happened in the last few days, he heard footsteps and looked up to the doorway of the office in which he sat. As expected, in came his great-uncle’s lawyer, a Mr. Gerard Townsend, followed by two others.

Mr. Townsend was a large hulk of a man, and seeing him in a suit was an example of fine tailoring at work. Yet, as Xander watched, he saw that despite his size, he was extremely quick. From what Pappy had told him, Xander knew that Gerard had once had dreams of being a soccer (no, here they call it ‘football’…) player which had been crushed by a bad back injury during a game. However, it seemed, he had a quick mind to match his quick body, and so turned out to be an excellent lawyer…one that Ambrose Harris had trusted with a great deal.

"Hello, Xander…" Gerard said, his handsome face twisted into a look of genuine sympathy. "Are you doing okay today? I know you must be hurting. And I’m sorry for missing the service the other day…I was unable to come…"

Xander sighed tiredly, but looked up into the friendly man’s face. "It’s okay…" he answered with yet another sigh, "It’s just his body. The important part was done already, ya’know?"

"Yeah…" Gerard answered with compassion in his voice. Again it was genuine, as Gerard had also been a friend of Ambrose’s as well as his lawyer. Moreover, he knew Xander decently too, and felt for the kid. "I know…"

Then there was a moment of silence, partially to honor the one who was now dead, and partially to help bring peace to the two who were living. But Xander broke this silence with a question a moment later. A question that immediately set his conscience stinging.

"Do you know a brownish blonde-haired girl who was a friend of Pappy’s?" he asked, "I mean, I saw her at the…funeral yesterday, and I never got to find out who she was."

This made Gerard smile a little bit. It was not a smile that reached his eyes, but the sadness lifted a bit from him.

"Oh HER…" he said with a strange expression, "I know her…kind of."

"Kind of?"

"Well, I’ve seen her…" Gerard admitted with a shrug, "She always used to hang around him…talk to him, laugh with him…she was always THERE…"

"But…"

"But…" the lawyer said with a strange expression on his face, "I never seemed to see her face. Or hear her voice. It was like she was there, but not to me…but I saw her…" "You saw her."

"I saw her."

Xander raised an eyebrow, then seemed to shake the entire issue aside. His gaze moved from the lawyer to the two people who had walked in with him. They were sitting and waiting, and they looked slightly annoyed.

"We’d better move on, shouldn’t we?"

"Yeah…" Gerard answered with a sheepish grin as he stepped away from Xander’s chair and moved to his desk.

"The reading of the will…" said one who looked vaguely like his grandfather.

"Finally…" said the other, whose slightly annoyed look reminded him of his Uncle Rory.

This made Gerard give a snort of disgust (though he hid it as being a slight cough), but nonetheless, the lawyer opened up the envelope that had been sitting on his desk.

Immediately, Xander’s ears were filled with legal jargon, much of which was completely unknown to him. It was like he was reading one of Giles’ books. One of the really confusing ones that didn’t even have pictures. But he did make out a few things…

"Five hundred thousand pounds to Julian Harris…"

"What?"

"Seven-"

"See?"

"Hundred thousand to-"

"What?"

Then Xander shook his head and started understanding. It was rather easy to understand the extremely upset looks on his relatives (he assumed they were his relatives), but he again got lost in the legal talk until he heard his parents come up.

"To Jonathon and Susan Harris, my nephew and niece in law respectively, I hereby leave 1 million pounds in various-"

Which immediately got the other two into a rampage which was in two stages. The first was anger (what the hell?) while the second was confusion (where did it all go?). They got the answer to the second question at least.

"And to my great-nephew, Alexander Lavelle Harris, I hereby leave the remainder of estate, what I estimate to be 12 million pounds, and the deed to Tueur Castle."

And it was at this point that Xander promptly fell off of his seat in a dead faint.

Xander looked up at the large castle with total awe.

And despite the pain he was feeling from his Pappy’s death, only one theme would allow itself into his brain.

It’s mine…

It’s all mine…

Not my parents…

Mine and mine alone…

Followed by a short addition of:

And it’s a castle…

This last thought made Xander let out a sigh of pure amazement for at least the second time that day. The first time had been when he had driven up to the large, slightly moldy, probably drafty, but still HIS castle. Driven by a driver. In a really nice car. Paid for by what was now HIS money.

It was completely mind-blowing for him.

He had money. Ten million pounds to be exact. Twelve million if he included all the stocks, bonds, etc that he didn’t exactly understand and would probably have to hire an accountant to figure out.

What a thought that was. Hiring an accountant. Hiring anyone. Up till then, the only hiring he’d been involved in had involved him being the hiree, and usually a great deal of french fries.

But the money (which had completely driven his folks bonkers when he found out) was nothing compared to this gigantic, ancient building before him.

He owned a CASTLE!

Xander couldn’t wait to tell Giles about it. The old Brit would probably drop his glasses when he heard. At least, that was what he had done when he had told them about the money over the phone.

Giles had dropped his glasses, Buffy had missed the training dummy, Willow had rocked back in her seat, and Anya had started listed what she wanted to buy, which had been a little upsetting to him in a way he couldn’t quite describe. It had gotten worse when he’d heard her reaction over how he GOT the money.

"Why couldn’t he have died sooner?"

But Xander didn’t even want to think about any of that. He had a castle to deal with. And he wasn’t going to let any tactless comment from his girlfriend mess that up.

So, moving slowly, Xander started walking toward the doors of the castle, feeling at the same time the pride of an owner and the embarrassment of an invader. His bags in his hands (he hadn’t let money get him THAT spoiled), he made his way to the gigantic slabs of wood that served as an entryway to the first part of the castle.

He got there quick enough, then pushed open the large wooden doors easily. Xander figured there had to have been a lot of oil on the there for them to move so slowly, and even then, there had to have been some sort of weight system installed for them to move so nicely.

He thought over the mechanics of it as he crossed the courtyard and looked at another large door into the main part of the building.

Yet as he touched the door, he felt strange. He felt…almost like he knew this place. Knew the courtyard. For some reason he couldn’t understand, it reminded him of the first time he had ever meet Buffy; complete shock complimented with a strange familiarity. But this was even more shocking. He knew this. And in a distant part of his mind, he could remember chickens being in that corner while small children played in the far corner. His mind’s eye could see merchants near the gate, and a small party of nobles sitting near this door.

This door that felt so normal. This door that he could somehow remember going through a hundred times, a thousand times. And each time other than one time, he remembered, he had crossed it will love and joy in his heart. Love for his dearest, E-

"What?" Xander said out loud, completely confused. What had come over him? What had made him think those things, imagine those sights? And why had he felt so at home her?

But Xander had dealt with worse things then eerie feelings of déjà vu, and he quickly brushed it off, and opened the door.

Inside, the castle was as splendid as it had seen, though drafty as he had predicted. The walls were hung with pennants and various hangings, all of which were probably older that he could possibly imagine. Each one was hand crafted and gorgeous all by itself, but as a whole, the amazing colors that didn’t seem faded at all on all of the tapestries seemed to blend into one long picture.

He looked at the first. It was of two young lovers, standing in a glade. The man, a tall, dark-haired youth, was wearing a dashing costume as he romanced his lady, and she, a brunette maiden in a glowing blue dress, seemed very happy to be romanced. Xander felt a glow of happiness around this picture.

The second was more turbulent. It pictured a battle, and what was strange was that the woman and the man were fighting. Their faces twisted in righteous anger, the two cut through not enemy foes, but demons and vampires all around. And as he saw it, something twisted in Xander’s mind.

The third was another battle, but this one was sad. The lady was being carried away by an older man and a young woman, while the young lord lay dying on the ground. However, next to the man, dying like he, was a gigantic beast, one that clicked something in Xander’s memory.

But it was like his feelings at the door. Almost unreal. Yet this time, they were so strong that he began to try and figure out what exactly was going on. But he was interrupted by a familiar voice (with an unfamiliar accent) and the sound of steps on the stairs.

"Hello! Are you him? I saw you the other day, but I didn’t see your face as you didn’t see mine, so I wasn’t sure…but you’re young Xander, right?"

Immediately Xander looked up to see flowing brown hair, just kissed with sun-yellow. The young woman from the service. It was her. It was her running down the steps to greet him.

Again, he didn’t see her face as she came down, but what he saw of her body told him that she was well in shape and that she probably wouldn’t be panting after the short run. However, nothing prepared him for what he saw when she finally slowed down.

Her face. Her face. Her face. Dear God, it couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be true. He’d just talked to her over the phone hours ago, where she had been happily working in Giles’ house.

Buffy. It was Buffy.

Xander’s eyes opened wide in shock, and then the young woman saw his face and got an equally amazed expression on her face. Her familiar eyes and mouth opened wide, then she screamed.

"ALEXANDER!"

Xander followed her lead with a shout of "BUFFY!"

Then Xander fainted for the second time on his trip, and the young woman flew back up the stairs in a frenzy…

When Xander woke up a few minutes later, he had no idea why he had dropped.

Well, he did have an idea, but after, with no visible proof, the whole idea that had caused him to faint seemed silly.

Of course it hadn’t been Buffy. It couldn’t have been Buffy.

First off, Buffy was in the United States at the time, probably beating the living daylights out of her Watcher while training. Secondly, the voice had soundly slightly different from his Buffy. Thirdly, his Buffy had blonde hair, not brownish-blonde. And…and she had called him Alexander, which Buffy NEVER did. At least not when he wasn’t in some SERIOUS trouble.

But he knew that he must have dropped his bags (and himself) to the floor for some reason, and so, with all the self-preservative instincts of a lemming, he went to go investigate.

"Hello?" he shouted loudly, his voice echoing throughout the large castle in a way he would have called ‘cool’ had he not already been freaked, "Anyone still here?"

As a return, he heard the sound of quiet sobbing from upstairs. Quiet, female sobbing.

So, acting on both his protect-the-damsel urgings and his curiosity, Xander left his things behind and began walking up the dank stone stairs.

As he walked, the sobbing got louder and louder, but what really caught his eye was the tapestries once more. They were too bright in contrast with the gray of the walls not to pull his eye, but as he looked at them again, Xander realized something.

The lord and the lady…they looked a familiar.

He hadn’t been able to really see the faces from his angle at the floor, but now that he was more level with the work, he could see the features of the figures in the scenes, and they were truly startling in their resemblance.

The lady…it was Buffy…

Buffy, with dark hair and an olden-times dress, but it was the girl he loved who stared back at him from the tapestries.

And the lord? Well, at first, Xander had thought that he would look perhaps like Angel, or maybe Riley, but no. The figure was tall, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. His hair was clearly black instead of brown, and his eyes, though brown, seemed to glimmer with mischief and love. He could see it well. Especially since Xander knew the face.

It was the face Xander saw in the mirror every morning.

A little older, more scared, more aristocratic…but though Xander couldn’t even begin to explain it, he had to admit that it looked like him.

But Xander had no time to contemplate the fact that he and Buffy were in tapestries older than the Slayer’s old boyfriend because it was at that point that he heard the sobbing reach a high pitch that simply wrenched his heart.

Without his wanting to, Xander began to run toward the room where he had heard the crying in and, sans concern, he burst into the room to find the girl weeping her eyes out.

As he came in, the girl looked up to his face and he once again discovered that the young woman looked exactly like his Buffy. And apparently, his own appearance upset her because her eyes again widened, starting a whole new torrent of tears.

"What’s…wrong?" Xander asked carefully, watching that he didn’t touch her. He didn’t want to offend her or anything.

The young girl didn’t answer. All she did was cry, yet in the middle of her sobs, he could hear her repeating a single phrase, like a mantra.

"He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead…"

This made Xander immediately conclude that she was mourning his uncle (though he couldn’t even begin to guess how seeing his face had triggered THAT), so he, knowing that pain well since he was still experiencing it in the back of his mind, tried to comfort her.

"Don’t worry about Pappy…" Xander said soothingly, sitting down on the small bed where he had found her, "He was an old man. And he had a really good life. I mean, I’m gonna miss him a lot, more than-"

"NO!" she cried, starting the weeping over again with renewed volume, "He’s dead! You’re not him! Why must you look like him when he is gone from me?"

"Who-"

"And I can’t even," the girl continued, anger beginning to surface right next to the grief, "be with him! I can’t even join him because of Hazel’s good intentions! Oh damn all love to the depths of HELL!"

"Now, calm down now…" Xander said, trying to calm her down. He SO did not need a beautiful woman who looked a lot like Buffy to start flipping out in the middle of his castle. "And what seems to be the pro-"

It was this time that the girl seemed to figure out that he was there again, and she turned to him with a mixed look of happiness and sadness.

"Oh, dear…you look so much like him…" she said, now quiet and almost dreamily, "So much like my Alexander…"

Now Xander got a little freaked. Crazy lady saying that he looked like someone she knew, talking like that. A crazy lady who somehow knew his name. And he didn’t even know her’s…

But, as he looked at her, his own mind started pulling things out.

"Andra." He said for reasons he himself couldn’t explain. Which was bad, since he expected he would have to the young woman sitting next to him on the bed. But instead of asking him what he was talking about, the young lady gave a gasp and jumped away from him.

"Dear God!" she cried as she scrambled back away from him. Then the young woman seemed to calm, and she gave him a scanning look.

"Is it really you, Alexander? My Alexander, is this truly the man I love so long ago?"

Looking at her (Andra, his mind said insistently), her eyes so full of trust and love, he hated saying what he had to. But he wasn’t about to build up her hopes and then crush them.

"Look, I have no idea." He admitted, "My name is Alexander. Always has been, though most people call me Xander. And as for knowing you? I don’t know what to say about that ‘cause you look a hell of a lot like a friend of mine…"

"A…friend?" Andra asked, curious and just the slightest bit suspicious.

"Yeah…Buffy." Xander answered.

Then there was silence as the two thought over everything.

"But how did you know my name?" the young woman asked, the smallest glimmer of hope still in her eyes.

Xander shrugged. "I don’t really know." He said, "It just sort of came to me. Seems to be happening to me a lot here…"

This made Andra’s eyes open again in surprise. "Really?" she asked, her voice as desperate as if her life depended on his answer, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean I keep on remembering things!" Xander answered, getting up from the bed with a frustrated sigh. How the hell did he get into this crap? "I mean, I go to the door, and as I’m looking around the courtyard, I suddenly remember a day at market there, with children and chicken and all that. I mean, the only chicken I’ve ever seen was at the zoo! Or that one time when Will’s mom wanted to do things the ‘organic’ way…

"Then I walk in, and the tapestries set my head spinning…then you come, and I swear that you look exactly like Buffy…and I know your name is Andra!"

She just took it all in, a strange expression on her face.

"And I don’t know WHY!"

And as he finished, Xander looked down to see Andra, her face shining so beautifully, Xander was sure he was going to cry. She looked so happy…so much like Buffy.

Xander felt his heart beginning to swell with caring about this girl that he knew so little about. This girl, Andra, who looked so very much like his Buffy, the one he had loved since first sight and, despite what she might have thought, he still did love.

And as he looked at Andra, he felt that same deep caring that he’d gotten right after falling off his skateboard. The same feeling that had made him ask…

May I have you?

But before he could figure out these feelings, she jumped up to hug him…

And passed right through his body…

Xander jumped back, immediately, and kept in a scream, barely.

"What the-"

"Oh…" Andra said, a sheepish grin on her face, "Sorry about that…"

"Sorry about-"

"About scaring you like that…" she continued as she wiped the tears off of her face, "Sometimes I forget I don’t have a body."

Xander held back a rather biting barb about THAT, but he couldn’t hold in the other comment.

"Well, I would think that being a ghost would sort of entail a lack of body, and it’s rather hard to forget you’re dead…" But he softened it a bit with, "but I forget some crazy things too at times."

This, for some reason, set Andra into a giggle fit which quickly puttered out. Yet, there was a smile on her face as she asked, "Who said I was dead?"

Xander’s eyebrows rose at that statement. "Not dead?"

"Not dead." Andra repeated with an impish smile that was quickly making Xander fall in love with her for reasons he couldn’t explain.

"So…then…what gives?" he asked, pacing around the small room nervously. Here he was, in Scotland, in HIS castle, sitting with a girl who looked exactly like Buffy that had no body but wasn’t dead. Again, his mind screamed in frustration, how the hell did he get into these things?

The impish smile then changed, turning into an expression that told him she was thinking. But that only took a few moments, and then she began.

"You see, I’m not dead-"

"Got that…"

"Oh, shush, silly…" she told him playfully. And Andra did feel playful, for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself but knew deep in her heart. Because she knew that she had been right the very first time she had seen him…

"I’m not dead", Andra repeated, "But my body is in a sort of deep trance which it is has been in for the last 500 years."

"Five hundred years!" Xander shouted in surprise. Well, there went the possible ‘lost twin’ theory he had been formulating about her resemblance to Buffy…

"Yes, five hundred years…" she said once more. "You see, um…I had a very strange job when I had a body, and-"

"You were a Slayer…" Xander told her as something clicked in his head. That tapestry…it was HER, not Buffy that had been pictured in the gigantic works. But that still left the question of who the dark-haired youth had been.

Her gasp confirmed what he had said. "How did you-"

"Tapestry outside…" Xander explained, pointing towards the main hall, "It has you and some other guy fighting vampires and demons off."

"My courageous Alexander…" she said dreamily before coming back to her mind and asking, "But how do you know about Slayers?"

The young man gave her a smile and sat on one of the small chairs in the room with a plop. "Good friend to one of them…used to be two, but she went crazy and tried to kill me…"

Andra looked about to gasp again, but then chose just to sigh. "First off, I don’t know how there could be two, but I’ll just go with it. At least you knowing about them will make all my explanations a great deal easier…"

"Yup." Xander said easily.

This earned Xander a rolling of her eyes and another grin, which made his heart warm. How was she having this effect on him? Why did he know about her? What the hell was going on? What the-

Oh, she started explaining…

"-and while I was never the most conventional Slayer, I did my job well. True, my beloved and my dear sister did know what I was, and often helped me in my battles-"

"Hazel." Xander said. He didn’t know where the knowledge had come from, but he guessed it was right from the odd look she gave him.

"Yes, my sister Hazel." Andra repeated, "She was a practitioner of the Old Ways, and one of my dearest friends. And my Alexander, my brave warrior, was my White Knight….and why do you look like you are about to choke?"

Though it wasn’t the finest switch of topic in the world, it was for a good reason because as Xander heard the words ‘white knight’, he had tried to say two things at once, which you can’t do with one mouth. Therefore, he was now making choking sounds.

As soon as he stopped, she continued without asking what had happened, "Anyway, I worked very well until my 19th year of life, when I was attacked by a Jru’Atakri."

"A jew-what?" Xander asked, wondering if she knew how much that ‘white knight’ thing had freaked him.

"A Jru’Atakri…" she said once more, her voice soft with pain and something he couldn’t identify, "A fearsome beast the size of a cabin…"

"And I’m guessing you didn’t make it out of that one?" Xander asked gently, trying to rein in any and all sarcastic comments.

"Well, I did. In the middle of the fight, I was stabbed by one of the demon’s tusks, which are poisonous, so Hazel and Miles-"

"Who’s Miles?" Xander said, his mind already answering his question.

"My Watcher. Miles Rupert. He worked as a tutor at the castle for Alexander and myself, and he taught me far more than a girl in that time was supposed to know…"

"Good for him." He responded, unsure of what to say since this was getting REALLY weird.

"Anyway," Andra continued, "Hazel and Miles took me away from the fight, leaving Alexander to finish off the beast, which should have relatively simple…"

"But of course it wasn’t." Xander stated, knowing those kind of situations far too well.

"Indeed." Andra said gravely, "As they carried me away, a band of vampires attacked, and Alexander, though one of the finest warriors in the land, could not beat them all."

"So…"

"So, I was carried into the castle, and Hazel started the spell which would save my life from the poison. It was a sleep spell, which would gradually get rid of the poison in my body."

"But?"

"But as she was working, she heard of the vampires, and not wanting me to be attacked in my sleep, laid another spell upon my unmoving body…

"I would sleep as long as it took to cleanse my body, never ageing and never dying from it. And I would not be awakened, nor found, unless it was my Alexander. Only he could find me, and only he could wake me…"

"But he died in the battle." Xander finished softly, feeling a deep compassion for this girl who had existed for so long with flesh.

"Yes. My Alexander died, and I could not go with him, for I couldn’t die and no one could find me to kill me anyway. Even I cannot find my body. When my spirit finally broke free of the unmoving thing, I appeared in the main hall, near the tapestries."

"And you can’t leave?"

"Oh, I can…" she told him, a slight tremor in her voice, "It takes a great effort, but I can leave the castle temporarily, such as I did to attend Ambrose’s funeral."

"But-"

"But I can’t move on. I can’t touch, I can’t feel, I can’t…but all that is over."

This took Xander by surprise. The change in tone and the words themselves.

"What?" Jeez, monosyllabic today, aren’t we Xander? He thought, you’re turning into Oz…

"Because my Alexander has returned here…returned here to finally find my body and be with me once more!"