Bad Trip, Chapter 16
May. 13th, 2004 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookAnd now, deep thoughts about serious issues. Or rather, the characters talk.
Previous parts here.
ACT SIXTEEN: FOLK WISDOM
Xander slept fitfully through the night, and by the second day he was lucid and talkative. A little before noon, at precisely the moment the ICU staff were willing to allow the full crowd of visitors, Willow and the five Slayers swarmed around Xander's bed in a state of high excitement, eager to bring him up to date on the previous days' adventures. The four young Slayers came bustling in first, all smiles and nervous laughter, laden with apologetic peace offerings--balloons, stuffed animals--that they'd obtained free of charge from the hospital gift shop, courtesy of the grateful staff. Willow and Kennedy quietly brought up the rear of the noisy group, settling into the two chairs provided at Xander's bedside.
"Hello ladies," Xander smiled, running a hand over his stubbly head. Earlier that morning, Willow had given him a mirror so he could get a good look at himself - the puffy face, the shadowed circle under his eye, the hair buzzed down to the scalp, even where the large gauze bandage wasn't decorating his skull. Not that bad, he'd concluded. Kinda Bruce Willis. It'll go well with the eyepatch.
The junior Slayers continued bustling around Xander, adjusting his pillows--now liberated from his neck brace, he'd been allowed to sit up--and fretting over the precise alignment of his blankets. They seemed eager to make contact, to reassure themselves that he was alive and healthy, and Xander let them fuss for a minute before good-naturedly shooing them away.
"Okay, girls, settle down." Xander took a sip from the water cup beside his bed. The IV tubes attached to his hand brushed against the balloon strings tethered to the bedrail, making the silver helium puffs jitter and dance. "So, how go things in the land of the living?" he croaked.
As the words left his mouth, he felt a twinge of deja vu. He frowned for a half-second, trying to retrieve something from the hazy swirl of memories that remained from his long sleep, then put the thought aside as Lo and Bet launched into an epic recreation of the siege of the Schoenfluss Medical Center.
And for a while, Xander was able to just sit back and listen to their story, enjoy the sight of the girls excitedly waving their hands as they talked, trading narrative duties back and forth between them. Neena interrupted every now and then to clarify some tactical issue, and even Graciela chimed in to add her own dramatic glosses to the now-familiar tale, weaving herself into the action by elaborating on the stories she'd heard from her comrades.
Xander smiled throughout. His girls had done him proud, just like he'd known they would. The whole thing sounded so refreshingly heroic and familiar.
Eventually the story reached its end, with Bet's teasing recreation of Graciela running out into the courtyard to berate her comrades for leaving her out of the fight. Graciela winced at the memory, and Xander gave her a sleepy, reassuring smile. "That's the way it goes, kiddo," he told her, weakly punching the air, boxer-style, for emphasis. "Sometimes you've gotta keep the big guns in reserve."
Graciela smiled and blushed, fussed with articles on the bedside tray.
"So this other Slayer, Sanguine..." Kennedy abruptly broke in, drumming her fingers impatiently on the windowsill. "She's in jail now, right?"
Neena nodded. "More or less. The police have set up a holding cell for her, separate from the others."
"Maybe I should go visit her," Willow pondered from her chair opposite Kennedy's. "Maybe I can get rid of The First's influence, reach her somehow..."
Bet shook her head vigorously. "It won't work. All that stuff she did... she was doing it of her own free will. She said so. She chose to help The First, like that fake preacher man."
Do you accept what I offer? Willow winced, drew a deep breath. "Speaking of which. I have some bad news... about Buffy."
"About Buffy?" Xander stared at her, wide awake now. "What is it, Will?"
Willow stared at the floor as she organized her thoughts. Kennedy, leaned forward, reached for her hand, gave it an encouraging squeeze.
"The other night," Willow began, "while Neena and the others were fighting outside... I did a spell to contact Buffy, mind to mind. Like I did a couple of years ago, just before we took on Glory." She paused. "Just before... Just before she died."
The others listened with equal measures of fascination and bewilderment as Willow recounted her experiences for the first time. Though the memories were clear and vivid, almost hyper-real, Willow found herself weaving carefully through them, skipping over parts that seemed too raw, too private, for public discussion. But the last part, her vision of the final battle in the Hellmouth, she retold in full, with the five Slayers chiming in to confirm details and provide their own accounts of the combat.
Xander listened silently through all this, sipping occasionally from his water cup, brow furrowed in concentration. At last, Willow concluded her story, and he leaned back against the pillows and pondered quietly for a minute.
"So," he said at last. "You're saying that Buffy..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
Willow nodded, eyes glistening with tears. "She belongs to The First now, Xander. It pushed her and pushed her, and in the end she gave in."
"And we couldn't do anything to stop it," Xander whispered. The sensation of powerlessness, of frustration, was all too familiar. Xander remembered watching as Buffy leapt from Glory's tower. He remembered her lying, broken and unbreathing and achingly beautiful in her white prom dress, in the pool of water where the Master had left her to drown. But we brought her back, he thought. We brought her back every time. He willed himself to unclench his fists, not to punch and hit, and even through the pleasant haze of the painkillers he felt his injured shoulder groaning in protest.
Graciela looked anxiously over at Willow. "So what can we do now?"
"Uh?" It took Willow a moment to switch gears. "Well... The phone service has been kinda spotty lately, but I was finally able to reach the coven in England..."
"The one in, um, Worcestershire?" Xander asked.
"You're thinking Wiltshire," Willow corrected him. "At Westbury. It took a while just to get ahold of anyone--the full moon is always a busy time for them, especially now that all this weirdness is going on. But I have some good news."
"Really?" Kennedy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Didn't know they were still making that kind."
"I told them about what happened the other day." Willow glanced around the room at the four younger Slayers. "How The First took control of you guys, and how I was able to drive it out. I told them about the spell... They said it's something called the Charm of Set. They don't know how to do it, but I think I can teach them."
The others waited quietly as Willow stood, smoothed out her patchwork skirt, and walked over to the door of Xander's room. She looked out across the hallway to the exterior window. "They're sending a couple of their people here, so that I can train them to perform the charm. And then... then maybe we can start turning this thing around."
As Kennedy rose to join Willow, the four junior Slayers drifted together to form a loose huddle. "All those other places," Lo began. "The symbols we saw, and... Everywhere else this stuff is happening..."
Neena nodded. "The First's agents are behind this. And chances are, those agents will be Slayers."
"But they can't all be like Sanguine," Bet said. "They can't all be doing this because they want to."
"I think you're right," Graciela replied. "Most of them are probably under its control. Like Veronica Lin was." She lowered her voice, shot a guilty glance in Xander's direction. "Like we were."
"And in that case," Neena concluded, "then Willow and her friends can help them. And undo the damage they've done."
"Holy exorcism, Batman!" Lo grinned. "I'm starting to think we can win this thing!"
"That's right, kiddies." Kennedy, leading Willow back into the room, paused to gave Lo an encouraging thump on the back. "We're gonna kick ass. But first we need to do some cleanup."
"Those symbols we saw on the buildings," Willow explained, "when we came into the city. They're part of The First's ritual magic."
"You mean they make people crazy?" Bet asked.
"Exactly," Willow confirmed. "We have to destroy them, as soon as possible. There'll be more like them elsewhere--on walls, on the ground, maybe on the roofs of buildings. And I think it's better if we look for them while it's still daylight."
Kennedy clapped her hands to draw her fellow Slayers' attention. "Okay, we've got a battle plan! And you have your marching orders! Saddle up, soldiers!"
Lo gave Kennedy a sour look. "I vote we split up into teams. And I vote I'm not in hers."
"Sounds like a plan," Kennedy laughed. "C'mon, let's go, let's go!"
"Mm," Willow agreed. "I think Xander could probably use some peace and quiet." She looked over at the bed, where Xander seemed to have fallen back to sleep.
But as they made their way out of the room, accompanied by the sounds of scraping chairs and theatrical shushing noises, Xander began to wake up a little. "Hey, Will," he called out blearily, raising a wavering hand. "Could you wait up a moment?"
Willow halted, and Kennedy gave her a quizzical look. "You go on ahead, sweetie," Willow told her. "I'll be downstairs in a little bit."
As the five Slayers proceeded down the hallway to the elevator, Willow swung the room's door almost closed, and then took a seat next to Xander's bed. She sat for a moment in silence while he drank more water, blinked himself more fully awake.
"So, uh," Willow began haltingly. "You could probably tell I wasn't giving you the whole--"
Xander reached over and gave her hand a reassuring pat. "It's okay, Willow. Now it's my turn to 'fess up."
Willow's surprise was quickly replaced by speculative curiosity. "I thought so. You really were someplace else while you were all comatose, weren't you?"
"Yep. You remember back in Montana... how I went on that whole vision quest thing?" Willow nodded, and Xander continued. "I guess the, what's his face... the gatekeeper. He wasn't done with me yet."
A chill ran down Willow's spine. Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate. And she remembered Buffy's words from their shared dream two nights ago. Those are just words, Willow. Giving things names isn't the same as understanding them.
Xander stared up at the ceiling, struggling to remember. "It's all kinda hazy now, like a dream you can't quite remember. He said... I think he said I wouldn't be able to take it back with me. Not without special dispensation." He remembered a bestial, contorted face, all fangs and glowering eyes, bellowing at him. This is bloody important ! You have to pay attention! You have to remember this! And he thought, I'm trying. Really I am.
Willow leaned over, stroked his arm gently. "Xander? Where were you yesterday?"
Xander clawed at the memory, tried to scramble through it, over it, past it to what lay behind. More images came into view, slipping away even as he clutched for them. "I remember... bones. Huge piles of them, as far as the eye can see. Some kind of cavern, somewhere beneath the earth..." He raised his hands to press them to his temples, then remembered the bandaged spot where the surgeons had cut into his skull, and stopped himself just in time.
"The underworld. That's what it was. I saw... I saw where we go when we die." He turned to look at Willow. "It wasn't heaven and it wasn't hell. It was just... Bones. The Elephant's Graveyard."
Willow blinked. "Sheol," she muttered, shaking her head in amazement. "You're talking about Sheol."
"Come again?"
"In Jewish tradition," Willow mused, "in the Torah... It doesn't really talk about heaven and hell. There's just Sheol, the grave. And whether you're good or bad, you go to the same place... To sleep in the earth." She gave a bark of incredulous laughter. "I can't believe it. Dad was right after all."
Willow leaned back in her chair with a sigh, recalling countless childhood holidays. Bad enough that her family had been one of the few Jewish ones in Sunnydale, but listening to her parents argue about religion had been even worse. She could almost hear her mother's sharp voice, saying I can't believe you're filling our daughter's head with all that superstitious nonsense. We're living in the modern world now, not some patriarchal fantasy. And her father, frowning distractedly as he pushed his spectacles back up onto the bridge of his nose. This is her heritage, Sheila. Traditions are important. Isn't that the sort of diversity you're always talking about?
"I don't think that was all of it, though," Xander continued. "There was more. The soul... The soul goes on..." He strained, trying to remember, trying to understand why he was suddenly thinking of popcorn. The kernels crunching, sparks flying upward from his mouth.
But Willow was preoccupied with her own thoughts. "All these years we've been fighting demons, working magic, raising the dead... We went to the mouth of hell, and it was just some kind of funky alternate dimension." Just like Anya said, she thought. Like the world without shrimp. She shook her head. "It all seemed perfectly sensible. Scientific. Rational. For all the superstitions and folklore and dusty old books, at the end of the day, they were just... monsters." She laughed again, helplessly. "Guess I really am my mother's daughter, huh?"
"Will." Xander's voice was low, serious. "I remember now. I saw it. I saw The First."
Now he had her full attention. "You saw it? Did it talk to you?"
Xander shook his head, wincing at the pain. "It doesn't talk," he said. "The First, the real thing... It doesn't go on about how we're all going to die and tell us how great its evil plans are. It just eats."
"Eats?!"
"You are what you eat. That's what they say, right?" Xander smiled despite himself. "And The First eats us."
...........
"You know," Lo observed, "I could get used to this. It's not such a bad line of work." Bracing her feet against the sheer face of the HSBC building, she craned around to take in the panoramic view of downtown Buffalo afforded by the north side of the forty-story office tower.
"Really?" With a few last strokes of her roller, Graciela finished painting out the runic symbol she'd been painstakingly deleting. Carefully adjusting her harness, she slid a couple of yards down the tower's concrete flank and stopped alongside Lo. "You like painting buildings?"
"Not the painting part in particular," Lo clarified, scrubbing vigorously at the next of the giant symbols. "But the idea that there's more to this Slaying business than just killing monsters... I dunno, it's kind of nice. Like we get to help people, make things better, instead of just busting caps in demon asses." She laughed. "Although that part doesn't suck either."
Graciela planted her sneakers on the building's outer wall to steady herself. "So you want to make a career out of this, huh?"
Lo shrugged. "I dunno. We'll see how things go." She lowered her paint roller, leaving it dangling at the end of its tether, and winched herself down a couple of feet. "How about you?"
"I'm dunno. Maybe I don't have what it takes to be a superhero, you know?" Graciela positioned her roller and resumed swabbing. Though she'd never had a big problem with heights, she was doing her best to concentrate on the wall directly in front of her, rather than glance down at the four hundred vertical feet of office tower below. "Sometimes I think I'd rather just forget all this, try to have a normal life, but..."
"But?"
The two Slayers scrubbed in silence for a minute or so, while Graciela pondered.
Finally, Graciela continued. "Lo? I heard Neena say something about going to talk to Sanguine. You're not going, right?"
"Hell, no," Lo spat. "If I ever see that bitch again, I'll let Doc Savage and Doc Holliday do the talking." She drummed her feet against the face of the building for emphasis.
Graciela giggled. "You named your boots?"
Lo gave her a beatific smile. "I figure, if you're gonna trust something with your life, it deserves a proper name."
"I see." Graciela shook her head in mock amazement, then turned serious again. "Lo... Why are you so angry at her?"
"Those eyeless bastards, the Harbingers... They killed my brothers." Lo drew her roller up for another stroke, slamming it into the face of the building. "Cut them up like animals." She raised the roller again, smacked it hard against the wall. "And that sleazebag Sanguine wanted to do that kind of shit of her own free will?! Pardon my French, but she can suck cocks in hell."
Graciela flinched, fell silent for a minute as the pair finished painting over the symbol. Just as Lo was about to adjust her harness and slide down to the next marking, Graciela reached over and tapped her gently on the arm to draw her attention.
"Lo. When The First got into us, and... and made us do those things to Xander..."
"C'mon, Graciela. I really don't wanna go into this right now."
"I don't want to either," Graciela replied, "but I have to." Turning to look at her comrade, Lo saw the seriousness in her face. She sighed, waited.
Graciela chewed anxiously at her lower lip for a moment, then continued. "I'd like to think that it was just controlling us. Like we were puppets or something. But that isn't true, is it? It made me want to do those things. It made me angry, and mean, and... and cruel..." Her face contorted with shame and disgust. "But those were my own feelings. All of them came from somewhere inside me."
"Okay. Let's not have this conversation." Lo fumbled at her harness, loosened the line, and slid down a few more yards. "Please." She looked away, down the sheer face of the building, out across the downtown cityscape, anywhere but at her friend's wide brown eyes.
Graciela adjusted her own line and came sliding down next to Lo, keeping those round, intense eyes fixed on Lo's face.
"Look, I'm sorry. I don't want to upset you." Hearing the pleading tone in Graciela's voice, Lo forced herself to look back at her, meet her eyes again.
"This gift we have," Graciela mused. "It's a strong power, for good or evil. And I--I wish I could just be an ordinary girl again, I really do. But I can't make that power go away."
Lo couldn't help laughing. "Right. Whatever. I gotta say, Gracie, you sure have a funny way of getting to the point."
Graciela gave her a weak smile. "I know. I'm sorry. I know I'm not... explaining this well. But I just..." She trailed off, then gathered her fragmented thoughts again. "I think we have a choice, you know? We have this power, and we can use it for good or for evil. But I'm thinking that... if we don't make that choice... I think somebody else is gonna make it for us."
A quiet moment passed. Lo and Graciela dangled from their tethers, swaying gently in the breeze like played-out yo-yos, and the only sound they could hear was the sighing of the wind.
At last, Lo turned to her companion with a look of bemused disbelief. "So you think that's what it boils down to, huh? The devil makes work for idle hands?"
"Yeah. I really think he does." Graciela took a moment to brace herself against the face of the office building, planting her sneakers firmly on the concrete surface, then picked up her paint roller and went back to work.
...........
"Wake up, lady. You've got visitors." The policeman clanged his nightstick against the metal bars, and the woman huddled in the far corner of the cell warily raised her head.
"If you don't mind, officer," Neena said, "we'd like to talk with her alone for a minute."
The policeman stared down at Neena and Bet, clearly dubious about leaving a pair of girls alone with a dangerous felon. "I dunno, ladies. That would be highly irregular."
"I believe your boss Mac already vouched for us," Neena replied, meeting the man's eyes with a steady gaze of her own. "And in case your captain didn't make this clear to you, we're quite capable of looking after ourselves."
"It's okay, Joe," the woman in the cell added mockingly. "I promise not to give them any trouble. Think I've had enough of the fire hose for one afternoon."
With a grunt of resignation, the policeman turned away from the cell and set off down the jailhouse corridor. "If the captain says so," he grumbled. "But I'm warning ya, if I hear anything funny..."
Sanguine watched the policeman go, eyes fixed on his broad back with a look of sheer loathing, then turned to regard her visitors. "Hello again, girls." She grinned, revealing a freshly missing tooth. "I see you're working for The Man now. How's that working out for you?"
Neena's expression was unchanged. "We're not here to talk about that, Sanguine."
The woman in the cell stood up, paced over to the concrete slab that served as her bed, and settled onto the dingy mattress. "Whatever. Not like I've got anything better to do with my time right now." She gave a sardonic laugh. "Can you believe they don't get HBO in this craphole?"
Bet stepped forward, and Neena reached out a cautionary hand to stop her before she was in arm's reach of the cell bars. "We want to ask you some questions," Bet began. "About The First."
"The First?" Sanguine gave her a quizzical look. "You mean the Great Mother, right? Spirit of the living earth, she whom we were created to honor and serve? Jeez, show a little respect."
"That's not why the Slayers were created," Bet retorted. "We're supposed to help people."
Sanguine shrugged apathetically. "Suit yourself. Personally, I'd say you're playing for the wrong team."
"Nonsense." Neena moved closer, coming up next to Bet. "What you've done is wrong, Sanguine. Hurting and killing people... and for what? For a force of evil that wants to destroy the world?"
"Destroy?" The look on Sanguine's face was one of genuine incredulity. "Get a clue, people. It is the goddam world. All these people you're wasting your tears on are just parasites, feeding off the earth and giving nothing back. All I'm trying to do is help her collect the rent."
Sanguine rose from her mattress and took a long stride towards the bars of the cell. "It's not even like they all have to die," she said reasonably. "We're just trying to change things a little. Give the human race a little attitude adjustment. Make things like they used to be."
Bet took an uneasy step back, but Neena calmly stood her ground. "Like they used to be? Please, tell me more."
"Our ancestors had the right idea, girlfriend." Sanguine came up to the bars and craned her head towards them, eyes bright with missionary fervor. "People used to live in harmony with the earth. We used to honor the Great Mother..."
"Honor her?" Neena asked. "You mean we should be worshipping her?"
Sanguine shook her head slowly, like a teacher coaching a slow student. "What could that possibly mean to her? Worship, prayer... those are just words. Actions are what counts. Sacrifice is what counts."
Bet watched Sanguine through the cell bars, and remembered her walking beneath the hospital canopy two nights ago, her makeshift spear clanging against the metal pillars as she spoke. But in the end it turned out to be so simple... The only thing it wants from us is blood.
"So that's your glorious cause, then." Neena seemed almost disappointed. "Turning humanity back into a race of savages. Fighting and killing and shedding blood, all for the sake of The First..."
Sanguine laughed. "Sure, and why not? What's your plan?" She turned, paced back to her mattress. "At least this way, it happens for a reason. Your wonderful civilized world just has pricks in business suits pushing buttons and blowing each other up in the name of profit. People blowing their minds out with drugs and cable TV. Screwing and getting screwed, because they've got nothing better to live for..."
"That's not true!" Bet protested. "You may think the world is crappy and, and messed-up, but it's not! It's just people like you!"
"Fuck you, princess. What have you done to make things better?" Sanguine's air of condescending cynicism was gone now, and she glared back at Bet with frank hatred. "You and your little friends think you're doing such a great job killing monsters and saving the world. But all you're doing is protecting the system. You'll never change anything."
"You're wrong, Sanguine," Neena replied sternly. "Before, there was only the one of us. But now we have the power to change things. We can make the world better." She nodded to Bet, and they turned to leave. "I'm sorry you won't be there to help us."
"Yeah, well. Good luck with that." Sanguine's mocking voice echoed down the hallway after them. "I think you'll find it's hard to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
Then they were gone. Sanguine sat for a minute in silence, listening to the faint patter of rodents scurrying about the otherwise empty cells.
"Oh, man." The captive Slayer lay back on her mattress, staring glumly up at the ceiling of her cell. "I have so gotta get out of this dump."
...........
By the time Kennedy and the four younger Slayers returned from their days' errands, they were predictably famished. Long after Willow had made her last trip to the buffet line of the hospital's cafeteria, her companions were still stuffing their superheroic stomachs, and so she excused herself to check in on Xander once more.
"Hey, Will," Xander said as she settled into the chair beside his bed. "How'd it go out there?"
"Pretty well," Willow reported. "I think we made a lot of progress getting rid of those inscriptions. Kennedy and the girls did most of the work--my magic mojo is still kinda recovering from the other day." She raised a hand, and a feeble little spark danced between her thumb and index finger.
Xander nodded, and took a sip from his water cup. "I'm sure it'll be fine."
"Yeah, I know." Willow gave him a reassuring smile. "Just gotta be patient while the energy builds up again. So, how you doing? Any more bizarro dreams?"
Xander grinned. "Just this one thing with the sexy nurses. Don't think that counts as a vision quest, though."
Willow laughed, and it felt natural, right. Just like old times. They'd done the same before in the hospital when Xander had lost his eye, sat across from each other on a bed and made jokes. But this time was so different from that one. Nothing had really been lost here, except for Xander's hair. He'd been gone, and now he was back. They had every reason to feel happy, celebratory, joyful, good. And letting go of that would mean talking about... things that weren't so pleasant. Surely that could wait, for a little while yet.
But when she looked back at Xander, his expression was serious, and there was a thoughtful look in his eye.
"I'm starting to remember more of what I saw." Xander took another swallow of water before continuing. "I remember... Spike was there."
"Spike? You mean your spirit guide again?"
"I thought so at first, but..." Xander stared down at his hands. "I think it was really him. The genuine item. I... I saw him burning, Willow. I saw..." He looked up again, and she was startled by the fear in his face. "I think I saw Spike go to hell."
"Oh." There wasn't really anything she could add.
"It's not like I was ever his biggest fan, but... Somehow, I can't help feeling sorry for the guy. It just doesn't seem fair."
"Well," Willow rationalized, "he was an evil vampire for a hundred years. Before he got into the whole world-saving thing."
"It's not even that," Xander mused. "If the guy's going to burn, then that's one thing. But to just leave him drifting about in limbo for, what, three weeks?"
Willow made a quick computation. "Nineteen days, I think. Since the Hellmouth went kablooey."
"Nineteen days. Just waiting to see what'll happen, where you're going to end up..." He began to shrug, then winced at the pain in his bandaged shoulder. "When my turn comes, I hope I get the express lane."
"Really don't think you need to worry about that for a while." Willow shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Sorry, my butt's going kinda numb. How you doing over there?"
"Hanging in there," Xander replied. "My arm's itching like crazy, but I don't think I'm supposed to be scratching it." He regarded his bandaged left arm balefully, considered and discarded trying to reach up into the bandage with his drinking straw.
"Hey," Willow continued brightly, "are you sure Spike was going to hell? Maybe he's just, y'know, doomed to keep reliving the moment of his death for a while. Until he's paid his debt to society, or something."
Xander regarded her silently, his head tilted slightly to one side as if he were giving her words serious consideration. Willow felt a bolt of fear shoot through her when she recognized the gesture. Just like Spike used to. For the first time, she began to worry that Xander might have changed somehow, that he really had gone down to the underworld and brought something back with him.
"Maybe," Xander said. Then he was back to himself, blowing out an uneasy breath and sinking back into the pillows, and the weird illusion of just-like-Spike was completely gone. "Anyways, he told me a lot of stuff. I only remember some of it, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. But I'm trying to piece it back together."
He took another gulp of water, and Willow watched, mesmerized. She could almost see the wheels turning in Xander's head, and it brought her back to a way of seeing him that she hadn't felt since high school, when she'd hung on his every word and gesture like the lovesick girl she was. She remembered seeing him in his Homecoming tuxedo, so many years ago, and the delightful chill that ran through her as she thought Xander's a man now.
Looking at him now, with his shaven head and his bandages, his sleep-puffed face and slowly healing scars, Willow knew that Xander was in no immediate danger of being mistaken for a matinee idol. But when he was up on his feet, with his hair grown out and his mysterious eyepatch at a rakish angle... She couldn't help smiling. No wonder those girls are so devoted to him. They may be Slayers, but they're only human.
Xander placed his cup back on the bedside table, and Willow reached for his right hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. "Take your time, Xander. We've all earned ourselves some breathing space. Especially you." She leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on her friend's forehead. "Everything's going to be all right now."
Xander smiled drowsily back at her, his eyelid already closing as he slipped back to sleep. He mumbled something about chickens and hatching, birds and hands, and then he was gently snoring.
Willow sat with him a while longer, waiting until she was sure Xander was asleep. Then she untangled their fingers, and went down to join the others.
Previous parts here.
ACT SIXTEEN: FOLK WISDOM
Xander slept fitfully through the night, and by the second day he was lucid and talkative. A little before noon, at precisely the moment the ICU staff were willing to allow the full crowd of visitors, Willow and the five Slayers swarmed around Xander's bed in a state of high excitement, eager to bring him up to date on the previous days' adventures. The four young Slayers came bustling in first, all smiles and nervous laughter, laden with apologetic peace offerings--balloons, stuffed animals--that they'd obtained free of charge from the hospital gift shop, courtesy of the grateful staff. Willow and Kennedy quietly brought up the rear of the noisy group, settling into the two chairs provided at Xander's bedside.
"Hello ladies," Xander smiled, running a hand over his stubbly head. Earlier that morning, Willow had given him a mirror so he could get a good look at himself - the puffy face, the shadowed circle under his eye, the hair buzzed down to the scalp, even where the large gauze bandage wasn't decorating his skull. Not that bad, he'd concluded. Kinda Bruce Willis. It'll go well with the eyepatch.
The junior Slayers continued bustling around Xander, adjusting his pillows--now liberated from his neck brace, he'd been allowed to sit up--and fretting over the precise alignment of his blankets. They seemed eager to make contact, to reassure themselves that he was alive and healthy, and Xander let them fuss for a minute before good-naturedly shooing them away.
"Okay, girls, settle down." Xander took a sip from the water cup beside his bed. The IV tubes attached to his hand brushed against the balloon strings tethered to the bedrail, making the silver helium puffs jitter and dance. "So, how go things in the land of the living?" he croaked.
As the words left his mouth, he felt a twinge of deja vu. He frowned for a half-second, trying to retrieve something from the hazy swirl of memories that remained from his long sleep, then put the thought aside as Lo and Bet launched into an epic recreation of the siege of the Schoenfluss Medical Center.
And for a while, Xander was able to just sit back and listen to their story, enjoy the sight of the girls excitedly waving their hands as they talked, trading narrative duties back and forth between them. Neena interrupted every now and then to clarify some tactical issue, and even Graciela chimed in to add her own dramatic glosses to the now-familiar tale, weaving herself into the action by elaborating on the stories she'd heard from her comrades.
Xander smiled throughout. His girls had done him proud, just like he'd known they would. The whole thing sounded so refreshingly heroic and familiar.
Eventually the story reached its end, with Bet's teasing recreation of Graciela running out into the courtyard to berate her comrades for leaving her out of the fight. Graciela winced at the memory, and Xander gave her a sleepy, reassuring smile. "That's the way it goes, kiddo," he told her, weakly punching the air, boxer-style, for emphasis. "Sometimes you've gotta keep the big guns in reserve."
Graciela smiled and blushed, fussed with articles on the bedside tray.
"So this other Slayer, Sanguine..." Kennedy abruptly broke in, drumming her fingers impatiently on the windowsill. "She's in jail now, right?"
Neena nodded. "More or less. The police have set up a holding cell for her, separate from the others."
"Maybe I should go visit her," Willow pondered from her chair opposite Kennedy's. "Maybe I can get rid of The First's influence, reach her somehow..."
Bet shook her head vigorously. "It won't work. All that stuff she did... she was doing it of her own free will. She said so. She chose to help The First, like that fake preacher man."
Do you accept what I offer? Willow winced, drew a deep breath. "Speaking of which. I have some bad news... about Buffy."
"About Buffy?" Xander stared at her, wide awake now. "What is it, Will?"
Willow stared at the floor as she organized her thoughts. Kennedy, leaned forward, reached for her hand, gave it an encouraging squeeze.
"The other night," Willow began, "while Neena and the others were fighting outside... I did a spell to contact Buffy, mind to mind. Like I did a couple of years ago, just before we took on Glory." She paused. "Just before... Just before she died."
The others listened with equal measures of fascination and bewilderment as Willow recounted her experiences for the first time. Though the memories were clear and vivid, almost hyper-real, Willow found herself weaving carefully through them, skipping over parts that seemed too raw, too private, for public discussion. But the last part, her vision of the final battle in the Hellmouth, she retold in full, with the five Slayers chiming in to confirm details and provide their own accounts of the combat.
Xander listened silently through all this, sipping occasionally from his water cup, brow furrowed in concentration. At last, Willow concluded her story, and he leaned back against the pillows and pondered quietly for a minute.
"So," he said at last. "You're saying that Buffy..." He couldn't finish the sentence.
Willow nodded, eyes glistening with tears. "She belongs to The First now, Xander. It pushed her and pushed her, and in the end she gave in."
"And we couldn't do anything to stop it," Xander whispered. The sensation of powerlessness, of frustration, was all too familiar. Xander remembered watching as Buffy leapt from Glory's tower. He remembered her lying, broken and unbreathing and achingly beautiful in her white prom dress, in the pool of water where the Master had left her to drown. But we brought her back, he thought. We brought her back every time. He willed himself to unclench his fists, not to punch and hit, and even through the pleasant haze of the painkillers he felt his injured shoulder groaning in protest.
Graciela looked anxiously over at Willow. "So what can we do now?"
"Uh?" It took Willow a moment to switch gears. "Well... The phone service has been kinda spotty lately, but I was finally able to reach the coven in England..."
"The one in, um, Worcestershire?" Xander asked.
"You're thinking Wiltshire," Willow corrected him. "At Westbury. It took a while just to get ahold of anyone--the full moon is always a busy time for them, especially now that all this weirdness is going on. But I have some good news."
"Really?" Kennedy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Didn't know they were still making that kind."
"I told them about what happened the other day." Willow glanced around the room at the four younger Slayers. "How The First took control of you guys, and how I was able to drive it out. I told them about the spell... They said it's something called the Charm of Set. They don't know how to do it, but I think I can teach them."
The others waited quietly as Willow stood, smoothed out her patchwork skirt, and walked over to the door of Xander's room. She looked out across the hallway to the exterior window. "They're sending a couple of their people here, so that I can train them to perform the charm. And then... then maybe we can start turning this thing around."
As Kennedy rose to join Willow, the four junior Slayers drifted together to form a loose huddle. "All those other places," Lo began. "The symbols we saw, and... Everywhere else this stuff is happening..."
Neena nodded. "The First's agents are behind this. And chances are, those agents will be Slayers."
"But they can't all be like Sanguine," Bet said. "They can't all be doing this because they want to."
"I think you're right," Graciela replied. "Most of them are probably under its control. Like Veronica Lin was." She lowered her voice, shot a guilty glance in Xander's direction. "Like we were."
"And in that case," Neena concluded, "then Willow and her friends can help them. And undo the damage they've done."
"Holy exorcism, Batman!" Lo grinned. "I'm starting to think we can win this thing!"
"That's right, kiddies." Kennedy, leading Willow back into the room, paused to gave Lo an encouraging thump on the back. "We're gonna kick ass. But first we need to do some cleanup."
"Those symbols we saw on the buildings," Willow explained, "when we came into the city. They're part of The First's ritual magic."
"You mean they make people crazy?" Bet asked.
"Exactly," Willow confirmed. "We have to destroy them, as soon as possible. There'll be more like them elsewhere--on walls, on the ground, maybe on the roofs of buildings. And I think it's better if we look for them while it's still daylight."
Kennedy clapped her hands to draw her fellow Slayers' attention. "Okay, we've got a battle plan! And you have your marching orders! Saddle up, soldiers!"
Lo gave Kennedy a sour look. "I vote we split up into teams. And I vote I'm not in hers."
"Sounds like a plan," Kennedy laughed. "C'mon, let's go, let's go!"
"Mm," Willow agreed. "I think Xander could probably use some peace and quiet." She looked over at the bed, where Xander seemed to have fallen back to sleep.
But as they made their way out of the room, accompanied by the sounds of scraping chairs and theatrical shushing noises, Xander began to wake up a little. "Hey, Will," he called out blearily, raising a wavering hand. "Could you wait up a moment?"
Willow halted, and Kennedy gave her a quizzical look. "You go on ahead, sweetie," Willow told her. "I'll be downstairs in a little bit."
As the five Slayers proceeded down the hallway to the elevator, Willow swung the room's door almost closed, and then took a seat next to Xander's bed. She sat for a moment in silence while he drank more water, blinked himself more fully awake.
"So, uh," Willow began haltingly. "You could probably tell I wasn't giving you the whole--"
Xander reached over and gave her hand a reassuring pat. "It's okay, Willow. Now it's my turn to 'fess up."
Willow's surprise was quickly replaced by speculative curiosity. "I thought so. You really were someplace else while you were all comatose, weren't you?"
"Yep. You remember back in Montana... how I went on that whole vision quest thing?" Willow nodded, and Xander continued. "I guess the, what's his face... the gatekeeper. He wasn't done with me yet."
A chill ran down Willow's spine. Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate. And she remembered Buffy's words from their shared dream two nights ago. Those are just words, Willow. Giving things names isn't the same as understanding them.
Xander stared up at the ceiling, struggling to remember. "It's all kinda hazy now, like a dream you can't quite remember. He said... I think he said I wouldn't be able to take it back with me. Not without special dispensation." He remembered a bestial, contorted face, all fangs and glowering eyes, bellowing at him. This is bloody important ! You have to pay attention! You have to remember this! And he thought, I'm trying. Really I am.
Willow leaned over, stroked his arm gently. "Xander? Where were you yesterday?"
Xander clawed at the memory, tried to scramble through it, over it, past it to what lay behind. More images came into view, slipping away even as he clutched for them. "I remember... bones. Huge piles of them, as far as the eye can see. Some kind of cavern, somewhere beneath the earth..." He raised his hands to press them to his temples, then remembered the bandaged spot where the surgeons had cut into his skull, and stopped himself just in time.
"The underworld. That's what it was. I saw... I saw where we go when we die." He turned to look at Willow. "It wasn't heaven and it wasn't hell. It was just... Bones. The Elephant's Graveyard."
Willow blinked. "Sheol," she muttered, shaking her head in amazement. "You're talking about Sheol."
"Come again?"
"In Jewish tradition," Willow mused, "in the Torah... It doesn't really talk about heaven and hell. There's just Sheol, the grave. And whether you're good or bad, you go to the same place... To sleep in the earth." She gave a bark of incredulous laughter. "I can't believe it. Dad was right after all."
Willow leaned back in her chair with a sigh, recalling countless childhood holidays. Bad enough that her family had been one of the few Jewish ones in Sunnydale, but listening to her parents argue about religion had been even worse. She could almost hear her mother's sharp voice, saying I can't believe you're filling our daughter's head with all that superstitious nonsense. We're living in the modern world now, not some patriarchal fantasy. And her father, frowning distractedly as he pushed his spectacles back up onto the bridge of his nose. This is her heritage, Sheila. Traditions are important. Isn't that the sort of diversity you're always talking about?
"I don't think that was all of it, though," Xander continued. "There was more. The soul... The soul goes on..." He strained, trying to remember, trying to understand why he was suddenly thinking of popcorn. The kernels crunching, sparks flying upward from his mouth.
But Willow was preoccupied with her own thoughts. "All these years we've been fighting demons, working magic, raising the dead... We went to the mouth of hell, and it was just some kind of funky alternate dimension." Just like Anya said, she thought. Like the world without shrimp. She shook her head. "It all seemed perfectly sensible. Scientific. Rational. For all the superstitions and folklore and dusty old books, at the end of the day, they were just... monsters." She laughed again, helplessly. "Guess I really am my mother's daughter, huh?"
"Will." Xander's voice was low, serious. "I remember now. I saw it. I saw The First."
Now he had her full attention. "You saw it? Did it talk to you?"
Xander shook his head, wincing at the pain. "It doesn't talk," he said. "The First, the real thing... It doesn't go on about how we're all going to die and tell us how great its evil plans are. It just eats."
"Eats?!"
"You are what you eat. That's what they say, right?" Xander smiled despite himself. "And The First eats us."
...........
"You know," Lo observed, "I could get used to this. It's not such a bad line of work." Bracing her feet against the sheer face of the HSBC building, she craned around to take in the panoramic view of downtown Buffalo afforded by the north side of the forty-story office tower.
"Really?" With a few last strokes of her roller, Graciela finished painting out the runic symbol she'd been painstakingly deleting. Carefully adjusting her harness, she slid a couple of yards down the tower's concrete flank and stopped alongside Lo. "You like painting buildings?"
"Not the painting part in particular," Lo clarified, scrubbing vigorously at the next of the giant symbols. "But the idea that there's more to this Slaying business than just killing monsters... I dunno, it's kind of nice. Like we get to help people, make things better, instead of just busting caps in demon asses." She laughed. "Although that part doesn't suck either."
Graciela planted her sneakers on the building's outer wall to steady herself. "So you want to make a career out of this, huh?"
Lo shrugged. "I dunno. We'll see how things go." She lowered her paint roller, leaving it dangling at the end of its tether, and winched herself down a couple of feet. "How about you?"
"I'm dunno. Maybe I don't have what it takes to be a superhero, you know?" Graciela positioned her roller and resumed swabbing. Though she'd never had a big problem with heights, she was doing her best to concentrate on the wall directly in front of her, rather than glance down at the four hundred vertical feet of office tower below. "Sometimes I think I'd rather just forget all this, try to have a normal life, but..."
"But?"
The two Slayers scrubbed in silence for a minute or so, while Graciela pondered.
Finally, Graciela continued. "Lo? I heard Neena say something about going to talk to Sanguine. You're not going, right?"
"Hell, no," Lo spat. "If I ever see that bitch again, I'll let Doc Savage and Doc Holliday do the talking." She drummed her feet against the face of the building for emphasis.
Graciela giggled. "You named your boots?"
Lo gave her a beatific smile. "I figure, if you're gonna trust something with your life, it deserves a proper name."
"I see." Graciela shook her head in mock amazement, then turned serious again. "Lo... Why are you so angry at her?"
"Those eyeless bastards, the Harbingers... They killed my brothers." Lo drew her roller up for another stroke, slamming it into the face of the building. "Cut them up like animals." She raised the roller again, smacked it hard against the wall. "And that sleazebag Sanguine wanted to do that kind of shit of her own free will?! Pardon my French, but she can suck cocks in hell."
Graciela flinched, fell silent for a minute as the pair finished painting over the symbol. Just as Lo was about to adjust her harness and slide down to the next marking, Graciela reached over and tapped her gently on the arm to draw her attention.
"Lo. When The First got into us, and... and made us do those things to Xander..."
"C'mon, Graciela. I really don't wanna go into this right now."
"I don't want to either," Graciela replied, "but I have to." Turning to look at her comrade, Lo saw the seriousness in her face. She sighed, waited.
Graciela chewed anxiously at her lower lip for a moment, then continued. "I'd like to think that it was just controlling us. Like we were puppets or something. But that isn't true, is it? It made me want to do those things. It made me angry, and mean, and... and cruel..." Her face contorted with shame and disgust. "But those were my own feelings. All of them came from somewhere inside me."
"Okay. Let's not have this conversation." Lo fumbled at her harness, loosened the line, and slid down a few more yards. "Please." She looked away, down the sheer face of the building, out across the downtown cityscape, anywhere but at her friend's wide brown eyes.
Graciela adjusted her own line and came sliding down next to Lo, keeping those round, intense eyes fixed on Lo's face.
"Look, I'm sorry. I don't want to upset you." Hearing the pleading tone in Graciela's voice, Lo forced herself to look back at her, meet her eyes again.
"This gift we have," Graciela mused. "It's a strong power, for good or evil. And I--I wish I could just be an ordinary girl again, I really do. But I can't make that power go away."
Lo couldn't help laughing. "Right. Whatever. I gotta say, Gracie, you sure have a funny way of getting to the point."
Graciela gave her a weak smile. "I know. I'm sorry. I know I'm not... explaining this well. But I just..." She trailed off, then gathered her fragmented thoughts again. "I think we have a choice, you know? We have this power, and we can use it for good or for evil. But I'm thinking that... if we don't make that choice... I think somebody else is gonna make it for us."
A quiet moment passed. Lo and Graciela dangled from their tethers, swaying gently in the breeze like played-out yo-yos, and the only sound they could hear was the sighing of the wind.
At last, Lo turned to her companion with a look of bemused disbelief. "So you think that's what it boils down to, huh? The devil makes work for idle hands?"
"Yeah. I really think he does." Graciela took a moment to brace herself against the face of the office building, planting her sneakers firmly on the concrete surface, then picked up her paint roller and went back to work.
...........
"Wake up, lady. You've got visitors." The policeman clanged his nightstick against the metal bars, and the woman huddled in the far corner of the cell warily raised her head.
"If you don't mind, officer," Neena said, "we'd like to talk with her alone for a minute."
The policeman stared down at Neena and Bet, clearly dubious about leaving a pair of girls alone with a dangerous felon. "I dunno, ladies. That would be highly irregular."
"I believe your boss Mac already vouched for us," Neena replied, meeting the man's eyes with a steady gaze of her own. "And in case your captain didn't make this clear to you, we're quite capable of looking after ourselves."
"It's okay, Joe," the woman in the cell added mockingly. "I promise not to give them any trouble. Think I've had enough of the fire hose for one afternoon."
With a grunt of resignation, the policeman turned away from the cell and set off down the jailhouse corridor. "If the captain says so," he grumbled. "But I'm warning ya, if I hear anything funny..."
Sanguine watched the policeman go, eyes fixed on his broad back with a look of sheer loathing, then turned to regard her visitors. "Hello again, girls." She grinned, revealing a freshly missing tooth. "I see you're working for The Man now. How's that working out for you?"
Neena's expression was unchanged. "We're not here to talk about that, Sanguine."
The woman in the cell stood up, paced over to the concrete slab that served as her bed, and settled onto the dingy mattress. "Whatever. Not like I've got anything better to do with my time right now." She gave a sardonic laugh. "Can you believe they don't get HBO in this craphole?"
Bet stepped forward, and Neena reached out a cautionary hand to stop her before she was in arm's reach of the cell bars. "We want to ask you some questions," Bet began. "About The First."
"The First?" Sanguine gave her a quizzical look. "You mean the Great Mother, right? Spirit of the living earth, she whom we were created to honor and serve? Jeez, show a little respect."
"That's not why the Slayers were created," Bet retorted. "We're supposed to help people."
Sanguine shrugged apathetically. "Suit yourself. Personally, I'd say you're playing for the wrong team."
"Nonsense." Neena moved closer, coming up next to Bet. "What you've done is wrong, Sanguine. Hurting and killing people... and for what? For a force of evil that wants to destroy the world?"
"Destroy?" The look on Sanguine's face was one of genuine incredulity. "Get a clue, people. It is the goddam world. All these people you're wasting your tears on are just parasites, feeding off the earth and giving nothing back. All I'm trying to do is help her collect the rent."
Sanguine rose from her mattress and took a long stride towards the bars of the cell. "It's not even like they all have to die," she said reasonably. "We're just trying to change things a little. Give the human race a little attitude adjustment. Make things like they used to be."
Bet took an uneasy step back, but Neena calmly stood her ground. "Like they used to be? Please, tell me more."
"Our ancestors had the right idea, girlfriend." Sanguine came up to the bars and craned her head towards them, eyes bright with missionary fervor. "People used to live in harmony with the earth. We used to honor the Great Mother..."
"Honor her?" Neena asked. "You mean we should be worshipping her?"
Sanguine shook her head slowly, like a teacher coaching a slow student. "What could that possibly mean to her? Worship, prayer... those are just words. Actions are what counts. Sacrifice is what counts."
Bet watched Sanguine through the cell bars, and remembered her walking beneath the hospital canopy two nights ago, her makeshift spear clanging against the metal pillars as she spoke. But in the end it turned out to be so simple... The only thing it wants from us is blood.
"So that's your glorious cause, then." Neena seemed almost disappointed. "Turning humanity back into a race of savages. Fighting and killing and shedding blood, all for the sake of The First..."
Sanguine laughed. "Sure, and why not? What's your plan?" She turned, paced back to her mattress. "At least this way, it happens for a reason. Your wonderful civilized world just has pricks in business suits pushing buttons and blowing each other up in the name of profit. People blowing their minds out with drugs and cable TV. Screwing and getting screwed, because they've got nothing better to live for..."
"That's not true!" Bet protested. "You may think the world is crappy and, and messed-up, but it's not! It's just people like you!"
"Fuck you, princess. What have you done to make things better?" Sanguine's air of condescending cynicism was gone now, and she glared back at Bet with frank hatred. "You and your little friends think you're doing such a great job killing monsters and saving the world. But all you're doing is protecting the system. You'll never change anything."
"You're wrong, Sanguine," Neena replied sternly. "Before, there was only the one of us. But now we have the power to change things. We can make the world better." She nodded to Bet, and they turned to leave. "I'm sorry you won't be there to help us."
"Yeah, well. Good luck with that." Sanguine's mocking voice echoed down the hallway after them. "I think you'll find it's hard to make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
Then they were gone. Sanguine sat for a minute in silence, listening to the faint patter of rodents scurrying about the otherwise empty cells.
"Oh, man." The captive Slayer lay back on her mattress, staring glumly up at the ceiling of her cell. "I have so gotta get out of this dump."
...........
By the time Kennedy and the four younger Slayers returned from their days' errands, they were predictably famished. Long after Willow had made her last trip to the buffet line of the hospital's cafeteria, her companions were still stuffing their superheroic stomachs, and so she excused herself to check in on Xander once more.
"Hey, Will," Xander said as she settled into the chair beside his bed. "How'd it go out there?"
"Pretty well," Willow reported. "I think we made a lot of progress getting rid of those inscriptions. Kennedy and the girls did most of the work--my magic mojo is still kinda recovering from the other day." She raised a hand, and a feeble little spark danced between her thumb and index finger.
Xander nodded, and took a sip from his water cup. "I'm sure it'll be fine."
"Yeah, I know." Willow gave him a reassuring smile. "Just gotta be patient while the energy builds up again. So, how you doing? Any more bizarro dreams?"
Xander grinned. "Just this one thing with the sexy nurses. Don't think that counts as a vision quest, though."
Willow laughed, and it felt natural, right. Just like old times. They'd done the same before in the hospital when Xander had lost his eye, sat across from each other on a bed and made jokes. But this time was so different from that one. Nothing had really been lost here, except for Xander's hair. He'd been gone, and now he was back. They had every reason to feel happy, celebratory, joyful, good. And letting go of that would mean talking about... things that weren't so pleasant. Surely that could wait, for a little while yet.
But when she looked back at Xander, his expression was serious, and there was a thoughtful look in his eye.
"I'm starting to remember more of what I saw." Xander took another swallow of water before continuing. "I remember... Spike was there."
"Spike? You mean your spirit guide again?"
"I thought so at first, but..." Xander stared down at his hands. "I think it was really him. The genuine item. I... I saw him burning, Willow. I saw..." He looked up again, and she was startled by the fear in his face. "I think I saw Spike go to hell."
"Oh." There wasn't really anything she could add.
"It's not like I was ever his biggest fan, but... Somehow, I can't help feeling sorry for the guy. It just doesn't seem fair."
"Well," Willow rationalized, "he was an evil vampire for a hundred years. Before he got into the whole world-saving thing."
"It's not even that," Xander mused. "If the guy's going to burn, then that's one thing. But to just leave him drifting about in limbo for, what, three weeks?"
Willow made a quick computation. "Nineteen days, I think. Since the Hellmouth went kablooey."
"Nineteen days. Just waiting to see what'll happen, where you're going to end up..." He began to shrug, then winced at the pain in his bandaged shoulder. "When my turn comes, I hope I get the express lane."
"Really don't think you need to worry about that for a while." Willow shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Sorry, my butt's going kinda numb. How you doing over there?"
"Hanging in there," Xander replied. "My arm's itching like crazy, but I don't think I'm supposed to be scratching it." He regarded his bandaged left arm balefully, considered and discarded trying to reach up into the bandage with his drinking straw.
"Hey," Willow continued brightly, "are you sure Spike was going to hell? Maybe he's just, y'know, doomed to keep reliving the moment of his death for a while. Until he's paid his debt to society, or something."
Xander regarded her silently, his head tilted slightly to one side as if he were giving her words serious consideration. Willow felt a bolt of fear shoot through her when she recognized the gesture. Just like Spike used to. For the first time, she began to worry that Xander might have changed somehow, that he really had gone down to the underworld and brought something back with him.
"Maybe," Xander said. Then he was back to himself, blowing out an uneasy breath and sinking back into the pillows, and the weird illusion of just-like-Spike was completely gone. "Anyways, he told me a lot of stuff. I only remember some of it, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. But I'm trying to piece it back together."
He took another gulp of water, and Willow watched, mesmerized. She could almost see the wheels turning in Xander's head, and it brought her back to a way of seeing him that she hadn't felt since high school, when she'd hung on his every word and gesture like the lovesick girl she was. She remembered seeing him in his Homecoming tuxedo, so many years ago, and the delightful chill that ran through her as she thought Xander's a man now.
Looking at him now, with his shaven head and his bandages, his sleep-puffed face and slowly healing scars, Willow knew that Xander was in no immediate danger of being mistaken for a matinee idol. But when he was up on his feet, with his hair grown out and his mysterious eyepatch at a rakish angle... She couldn't help smiling. No wonder those girls are so devoted to him. They may be Slayers, but they're only human.
Xander placed his cup back on the bedside table, and Willow reached for his right hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. "Take your time, Xander. We've all earned ourselves some breathing space. Especially you." She leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on her friend's forehead. "Everything's going to be all right now."
Xander smiled drowsily back at her, his eyelid already closing as he slipped back to sleep. He mumbled something about chickens and hatching, birds and hands, and then he was gently snoring.
Willow sat with him a while longer, waiting until she was sure Xander was asleep. Then she untangled their fingers, and went down to join the others.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-14 05:00 am (UTC)I see all of your girls so clearly, now, and I do see how their little hormones would be kickin' up around sexy Older Man Xander.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-14 05:28 am (UTC)I must say she's a lot of fun to write. :-)
Spike, Spike, Spike---Xander's head tilt was creepy in context.
Sort of a return to Season Six form, in a way. We were watching re-runs of that the other day and we were kinda weirded out by Xander's dark-clothes-and-slicked-back-hair look. It really did seem like he was going through some kind of Spike-alike phase...
I see all of your girls so clearly, now
Awwww. (wipes tear from eye) You're the best reader ever.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-14 05:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-14 05:56 am (UTC)SixSeven, circa "Potential." My bad.(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-17 05:34 am (UTC)Sanguine scares me! She reminds me of crazy!Glory...especially here Your wonderful civilized world just has pricks in business suits pushing buttons and blowing each other up in the name of profit. People blowing their minds out with drugs and cable TV. Screwing and getting screwed, because they've got nothing better to live for..."
But I always like Glory and thought that that was a fair description of the world sometimes.
It made me want to do those things. It made me angry, and mean, and... and cruel..." Her face contorted with shame and disgust. "But those were my own feelings. All of them came from somewhere inside me."
Interesting...
Everyone has those feelings sometimes, like you could just shoot the people who cut you off or do something stupid. I guess the First could easily tap into that. But I want to cuddle her up and to tell her its ok. And kick the First in its face, which really wouldn't do anything good. "Ooooh it burns as it ineffectually passes through me," (Jonathan/The First)
Apparently before I didn't realize that the big munchy crunchy thing was TFE. It was scary and creepy but I didn't realize what it was. Probably just me being stupid and not putting it all together. But yay now I did! I guess it makes sense though, it ingests the bones and that's why it can be any dead person it wants?
I'm sad that Xander didn't remember much. I wish at least he would remember Cordy, too. Because I think that would make him really happy, knowing that she was watching over him. I know it made me happy...*tear*
He mumbled something about chickens and hatching, birds and hands
Was that a reference to something previous? Did I miss something again? Or is it just half=dreaming mumbling? *looks nervous*
Apparently I was too on edge and creeped out during Chp 15 to pay much attention to what was going on. Must read again!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-17 06:26 am (UTC)Perhaps, but their relationship is already pretty interesting as it is; I would have been satisfied if they'd interacted at all in the last couple of seasons. (Okay, that's not quite fair, but they didn't talk all that much.) It was the Hook's idea that, after following their own separate paths throughout the story, Xander and Willow should finally meet up again and renew their old friendship. The romantic aspects just add some extra spice...
Them in the hospital at the end reminds me of the end of s2 only where Willow was the injured one.
Hm, good point. I guess I'd been thinking more of when Xander was mending up from his encounter with Caleb, but this does seem to be a recurring image with these guys, doesn't it?
Sanguine scares me! She reminds me of crazy!Glory
I love the crazy ones, I really do...
Everyone has those feelings sometimes, like you could just shoot the people who cut you off or do something stupid. I guess the First could easily tap into that.
Exactly. The notion of an entity that digs up your worst aspects and brings them to the surface seemed scarier to us than one that just mind-controls you and uses you as a puppet. (This also gives us a point of difference between The First and, say, Jasmine.)
Apparently before I didn't realize that the big munchy crunchy thing was TFE.
Ah, I guess we were a little oblique about that. But given the previous descriptions of The First as existing underground, "gnawing the bones of the dead," and Spike's mention of the "beneath you it devours" line, I think it's plausible that Xander could put the pieces together here.
I guess it makes sense though, it ingests the bones and that's why it can be any dead person it wants?
Exactly. All that back story and creepy underworldage was, to a large extent, our attempt to explain why The First always appears in the form of dead people. It may be a cosmic force of evil, but obviously it also has some connection to death, and this our theory as to what that connection is.
I'm sad that Xander didn't remember much. I wish at least he would remember Cordy, too. Because I think that would make him really happy, knowing that she was watching over him.
It'll all come back to him in time, and since he woke up thinking of Cordy, chances are he already remembers that part. But I don't know if he'd tell Willow about it just yet...
Was that a reference to something previous? Did I miss something again? Or is it just half=dreaming mumbling?
It's kind of a running gag for this chapter - every scene ends with somebody quoting some old adage, and in this case Xander tries for "don't count your chickens before they're hatched" and "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," but he's too sleepy to finish the sayings.
Apparently I was too on edge and creeped out during Chp 15 to pay much attention to what was going on. Must read again!
By all means, heh heh heh. Maybe you'll spot some more hidden goodies on the second reading...
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-28 07:23 am (UTC)Heh, Xander does love his movie references. Would he really be that sanguine about his appearance, though? Maybe Willow could say it to him. I'm just a sucker for Willow/Xander dialogue.
Hm, there's an idea. That sounds like the kind of thing she'd say to be encouraging.
Now that's v Xander (reminds me of his great speech to Dawn). I think you've captured him really nicely in this whole thing, and it's great to see his character finally given not just SOMETHING TO DO but something worthy of his potential.
Aw shucks. We do like the poor schmuck, yes we do...
Poor Buffy. Still a really good job creating sympathy for her -- maybe that could be brought up a little in Willow's summary? It was a really powerful scene and it would be cool if it were kind of emphasized more in this recall -- it's v summarized (understandably so, since the reader's been there and Willow's filling them all in). Not a biggie.
I think we're saving that for Bad Eurotrip, where Willow gets to tell her tale to Giles and Dawn as well. Then they can all have a big cry.
((pained)) Aaaaaagh. Maybe not.
We can't take away all of Kennedy's annoying traits - it wouldn't be true to the character. But at least she's a good sport about Lo's grumbling response...
Hmmmmm, this is a nice bit of characterization, but maybe you could cut or summarize it
I'll let The Hook consider that one - the expanded flashback was kind of her idea. (You know me; left to my own devices I tend to be Mister Terse.)
I might be revealing thickheadedneess, but I don't quite get this....alternate dimension? What?
The point being that, for all the talk in these shows about "hell dimensions," we never hear about hell hell. For these kids, the word "hell" has come to mean merely "any one of countless alternate dimensions with less shrimp and more demons." Perhaps we could stand to elaborate on this a bit more...
Hmmmmmm, I smell setup for a later payoff, there....
Ooooooh yes. Xander has returned from his underworld odyssey with a Very Important Insight into the fundamental nature of their enemy.
((shrieks)) I LOVE that! I am SO taking that as a shoutout to ME. ME, ME, ME. OK, is that Doc Holliday as in Wyatt Earp or am I missing something?
Right on both counts. Hope you're happy. :-)
OK, I totally liked that. And I also liked that Graciela pushed Lo a little bit and they HAD AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION about something bugging them, rather than just shrugging it off.
It would be nice if the next generation of superheroes were a bit less dysfunctional, wouldn't it?
The devil-idle-hands comment was good, but maybe just a bit too reminiscent of Xander's "you are what you eat" earlier -- the 2 remarks just sort of felt emotionally similar. But I liked it.
Well, the "hackneyed truisms" thing was intended as kind of a running theme for this chapter, but maybe we're being a little heavyhanded about it.
This is totally picky, but would the police really leave the 2 girls alone with Sanguine? Maybe it could be a cop who saw them in action earlier and felt s/he owed them one? I'm just picky. But that's why you looove me.
Not a bad idea. Got to uphold that suspension of disbelief, after all...
I really liked this (it reminded me a little bit of Glory's "original chiclet in kingdom of the blind" speech)
Plus, it throws down something of a gauntlet for the junior Slayers - to use their superpowers to actually make things better, instead of merely upholding the status quo. Like Lindsey, it's always bugged me that heroes traditionally play a purely reactionary role, while anyone who aspires to actually change things is automatically branded as a villain.
Hunh, are you planning to hook up Xander and Willow in Europe maybe, or what?
Gosh, it hadn't really occurred to us. Xander and Willow? There's an odd pairing...
Anyways, you'll be happy to know that there will indeed be Naked Giles. You're welcome!
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-28 04:13 pm (UTC)Actually, that was how I originally wrote it, but it got revised. Maybe time to put a little banter back, then.
Hmmmmm, this is a nice bit of characterization, but maybe you could cut or summarize it -- I might be revealing thickheadedneess, but I don't quite get this....alternate dimension? What?
Good catches - both these part, the "hell dimension" speech and Willow's remembrance of her family, might do with a little rearranging. I'll see if there isn't a way to make this clearer - the main point being that Willow is science girl, not theology girl.
I really liked this (it reminded me a little bit of Glory's "original chiclet in kingdom of the blind" speech)
I guess Glory really is the template for a know-it-all villain, isn't she? I guess that's legit - she is a god, after all.
Yes but will he be naked alone?
Heh heh heh
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-28 07:14 pm (UTC)As long as you didn't change her name to "Nader." :-)
Aha. You know, that's cool, and it would bear more elaboration....I don't think they ever cleared up on Angel whether or not Earth is Hell ("Welcome to the home office") or a hell dimension or what. Buffyology would seem to support the latter.
And then we have the occasional references to "hell" proper as opposed to "a hell dimension" - for example, dancing demon Sweet, who threatens to take Dawn with him to "the underworld" and departs with a jaunty "see you all in hell!", or the "Smile Time" puppets who say they come from hell and whose dealings are recorded in the Library of Demonic Congress (which made me laff). At this point, the currency is rather thoroughly debased, but judging from "Hellbound" it seems Spike and Angel still believe in the existence of the genuine item.
However, on the evidence of the shows themselves - particularly the "home office" bit - it would appear that every dimension is a hell dimension, which puts us back in Gnostic territory yet again...
Somehow I see the Slayerini as being a little more open with each other, too -- they're less battered than the original Scoobies, and sort of all peers, thrown into the same situation, so they're going to lean on each other a bit...
Plus, as I think we hinted in earlier chapters, they have the object lesson of the Senior Scoobies as a cautionary example.
Whedon's especially guilty of it in later Buffy.
And even in the final episode, where they're all supposedly Friends Again, Giles and Willow ask Buffy point-blank whether she learned anything about Axcaliber during her crypt trip and she completely ducks the question. These people are evidently no longer capable of communicating with each other at all, sigh.
Yeah, it stuck out a tiny bit.
Sigh. I'll see if we can tone it down a little.
I also kinda liked the idea of the cops in this bit respecting the Slayers
At least during this state of civil emergency. I suppose it's possible that, as the crisis fades, they'll return to the kind of denial mode we kept seeing in Sunnydale. At one point I was thinking of throwing in a line where one of the junior Slayers says "Wow, things will never be the same again after this," and Willow and Xander exchange this knowing look and go "Uh-huh..." But it didn't really fit in anywhere, and it would have been a bit of a downer.
Wait, don't tell me....Kennedy gets pushed off the CLIFFS OF DOVER, and they hook up! ((waits expectantly))
Or the Eiffel Tower, or the Leaning Tower of Pisa... let's maintain the suspense on this one for a bit, eh?
Yes but will he be naked alone?
Oh, that would be a terrible waste.
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-28 08:28 pm (UTC)But that's why we're here - to FIX that feeling. We're gonna make all this make SENSE, I swear....
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-29 04:47 am (UTC)I'm not sure whether there's a consistent party line on where Angel thinks he was between seasons. For that matter, it seems kind of weird that he never ever talks about it. Maybe he was in heaven too, and just doesn't like to brag...
Heh heh heh. "Think someone's behaving funny? Be a friend and ASK THEM!"
"If your friend were drowning in secrets and lies... Wouldn't you try to save them?"
Yes what IS happening? They don't know the war is on? There's been all this apocalyptic stuff everywhere and no civil defense emergency stuff?
We could just play the Sunnydale Mind-Wipe card, but that always seemed like such a cop-out. No, you'll see the government-sanctioned response a few chapters into the Eurotrip segment...
But he could be thinking of Ethan!
Ethan? Ethan Rayne? Gosh, I'd forgotten all about that guy...
Re: nakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGilesnakedGiles
Date: 2004-05-29 05:06 am (UTC)"Gaah! No shrimp! Truly, this is hell!"
See? I told ya they were all hell dimensions.
Ha. Isn't good old Ethan enjoying three squares and a flop courtesy of the gov't somewhere in an underground cell in Nevada?
Sure. Circa, like, four years ago... But maybe I should change the subject. Look over there! It's the Goodyear Blimp!