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Part 2
Buffy barged into the library, after having discovered the vampire bite marks on the dead man. “Okay, what’s the sitch?” she demanded of Rupert Giles, the school librarian.
Suddenly she noticed Xander, Willow and Jesse standing near Giles. She tried to cover her remark, by saying, “Have you found that book I was asking for...”
“Knock it off, Buffy,” Xander interrupted her. “I know you’re the Chosen One, the vampire Slayer, and that Giles is your Watcher, who trains and prepares you, blah, blah, blah.” Ignoring the amazed stares from his companions, he continued, “I have a story to tell that you probably won’t believe, but what the hell, I’m gonna tell it anyway...”
Xander sat down and started to talk. Buffy and Giles listened intently as he explained what had happened to him, although Willow and Jesse looked at him as if he was crazy.
“You’re from the future??” Jesse exclaimed in disbelief. “Buddy, does the phrase ‘reality check’ mean anything here? You’ve been watching too many Star Trek reruns!”
Xander was tired from talking, and although he knew it was hard to believe he couldn’t hold in his anger. “Oh, yeah? Then how come I knew Buffy was the Slayer, and Giles was her Watcher?”
Giles said quietly, “It – it’s not impossible that you might have...”
“Oh, really? I didn’t know the Watcher Council was that incompetent about keeping secrets. By the way, G-man, does the name Ethan Rayne ring any bells? If not, how about Eighon?”
Giles went so pale, he almost looked like a ghost. “H-how did you...”
“Ancient history, where I come from,” Xander said sarcastically. “Look, from what I remember, you were researching about this new crisis that’s supposed to happen when Buffy arrives here in Sunnydale. To save you some time, it’s called the Harvest. The Master’s gonna wake up and try to open the Hellmouth, and kill a lot of people.”
Giles looked concerned. “I’ll have to...”
“Research, yeah, I know the drill,” Xander said dryly.
Buffy looked confused. “The Master?”
Xander looked impatiently at her. “Ugly vamp, centuries old, who deserves to be in Hell more than any of them.” He broke off, suddenly realizing something. “I got someone I gotta go see. I’ll see you guys tonight at the Bronze.”
Willow looked horrified. “Xander, you can’t ditch school just like that!”
Xander gave his friend a sad look. “Yes I can,” he said softly. “Look, Will, I’m not the same Xander that you knew this morning, okay? I – I’m different. That’s what comes from spending the next few years on the Hellmouth. If there was one good thing about high school for me apart from you guys, it’s the fact that it’s over, I graduated. End of story. Now excuse me, I gotta go find Dead Boy.” With that, he quickly left the library.
Jesse looked at the direction his friend had gone, and then made for the telephone. “Talk about needing a rubber room...”
Willow stopped him. “Jesse, you can’t! It’s Xander!”
“Look, Willow, I know you’ve been hopelessly in love with him since you were five, but COME ON! He’s flipped out! We gotta put him in a straightjacket before he hurts somebody!”
Giles said quietly, “Why don’t you students, uh, get to your next class, and I’ll take the responsibility for what we’re going to do about Mr. Harris.”
Jesse shrugged, deferring to the authority of the older man. “Sure, works for me. Come on, Will,” and he dragged her off.
Buffy made to follow them, but Giles stopped her. “Miss Summers, c-could I have a word?”
“What?”
“This is m-most unsettling,” Giles remarked, in his most British accent. “I – I’ve heard of this demoness Anyanka, vaguely, and this thing about The Wish, a-and I must admit it – it both frightens and gladdens me, that we now have such a – a resource in this young man.”
“You mean you believe him?” Buffy was incredulous.
“Oh, yes,” Giles said, as he took off his glasses and started to polish them. “H-he knew things about me, th-that no one could know.”
“Yeah, what was all that about?”
Giles seemed very uncomfortable. “A-another time, perhaps, I’ve got rather a lot of work to do now. Please – please, just keep a close eye on our Mr. Harris.”
Xander hurried along the street, glad it was still daylight. He was headed for where Angel’s old apartment was, both hoping and not hoping that the vampire would be there. Just in case, he had brought along his cross, a stake and some holy water if he ran into trouble.
He entered the building, and went to the appropriate door. Hesitating a moment, he started banging and called out, “Rise and shine, ya got a visitor!”
The door opened, and Angel squinted out. “Who the hell are you?”
“I like to think, your worst nightmare,” Xander replied. “We gotta talk, Angel.”
Angel gestured, “Come in.”
Xander did so, and before the door was fully shut he said, “Just so we’re clear about this, I don’t trust you. If you try anything, I’ll shove a stake through your undead body so fast it’d make your head spin.”
Angel looked at him in curiosity, rather than fear. “You know who and what I am? What’s your name?”
“Yeah, Dead Boy, I know who you are,” said Xander. “And the name’s Xander Harris.”
“Who sent you? Whistler?”
Xander was puzzled for a moment, and then he remembered who Angel was referring to. “You mean the so-called good guy demon? No. You’re close, but no cigar.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning? It’s usually the best place, so I hear.”
Xander grinned, despite himself. “No one ever accused you of not having a sense of humor,” he replied sarcastically. “Lemme tell you what happened to me...”and he did so. He finished up by saying, “...and that’s where we are now.”
Angel was astonished. “Time travel? I never heard of such a thing.”
“Yeah, well, it happened. How else would I know about those gypsies? I mean, how they gave you your soul back, with that curse. And how to break the curse too, while we’re at it?”
The 240-plus-year-old vampire’s jaw nearly fell to the floor. “You know – what?”
Xander almost panicked for a moment. “Uh, maybe I shouldn’t have said any...”
Angel just looked at him. “I believe you. You want to know why?”
“Spill.”
“Because your story is too crazy NOT to be true. And there’s another thing I’ve noticed – your body language. You act as if you’ve been around me for a long time, whereas I KNOW I’ve never seen you before. Any human this close to a vampire who knows what it is will either be terrified, or calm as only a lunatic can be. You’re neither.”
Xander grinned again. “Thanks...I think. But the real reason I came here was to warn you never, EVER to sleep with Buffy. No matter how much you love her, or...” he paused for a moment in pain, “she loves you. If you ignore what I’m saying, a lot of people are gonna die, and you’ll be responsible. Plus, I don’t think Hell would agree with your soul.”
Angel looked confused. “What...?”
“Never mind,” Xander glanced at his watch. They had been talking for a long time. “Heck, I gotta get going. And so do you, if you’re still planning on catching Buffy tonight.”
“How did you...no, don’t tell me. In fact, it might be better if we didn’t see too much of each other, from now on. Too much knowledge about the future might be very dangerous. For example, if you knew when someone’s going to die...”
Xander had been heading for the door, but suddenly stopped in shock. “I almost forgot! This thing with the Master and Buffy, fighting in a few months. We were both there, she drowned, I gave her CPR and brought her back to life...”
“Please!” Angel shouted. “I don’t want to know any more. We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
“Yeah, well, just in case something happens to me before then, I thought you should know. This IS the Hellmouth, remember? See ya around, Fang Boy.”
Later that night at the Bronze, Xander showed up early and discreetly kept a watch on his friends. He saw Giles and Buffy talking on the upper level, after Buffy had left Willow behind. He was determined to change things this time around, so as soon as Willow started talking to the vampire Thomas he came up to them and shoved his cross into the demon’s face. As Thomas vamped out, the teen used his other hand to plunge a stake into the creature’s heart, and the Debarge-like vampire quickly exploded into dust.
Willow looked around in panic, but no one else seemed to have noticed; the din and the jostling crowds had masked Xander’s activity. She spluttered, “Xander? What...?”
Xander just gave her a small smile. “Believe me now, Wills?”
“I...I...”
Xander didn’t wait around for a reply, he had already spotted Jesse with the four- hundred-year old female vampire called Darla. “Go get Buffy!” he told her urgently, and Willow scrambled to obey.
As Darla led Jesse out the door, Xander shoved his way through the crowd in an effort to reach them. He didn’t want to think that he might too late, that he might have screwed up...again.
Outside in the parking lot, he started to catch up with them. “DARLA!” he shouted at the top of his voice.
The vampire stopped and turned around, surprised that someone actually knew her name. She took one look at Xander, and KNEW that this human understood the situation. As she put on her game face, she grabbed Jesse by the neck and growled, “No closer! Or I’ll sever his carotid artery so fast you’ll drown in his blood!”
Xander stopped, and Buffy, Willow, and Giles came up to join them. “Let him go,” said Giles in his most authoritative voice.
“I don’t take orders from a human,” she sneered. “Especially one who has such a lousy dress sense, as to wear nothing but tweed.”
“Who are you?” asked Buffy.
“Her name’s Darla,” said Xander, glaring at the undead killer. “She’s Angel’s sire.”
Darla again looked astonished. “How did you know about Angelus?”
“Don’t ask me no questions, I won’t tell you no lies,” Xander mocked her.
“You’re all going to die,” Darla sneered. Speaking like she was quoting scripture, she continued, “And like a plague of boils, the race of man covered the Earth. But on the third day of the newest light would come the Harvest. And the blood of men will flow as wine, when the Master will walk among them once more! The Earth will belong to the Old Ones, and Hell itself will come to town!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Xander said wearily. “I liked it better coming from that what’s-his-name vamp, Luke, in the mausoleum, but whatever.”
“WHO ARE YOU?” she screamed, sounding positively demented.
“Just somebody who knows how to break that gypsy curse placed on your undead boyfriend 100 years ago,” Xander said enigmatically. “Would that be worth anything to you?”
Calculation began to show itself on her face. “Tell me now, and maybe your friend lives!”
“I don’t think so,” said a voice from behind her.
Darla whirled around, spotting the source of the new voice. Unfortunately for her, Jesse tore himself free while she was distracted. He dragged himself over to the others, who clustered around him, making sure he was alright.
Xander looked over, and saw Angel standing nearby. Darla was silently snarling at him, but all that mattered was that Jesse was safe, and alive. Xander almost sighed in contentment; he hadn’t made a mess of it this time, after all.
Darla had backed up, and was now sneering at them again. “You’re all going to end up dead!”
“Somebody change the CD,” Buffy wisecracked. “You think you can take on all of us?”
“Maybe not,” she grinned horribly, “but I think they can.”
The gang looked around, and saw vampires coming at them from all directions. Immediately a fight broke out; Buffy and Angel fought the undead, while Giles grabbed Willow and Jesse and hustled them back inside the Bronze. He would have grabbed Xander as well, but after seeing the expression on the teen’s face he suddenly knew better than to try.
“Xander!” screamed Willow. Xander paid no attention; he just grabbed his stake and launched into the fray. The other two fighters were too busy trying to kill the enemy to tell him to go. They fought and punched and kicked, dusting the vamps where they could.
Eventually though, Xander’s luck ran out. Just before the remaining vampires gave up and ran off, a really ugly fangster backhanded him so viciously that he flew across the lot, and slammed into a parked car. He hit it so hard, he was knocked unconscious immediately and stayed that way for a long time.
Xander woke up groggily, finding himself in the school library. For a moment he was disoriented, not remembering what happened; then it all came rushing back. He tried to get up, but almost immediately started to fall down again.
“Hey, take it easy!” Willow exclaimed. “Don’t try to get up yet, you’ve been hurt! I thought we should have taken you to the hospital - ”
“No,” Xander croaked. “We don’t have time for that. The Harvest -”
“Xander, man, I gotta apologize,” Jesse said as he came over to help his friend, who was trying to get up again. “I saw it, but I still kinda don’t believe it! Vampires...”
“Yeah,” interrupted Xander. “Hey, where’s Buffy? Giles?”
“Right here,” said Giles, coming to join them, along with Buffy. “Are you all right, Mr. Harris?”
“Call me Xander, Giles, please,” the teenager replied. “Mr. Harris is my father.”
“Well, Xander, then,” the Watcher tried not to smile. “I’ve just been explaining to everyone what we’ve come up with, i-in regards to the Harvest. Young Miss Rosenberg h-has been most helpful, using that infernal computer device. Apparently once a century, th-the Master can draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. Enough power to, uh, open the Hellmouth. The minion is called the Vessel...”
“Yeah, right,” Xander interrupted. “I know, Giles, I’ve heard it all before. Come on, we’ve got to get to the Bronze.”
The Watcher looked uncertain. “A-are you sure? There are a number of places they could go...”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Xander said testily. “What time is it?” he looked at his watch. “No! Come on, we’ve gotta hurry!”
The rest of the battle went pretty much as it had the first time around, according to Xander’s memory. They arrived there late, with the vampires having taken control of the club. Buffy went to fight Luke (the Vessel), while Giles and the teenagers got the rest of the people out of there. Darla tried to kill Giles and Jesse but was driven off screaming, by the holy water Willow threw at her. Xander did his best to stake the vampires, glad yet again that Jesse wasn’t among them. Finally Buffy destroyed Luke, and the danger of the Apocalypse was averted.
As the gang left the club, exhausted after their ordeal, Darla watched them exit the Bronze. She was still scarred by the holy water, but more than that she wanted to kill Xander. She believed that somehow, he was responsible for this debacle. She had gathered the remaining vampires that had fled after the Vessel had died, and waited.
As she sent the other vampires to attack, she came out of hiding and aimed a gun at the boy. As she fired, she felt a sharp pain in her chest, and turned around to see Angel and the stake he had used. “You...” she barely had time to say, before she exploded into ashes.
Angel looked over towards the others, and saw Buffy fighting the vampires. He rushed to help her, noting one of the humans was lying on the ground. He was somewhat more concerned to realize it was Xander, as he fought the Master’s minions.
While the battle was raging around them, Jesse was with his friend, trying to get him to hold on. He was afraid to move him; Xander had lost so much blood, and Jesse was secretly thinking it was already too late. “Come on buddy, stay with me -”
“Jesse, shut up,” Xander croaked. “Don’t have...much time. Stick close...to Buffy. Lotta freaky things’re...gonna happen. And what I said...about Cordy? Didn’t...mean it. She’s worth...” Xander’s slurred voice gave out, as the last of the life drained out of him and his eyes stared blankly at nothing.
“No!!!” screamed Jesse. He drew the attention of a huge-sized vampire, and scrambled away from Xander’s corpse as it charged towards him.
The fight continued, until once again the vampires were either dead or fled. When it was over, Willow looked around and asked, “Where’s Xander?”
Jesse drew her into a hug. “I’m sorry, Willow. I’m so sorry.”
“NO!!” she screamed and buried herself in his embrace. “Where is he? I wanna see him!”
“He’s right over...” Jesse started to point, but then looked at the spot in surprise. “Hey, where’d he go??”
“What’s going on?” Buffy limped over, as Giles and Angel joined them.
“It’s Xander. He’s...”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” asked Angel. “I saw it. I’m sorry I wasn’t quick enough to stop Darla. For what it’s worth, I made sure she didn’t survive long enough to enjoy her handiwork.”
“But where’s the body?” asked Giles in confusion.
Jesse replied, “I don’t know. Maybe the vampires carried it off – we’ll have to start
searching, the least we can do is give him a decent funeral...”