SquidgeWorld Archive

Everyone comes to Quarks
by Norgco

Xander was telling the story well, maybe not accurately, but well. And that was the most important thing, because with no first hand accounts to go by who really KNOWS what Alexander the Great actually said at specific places at specific dates? No, telling the story well was the important thing.

Klingons like a good story of blood, death, conquest, slaughter, drinking and general chaotic mayhem, after all.

"?and there stood Alexander, on the wall with one man to either side, and twenty thousand people of the city trying to kill him. The rest of his army was on the ground behind him, their scaling ladders broken and they couldn't get to him. In the blazing heat arrows shot at him, people stabbed at him, he killed right and left and had to decide?"

The first story he had ever told a Klingon, alone on a Bird of Prey class scout vessel, was how he had gotten there. Not knowing where he was, not knowing what species had captured him beyond the eerie resemblance to the bikers he had served in his limited time as a barman, he had told the story unedited, vampires, demons, witches, magic and all. They had responded by getting him blind drunk and insisting he tell them more. The next day the crew was recovering from their hangovers, and the day after they started teaching him to fight with a Batleth, as part payment for his services as ships storyteller. Later they got involved in having him released from the mental institution the Federation put him in for telling exactly the same story exactly the same way.

Xander liked Klingons, it's hard to dislike people who do things like that for you.

There was a roar of approval that shook the room when Alexander decided to jump INTO the city instead of out to his waiting troops. They could all imagine themselves doing the same thing, feel the thump of landing on the stone weighed down in iron armor, hear the sound of the city gates crashing open as the frantic Macedonian Army smashed them open to massacre the entire city population and save their commander. Huge amounts of bloodwine were consumed as he finished, not quite matching the amounts spilled on the floor of the bar over the previous hours as the warriors waved their tankards around while he told his tale.

Storyteller is an honored profession among Klingons, and Harris the younger was one of the most famous of the age. Mixing tales of the slayers in with other pieces of human history he had looked up at the suggestion of a Watchers Council member who had tracked him down, his stories were like the traditional tales but new and just different enough to be exotic. He walked over to the owner with the money that had been piled on his table, storytelling being a potentially well paid profession too.

"Warn me the next time your coming here Xander, I nearly ran out of bloodwine, I mean have you ever been IN a mob of rioting Klingons?" The Ferengi was happy enough with the situation, complaining like this was his way of starting a negotiation. The human's percentage of the action was fixed of course, but establishing a negotiating position is a religious duty to the big- eared business species.

"Yes, actually I have not only been in Klingon riots I've started one or two before now." Establishing a negotiating position being second nature to the former Scooby by now too. Quarks lacked the built in stun weapons normal in a bar for the Federations most dangerous ally, after all, so the fear was well founded. "And you knew full well the Chancellor was sending the fleet here in plenty of time to stock up, what's the problem?"

"They drink an average of 32.5% more when your entertaining and you know it." It was after all why the bar owner, who had an amazing resemblance to principal Snider, was paying him to tell his stories here rather than a rented hall or the shuttle deck of a Cruiser. The cash was handed over for Quark to worry about and the equivalent entered into the dark haired man's bank account. He would be here until the war games started, then tour Bajor and the Bad Lands colonies before returning for the post-games partying.

"Since when have you complained about a one third increase in sales? The crisis is handled, your nephew will keep the booze coming fast enough, what's the worry?" All Ferengi religion and law is built around making money, they quite literally worship profits. It couldn't be the unexpected sales increase that was bothering the barman.

"It's about your other profession Mr. Harris." It was the station commander Colonel Kira, a Bajoran and something of a hard case. The Bajorans had been through a lot in the last few decades, Cardassian occupation, guerilla war, independence sliding into chaos and then the arrival of Commander Benjamin Sisko, of Starfleet.

Also known as The Emissary of the Prophets. And Xander had met him, and made friends, having had friends who were press ganged into being 'The Chosen One' before. It made him miss the Scooby gang terribly, even after all these years. The battle that had stranded him here had been a victory of course, since there was a here for him to be stranded in that included humans.

"Where and what?" Was all he asked.

Giles had reformed the Watchers council, and the portal that he had fallen into while preventing several of the new Slayers from the same fate had been investigated afterwards. It was clear from the investigation that it would send him here, or to a hell dimension. The big bad in question had been uninterested in WHERE the slayers went as long as they went, or so the watchers had assured him. Assured him with awestruck smiles, as one of the legendary 'Scooby Gang.' There had been four centuries for the council to get used to the idea of them being heroes instead of annoyances, after all.

"Let's take a walk." There were better places to discuss demon hunting than the bar, after all.

"We've discussed this sort of thing here before, why not now?" She wasn't arguing, just curious. While the man she was talking to seemed to be in his mid twenties somewhere, he had looked like that since the day he fell out of the portal. The Klingon captain he had nearly landed on was an Admiral now.

He looked at her and said nothing, as a member of his audience staggered over to the bar, demanded bloodwine, and then slumped unconscious on the floor.

"Because half the Klingon fleet will demand to go on the hunt." She said to him, looking at the crowd again. It would end up looking like an invasion, there would be trouble ? drunk Klingons looking for a fight were always trouble ? and then the Federation would want an explanation.

Given that of the three species only the humans steadfastly refused to believe the evidence for the existence of things that go bump in the night, that meant a diplomatic 'incident', Starfleet Intelligence insisting there was a 'cover-up' to investigate? It had happened before, a couple of times, although not with a major Klingon fleet involved.

Xanders' quarters, later.

It was probably some kind of proof that the Powers That Be had a sense of humor. Alexander Lavelle Harris, poor student, doughnut fetcher for the Scooby gang, construction worker, was now the Giles figure. Simple demon killing skills were not in short supply. Phasers killed vamps and demons with only a little more trouble than they did humans, and there was no shortage of volunteers unless the world itself was unpopulated or human with no Watchers Council presence.

No, it was detailed knowledge that was in short supply, and the zeppo's public profession was a perfect explanation for hauling around an electronic version of the entire Watchers Council library. He had stumbled into the role accidentally at first, his 'tales of the Scooby gang' drawing the local demon hunting fraternity wherever he went. They would sit and pick his brains about problems afterwards, inevitably, and swap stories. Equally inevitably he picked up things that were useful and passed them on, over the decades. The watchers had just formalized the arrangement.

"Yes, here it is, Zump'ta demon, native to Vulcan originally." Demons traveled the space lanes like everyone else, and people didn't even comment on them unless they recognized the actual species. It was just assumed they were some new non-demon aliens. This one had been kidnapping, killing and torturing over a wide area and couldn't be found. They kept losing it, and never at precisely the same spot.

There was a detailed description of its habits and preferences in lairs, as well as a tracking spell specific to the species and one to suppress its natural ability to teleport. Killing was then the standard slice, dice, and/or vaporize. Colonel Kira sent it down to the militia unit as the sole surviving Scooby sat looking at a photo, given to him by the council, of the slayerettes together.

He remembered when it was taken, just after Graduation. Oz was holding Willow, and he had gone on to become pack leader of a werewolf community in Colorado. Willow herself had eventually married Kennedy, and had three children and seven grand children. Giles rebuilt the Watchers Council into something capable of taking advantage of the changes that were to come without abandoning anything important from the past.

Faith Woods died at the age of 29 stopping a major demon ascension. She was survived by her husband the former Sunnydale High School principal, and two children. Buffy Summers was retired from slaying, the first slayer to ever achieve that, married a dentist and was surrounded by her husband, children, grandchildren and one great grand child when she was the first slayer to ever die of old age.

They all had distant descendents scattered around the Federation, and Xander had looked them up, at least electronically. He had helped a few out, not explaining who he was ? one trip to a Federation mental institution was enough ? but feeling better for having done so. He was holding the picture and crying silently as the Bajoran officer watched.

"You still miss them don't you."

"Every day. But you know they all left letters for me, they knew I would turn up in four hundred years and they all wrote to me." She knew the story, he had told it to her once before, but she had buried enough close friends to let him have this remembrance. "Buffy thanked me, you know she never did that while I was there? Willow named a son after me, and Giles told me he was proud to have known me and 'valued my contribution to the fight'."

All of them had said something like that, and it meant a lot to him, as he made his apparently immortal way through the Federation and beyond. Faith had mentioned he seemed to be subject of a prophecy, and said he was supposed to save several worlds make friends and lovers, and be a fairly happy guy. The Commander of Deep Space Nine was holding his hand as he put the picture down.

"Xander, we've been friends for years now, haven't we?"

"Yes Neriys, we have."

"You know I haven't had anyone since Odo left, don't you? And I know you don't have anyone."

"Yes. Are you asking me for a date?" He had no idea if there had or had not been any warm bodies to share her bed over that time, but both knew that wasn't what she meant. Neither had had anyone they cared about.

"I think that's the term." She looked nervous.

"Ok, how about we get a Raktajino at Quarks?" As commander she was never actually off duty, so she could stay up late and sleep in occasionally. It was a ship's captain tradition, the captain is the only officer who never stands watches, and if anything important happened they, by standing orders, must be woken up regardless. Certainly having a Klingon coffee with an old friend was within limits.

"Too crowded and noisy." She looked even more nervous now, and he realized he had, as with Willow in High School, missed a lot of signals.

"Would you like to stay here tonight?"

"Sounds great." She was smiling now, a little shy, not at all the take charge Colonel he knew.

Xander traveled a great deal, but always stopped over here whenever he could, and this woman always took the time to see him from her busy schedule when he did. He knew that wherever Willow had gone she was probably looking down on him and saying 'finally'.

"I take it you won't want the spare bed made up?"

"No." And with that the night got better.

END