DARK REFLECTION
by Nick Midian
(nick_midian@mixmail.com)
SPOILERS: For Buffy TVS: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow kissing and no Lover's Walk (Welcome to the wonderful State of Denial, Land of 'Shippiness.)
For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are only tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of the Highlander-style immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole 'immortals have no parents and are found in a little basket' is a... um, the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada', so let's just ignore it, ok?
KEYWORDS: Action-adventure, Violence, Romance (C/X, B/A, W/O, G/J, Other/Other. Yeah, I'm a groupie :) ), Angst, Alternate Universe, Crossover (Highlander).
SUMMARY: In year 2002, a very changed Xander comes back to Sunnydale, and he's not alone. How will his old friends react? Which are the secrets that he keeps?
This Chapter: The Scooby Gang tries to cope with Xander's comeback.
RATING: I'd say a general PG-13 with some R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.
LEGALISTIC DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit, merely for the pleasure of writing and sharing it.
The concept and characters of Buffy TVS (Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Joyce Summers, Spike and the rest) are intellectual and legal property of Joss Whedon, Warner Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc.
Also, the concept of Highlander and the characters here mentioned are the property of Rysher Entertaiment.
Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Henri Duprè, Robert Coltrane, Osborne and Elvis the Dog are of my own creation. Even when Gilles de Rais is not a fictional character, this view of him it is, so I guess it's also of my property... Or not... Or whatever.
All the lyrics used in the story are legal property of their respective rights owners.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Endless thanks to Mash, for the French, all the laughs, all your wonderful comments and the new (and better) ending. To Aslan and Krac (Goddesses of fic) for all their advices and (enormous) work with my English grammar. Without you this wouldn't have been possible. This is your work as much as mine.
NOTE: Please, understand that English is not my native language, so any grammatical or spelling errors are only my fault, not of any one of my wonderful beta-readers. This is also my first serious attempt at fanfic, so, if you're thinking in sending any flames, please be kind with me. I'm a grown up man, but I still can cry like a child, believe me.
For all of you that like to put real faces to the characters there will be a short cast list at the end of every chapter. Tell me what do you think of it! :)
DARK REFLECTION
by Nick Midian
CHAPTER TWO: I Could Have Loved You So Easy
November 14, 2002. 23:14 p.m.
...I've been waiting,
I've been waiting for you,
There's been no reason to move,
It's been as still as a tomb...
"Left in the Dark", Meat Loaf
'The Library' was probably the least frequented bookstore in all Sunnydale, which was a lot to say in a town whose teenage citizens thought of the written word as an strange form of antediluvian lifeform. Anyway, this wasn't a fact that really bothered its owner as his main clientele preferred to make his purchases by phone and the few that went in person to the store knew almost exactly what they were looking for. That left him and his two half-time attendants with a lot of free time to dwell with their other, and main, job: vampire slayage and the protection of the world from the forces of darkness.
That night, the backroom of the store was full to its limits with the people sat on almost every disposable horizontal surface. Rupert Giles, the store's owner, former Sunnydale HS librarian and currently (and maverick) Watcher assigned to the vampire slayer known as Buffy Summers, poured two cups of hot tea and offered one of them to the middle-aged blonde woman that was sat beside him.
"Here you have, Joyce," he said with a smile.
"Thanks, Rupert," the woman politely accepted with a smile of her own.
Buffy looked at her mom and her Watcher with a grimace on her face that came alarmingly close to loathing. "Can we stop with the chit-chat and go to the matter at hand, please?" she said with an annoyed expression.
"There's no need to be rude with your Watcher, darling," Joyce said and then smiled to Angel. "Angel dear, can you finish your story?"
Angel smiled at the obvious embarrassment of Buffy to the fact that Giles and Joyce had been dating for several months now. And the fact that he himself really liked both of them and really enjoyed seeing them happy didn't looked better in her eyes. The tall vampire gave a reassuring look to his girlfriend and finished his tale. "There's no much else to say, Joyce. After asking me to set up a date with Buffy, on your terms and conditions, he just vanished."
"That's all?" Oz asked. "It's strange coming from Xander. I mean, he wasn't exactly the most tight-lipped guy ever known."
"Well," Angel said, "he asked about his parents and about you. He wanted to know how all of you were. I didn't thought it would be the best idea to tell him and he didn't push the issue."
"Why?" Cordelia asked. She had an unusual expression on her beautiful face. Guarded, worried, almost... crumpled down.
Angel looked at her and Willow, who wasn't in a better state of mind. They had been the most affected ones by Xander's death and comeback. The dark-haired young woman had red swollen eyes and looked at the brink of tears.
"He's a vampire. A soulless vampire, as we know. I didn't want to give him any information that could be used against anyone of you."
"T-That was a good idea, Angel," Giles said, interrupting Cordelia's obvious intent of protest. "We don't know which are Xander's intentions, but they can't be good. Don't forget what happened three years ago."
"Forget?" Buffy said with a sad look. "I still have nightmares."
"We all have," Willow said, absent-mindly caressing a thin scar on her collarbone. Oz hugged her silently and she let her head rest on his shoulder.
"There's something more," said Angel who, as usual, was standing in one of the corners of the room, almost hidden in the shadows. "There's something strange about him."
"What you do mean?" Giles asked.
"I can't put my finger on it but... it's like that night three years ago. There's an strong aura of power around him. I've only felt something like that in the Master, and the sensation I perceive from Xander is even more powerful."
"That's impossible," Giles said with a sureness that he didn't really felt.
"Yeah," Buffy agreed, "how old was the Master? Seven, eight hundred years old?"
"Give or take a century," Angel frowned.
"Xander's only three years old as a vampire," Buffy said. "He's a newbie."
"Don't you remember what happened three years ago?" Angel said. "Don't you remember the things he did? I'm more than two hundred and forty years old and he beat the crap out of me! And what he did then..." Angel didn't end the sentence, but everyone of them had the same images in their minds.
Xander rising from his coffin. Xander fighting them and winning with amazing easiness. Xander attacking Willow, biting her shoulder. Xander moving, escaping so fast that was almost impossible to follow him with the eyes. Xander jumping to a window and flying over a distance of more than twenty five yards. Flying like goddamned bat. Xander crashing through the window and disappearing into the darkness of the night.
A fucking nightmare of a night.
"So what?" Buffy said rising from her seat. "Xander's a master vampire and he wants to have a reunion with his old high-school buddies. What do we do?"
Giles took Xander's card from the place where it was in the table and looked at it with close attention. "Willow, could you put this number in that dread machine of yours, please?"
"Of course Giles," Willow said, booting on the laptop she had set up months ago in the backroom. She quickly logged in the internet and begun to load a series of programs so advanced that none of her companions, with the exception of Oz, could understand. "I'm going to hack into the telephone company database. We'll see if the number is listed."
"Is that a legal thing to do?" Joyce asked, a bit concerned.
"We always could take the phone guide and compare the numbers one by one," Oz observed from his position beside Willow. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and giggled.
"Furthermore," Angel added, "cell phones don't figure in the phone guide." Everyone in the room looked at him in silence and he shyly showed the black Ericsson cell phone he carried inside the pocket of his jacket. "I like to be in synchrony with the times."
"I've got something," Willow said, drawing the attention of everyone.
"What?" Cordelia said, suddenly very anxious.
"A big white blank. A zero. Zip. Nada. Niente..."
"A think we've got the point, Willow," Giles said. "I imagine that's got to mean something."
"Well," Willow said, "If this is a real number it should be listed in the company's database, even if it is under a fake name."
"There's a way to verify it," Buffy said taking Angel's phone and dialing the number on the card.
It ringed a few times and was picked up by an unknown voice. "Allo?" the well-modulated and slightly-accented voice asked.
"Who's there?" Buffy demanded.
"I'm not the one who's calling, ma cherie," said the voice, with a trace of laughter. "Who are you?"
"I'm Buffy."
The voice stood in silence for a few moments and then said, "wait a minute, s'il vous plait." There was a series of muffled sounds and then Xander's voice came from the speaker.
"Hello, Buffy."
Just two words. And still they were enough to freeze her to the core. It was something in his tone. Something that wasn't in his voice. It was the laughter, that shiny and bubbling quality that made him the one and only Xander-shaped friend. The voice in the telephone totally lacked of it. She had to remember that Xander was dead and the voice in the telephone didn't even belong to a living person. It was a demon who was speaking to her.
Buffy gulped and tried to remain as calmly as she could. "Hello, how I'm supposed to call you?" she asked.
"The way you've always called me."
"That's not who you are now." She didn't do it purposely, but her tone was ice-cold and dripping pure venom. "Xander is dead."
"If that's what you want to believe," Xander said with resignation. "You can call me anything you want."
"What about motherfucking blood-sucker?"
The was a moment of silence while Buffy felt the eyes of everybody nailed to her back. "What have you resolved?" he finally said.
Buffy made a quick decision. "Tomorrow. Half past seven. The mall."
"Which part?"
"The food court. And come alone."
"Are you going to do the same?" Xander inquired.
"That's not your business. You said it was on my terms."
"I remember, Buffy," he sternly said. "I can be dead, but I'm not stupid."
"Then why have you come back?"
Silence again. With a little concentration she almost could hear the little wheels turning inside his head. "Unfinished business," he said. "I'm not what you think I am, Buffy."
"Oh no?" she said with incredulity. "Then what you are?"
"I'll show you tomorrow. I mean, that's if you don't try to stake me on first sight, like you did the last time." Buffy felt the plastic carcass of the cell phone beginning to break under the pressure of her grip. "Send everybody my regards, Buffy. I'll see you tomorrow."
The line went dead in her ear and Buffy carefully left the phone over the table, deeply breathing and trying to maintain her calm. She felt Angel closing the distance between them and the souled vampire enveloped her into her arms. She let herself relax against his muscled chest and felt a single tear running down her cheek. She didn't dared to look at the rest of her friends. She feared what she'd see in their eyes, Willow's and Cordelia's the most.
"Everything is going to be all right, my love," Angel spoke softly to her ear. "We'll manage somehow. Like we always do."
"Not always, Angel," she said. "We let him die. God forgive us, we let him die."
***
Xander looked at his disconnected cell phone with a void expression and carelessly tossed it away over the mattress. "Tomorrow, in the local mall."
Michael didn't rise his eyes from the box he was checking, which was full of advanced hardware carefully placed in Styrofoam plates. "What hour?"
"Half past seven."
"Public place, early hour. Maybe they don't try anything weird."
"You mean like killing me?"
"Do you want back up?" Michael asked without taking the bait.
"No. You have a lot to do and I don't want to scare them."
"You're the boss, mon frère. I'll do what you decide."
Xander just nodded and lied still on the mattress, with an arm over his eyes.
***
Darkness.
Darkness everywhere. Around him. Inside him.
He was darkness.
He was waiting. Waiting for his time to be again.
The time would came. He would be free.
Free to reign again. To kill. To drink. To feed with the blood and the souls of the lesser beings.
The time was near.
***
The ride home was made in silence. After the meeting was over, Buffy and Angel had gone for a late night patrol around the town and Giles had taken Joyce to her home.
Willow kissed Oz goodnight and watched his hideous Volkswagen van disappear into the night. She turned to Cordelia and felt her heart tightening a bit more when she saw the expression on her friend's face. Cordelia's eyes were lost in the darkness of the night, they were haunted, full of fear and pain.
Willow took her hand and guided her upstairs, to the apartment that Cordelia, Buffy and herself shared since their first college years. Cordelia let Willow guide her like a small child without protesting. She felt so... lost. She didn't know how to react. Willow let her sat in her favorite chair, in the small but comfy living-room and went to brew a pot of decaf. When she went back to the room Cordelia was in the same position she had left her ten minutes before. The redhead left a steaming cup of coffee in front of her friend and sat down, waiting for her to be the first to make a move.
Cordelia didn't even touch the cup and spend the next ten minutes with his eyes lost in the void. "I don't know what to feel," she finally said with a little voice. Willow didn't said anything and waited for her to keep on talking. "I mean, I'm frightened and I know I should be scared that Xander had come back but still..."
"There's a part of you that can't avoid to feel a certain amount of... hope," Willow completed. "I feel the same, Cordy."
Cordelia felt the tears freely running down her cheeks and made no effort to stop them. For first time in a lot of years it didn't mattered to her that her make up got ruined. "I miss him so much, Willow."
Willow closed the space between her and her friend and hugged her with all her strength. "So do I, Cordy. So do I."
"There are times I wake up and I believe that everything has been some kind of horrible nightmare, that we're still in the high school, that I'll go to class and find him in the hall. He'll make some kind of stupid joke about my attitude and I'll answer with a quip about his lameness and his clothes. We'll discuss like children and we'll make up in the utility closet, like we always did. And then..." Cordelia begun to sob almost uncontrollably and Willow softly rocked her into her arms, feeling her own tears running down. "...then I remember everything. I remember his body, left in the campus like it was nothing. I remember the funeral. I remember..."
"I know, Cordelia. I know. You loved him."
"So did you," Cordelia said, slowly recovering herself from her outburst.
"I did, once," Willow admitted. "And when he died a part of myself died with him. A part of all of us died that horrible night."
"What do you think he'll do?"
"I don't know, Cordy. But you have to remember that he's not Xander. He's not the boy we loved but a kind of sick and twisted demon that is usurping his face and body. I understood that when he tried to bite me. Xander never would have done something like that."
"Do you want to know something?" the dark-haired girl said, cleaning her ruined make-up with a paper napkin.
"Yeah," Willow nodded caressing her friend's hair.
"I can't remember his face that night," she said. "When I dare to think of him the only things I remember are his laughter, his perfect lips, the way his hair always spiked without control, how his tongue stumbled when he was nervous. How he annoyed me when it looked like the only things he could think of were Buffy or you, even when we were kissing in the closet. How he was able to make a joke out of everything. How... I just... I just can't remember him that fateful night. I remember everything, the fear, the chaos, the expression of surprise in Angel's face when he was thrown across the church, the blood over your skin... But there's a big blank where Xander should be. And I'm looking at it, thinking that the only repent I have in my whole life it's that I never told him how much I loved him."
Willow cried in silence, holding her dear friend. She knew that the next days were going to be some of the worst in her whole life. But she also know that he had her family, she had Oz, Cordelia, Buffy, Angel, Giles and Joyce. She knew that, somehow, they were going to make it.
Somehow.
End of Chapter Two
The Cast for this Chapter:
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase
Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
David Boreanaz as Angel
Seth Green as Oz
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers
Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux
You liked it? :) You hated it? :( Anyway drop me a line, I'll love to hear everything you have to say.
Stay Tuned for the next chapter: 'Long time no see'