It was an exhausted Xander who flopped down on his couch in front of the TV. A busy day capped off by the long drive from LA to Sunnydale through the worst summer holiday traffic he had ever seen, had left him drained. He couldn't even get up to get a drink; his tiredness overcame his thirst.
He sensed someone in the room and looked up to see Faith leaning on the back of his couch with a coke in her hand. With surprising speed for one so tired, he snatched the drink out of her hand and downed half of it in the blink of an eye.
"Hey!" Faith objected. Xander smiled then let fly with a mighty belch. Faith rolled her eyes.
"If it wasn't for the fact that you're the landlord I'd kick your ass for that."
Not long after his (temporary) death fighting Dark Willow and Dark Buffy, Xander offered Faith a room at his place. The dingy motel she was staying at wasn't what you'd call great, or even acceptable. But her alarm bells started to ring when Xander offered her free board and lodgings in return for her help with a project he wanted done. She'd had offers like this before and every one of them turned out not to be so 'free' or the 'project' involved performing 'services' for her lodgings.
But Faith had seen Xander up on Kingman's Bluff. Seen his sacrifice, his courage, his love for Buffy and Willow. So she accepted his offer with a large measure of suspicion and reserve.
The longer she lived with him, the more suspicion and reserve grew. Not because of any bad intentions Xander had, rather it was the lack of bad intentions. He was a great guy. Easy going, funny, trustworthy, a genuine good guy, which just made Faith even more uneasy.
In her experience there was no such animal as a genuine good guy.
His 'project' just involved him and her doing a lot of digging. What they were digging for Xander wouldn't tell her exactly, only that it was important in safe guarding the future.
Her attitude towards Xander all changed one Sunday.
Xander had been clearing out the spare room while Faith moved some of the furniture into the garage. When she returned to the spare room she found Xander staring at the large, open wardrobe he'd empted of his father's old clothes. Moving beside him she saw what Xander was looking at.
Inside the wardrobe, right down the bottom, was a single word written in a child's handwriting. Written in blood, if Faith's experience counted for anything.
Willow.
"Long before any vampire started pounding on me, my old man taught me everything I ever needed to know about getting the shit kicked out of me. My teachers thought I must have been the klutziest kid in town, coming to school covered in bruises. Mom made excuses, she was good at that. Teachers believed her, they were good at that too.
"Summer, just before second grade. Wills had gone to Phoenix with her parents for the holidays. Missed her like crazy. Of course a kid's gonna miss his only friend. That damn Barbie. Just looking at it made me cry.
"Dad saw me. Tears, a Barbie doll, not a picture of manly behavior, isn't it? Dad certainly didn't think so. The yelling and the beating wasn't unusual. But he started yelling stuff. Kept on about crying and playing with girls stuff and how if I wanted to act like a girl then he'd treat me like a girl. He pulled my shorts down; bent me over the bed."
Xander had been up until now cold, almost unemotional. But Faith saw bits of emotion leak out of the cracks in his rock hard exterior. Pain. Anger. Grief.
"He kept saying it over and over. 'Act like a girl, get treated like a girl. Act like a girl, get treated like a girl.' Over and over until he finished. He punched me, split my lip open, smashed my nose, blood everywhere.
"Threw me into the closet. Locked me in there. Told me I belonged in the closet. I was in there for hours. But I wasn't alone."
He knelt down and traced his finger over the six letters.
"I'll never be alone."
Xander stood up again.
"He never did it again. Neither of us ever mentioned it again. Never told anyone. Not even Buff or Wills. Don't even know why I'm telling you."
Faith knew why. It's because she'd get it. She was able to understand him, at least about this, better than Buffy or Willow ever could.
Been there, done that.
Xander finally made sense to Faith.
He was a for real good guy. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but still good. Someone who would understand her. Someone she could trust.
Probably the first person she ever trusted.
Faith jumped a little at the sound of Xander's foot crashing into wardrobe door, breaking one of the hinges and cracking the door. Xander started to pound on it. After a few moments Faith joined in and the two of them vented their hurt and anger out by destroying the wardrobe.
The next morning after Xander's return from LA saw Faith and Xander in their usual morning routine in the kitchen. Neither was a morning person but a pot of coffee was making inroads.
"What ya got planned for today Xan?"
"Not much. I've gotta call Dr Alibek and tell her I'm back in town and arrange a time to see her again."
Faith gave him a look.
"What?" Xander asked, stung at the look he was getting.
"You're going to tell your shrink that you're back in town but not a peep to your other two thirds."
"What the hell?"
"You haven't been around much the last couple of weeks. First there was all that digging which, by the way, you haven't told me jack about what we were digging for…"
"I told you it was important.."
"For the future. Yeah, I heard that one. Then there were the days you locked yourself in your room, the mysterious phone calls, the sudden trips. If I didn't know you better I'd say you were dealing drugs or some such shit."
Xander nearly spit his coffee all over the kitchen table. The resulting coughing fit saw half his coffee end up in his lap and waking him far quicker on the outside than if it were on the inside.
"Drugs!"
"Like I said, if I didn't know you better. It's probably some scheme to save the future or change something or some such crap. All very noble."
"So what's with the third degree?"
"When was the last time you saw B and Red?"
Xander had to stop and think. He had to admit it was a while.
"Uh, last Saturday?"
"Try nearly 4 weeks ago."
That shocked the hell out of the Scooby. He'd kept himself busy for a whole bunch of reasons and he knew he hadn't exactly been Mr. Available of late.
But 4 weeks!
"You're kidding!"
Faith shook her head. It amazed her that he could be so dense at times.
"Now if I were your girlfriend I'd be at the 'kicking your avoiding ass' stage."
Xander gave Faith a sly smile.
"If you were my girlfriend you'd kick my ass and call it foreplay." Faith leaned in and whispered as seductively as she could manage first thing in the morning.
"And you'd love every second of it, toyboy." Xander slid off his chair and retreated to the sink.
"Been there, done that, moved on." He told her as he washed out his cup.
"So you keep saying." She replied. They often fell into this kind of banter whenever one wanted to avoid talking seriously about uncomfortable things.
Faith wasn't one to delve into his personal life without a reason. With a sigh he turned to the second Slayer.
"Has Buffy or Willow said something to you about this?"
"Them talk to me? About you? As if! Every time Red sees me she gets this pissy look like I'm riding you day and night like the pussy whipped man bitch you are."
Xander asking Faith to live with him hadn't gone down too well. Especially Willow, who even Xander acknowledged was possessive of 'her' people at the best of times. It was a source of tension that they tried to ignore as best they could. They didn't like it and Xander wasn't going to change his mind.
"Then why bring it up?" he asked her. He had a pretty good idea. Faith may have a tough as nails attitude on the outside, but Xander knew better.
"I don't want you moping around here all day if they dump your worthless, absentee ass."
"I'm touched at your concern." Replied Xander, sarcasm dripping.
"Whatever. I just ask one favor though. The next time you guys come here for the hot and sweaty, either sound proof your room or invite me in 'cause a girl's gonna go blind listening to you three banging the gong all night."
"Xander."
"Mrs. Summers, uh, hi. Was that Giles I just saw leaving?" Xander asked hitching his thumb back in the general direction that Giles had gone.
"He came round to see Buffy. Come in." Xander entered and they sat down on the couch together.
"You just missed Buffy. She, Willow and Cordelia took Johnathan clothes shopping."
"Cordy took Johnathan clothes shopping? What have they done with the real Cordelia because that doesn't sound like the Cordelia I know."
"They've gone to Bremmerton." Joyce informed him. Xander's face scrunched up even more in confusion.
"Bremmerton? That's like 60 miles away."
"Cordelia apparently doesn't want to risk running into anyone she knows."
"Ok, now that's 100% pure Cordelia." Xander half joked.
"While we're here Xander, I want to talk to you about something." Joyce said in a manner that raised Xander's internal alarms.
"Uh, sure. What about?"
"You. And Buffy and Willow and your.. relationship."
Xander's internal alarms became near full-blown panic.
"We're friends, Really, really good friends and certainly nothing to chop a man to bits for.."
"Xander, I know that you're more than just good friends, Ok? Relax, I'm not going to hurt you." She reassured the young man who looked like he was about to bolt out the window any second.
"How did you.. did Giles tell you?" Joyce shook her head.
"I may have been pretty clueless when it came to Buffy being the Slayer, but when it comes to my daughters love life I'm a little more on the ball. It also helps that Buffy isn't as discrete as she thinks she is." Joyce pointed to a folder of Buffy's sitting to the coffee table. Scrawled on it was 'BXW4eva' inside a love heart.
"Now, I don't pretend to understand what you three have going on. I don't know if I should be upset or what I should be feeling at the fact my only daughter is in a relationship with not one but two people, one of which is another girl."
"Mrs. Summers I.."
"No Xander, let me finish. Like I said, I don't know much. But I do know what's in your heart better than anyone, even Buffy." Xander looked at her in confusion.
"You remember when we used the power of the Heartstone? Well, when we did that I saw something. I saw what was in your heart. Not only did I see it, I felt it. You love them, both of them. And they love you just as powerfully.
"But Buffy is still a young girl in love and young girls in love tend not to think clearly or responsibly. A moment of irresponsibility can change a girl's life around.
"I'm not going to ask or tell you to end this relationship you three have. I'm not sure if ending it would be the best course of action in any case. But I am asking you to be careful."
Xander gazed down at the carpet and chuckled.
"I never expected this moment to be so bloodless."
"Expecting me to come after you with an axe?" joked Joyce.
"No, that was Willow. You were more of a carving knife kinda woman." Off Joyce's puzzled look, Xander explained.
"Love spell gone wrong back in my original timeline. Long story."
"Oh."
"You know that I wouldn't deliberately do anything to hurt them."
"I know that Xander, that's not what I'm worried about. Accidents sometimes happen."
"If you're worried about becoming a grandma before your time then don't." Xander reassured her.
"Nothing is 100%.."
"I know, I know. But even if I wanted to make Buffy a mommy I couldn't.
"About a week after I first stopped Willow from destroying the world up on Kingman's Bluff I started getting pains in, well, places no man wants pain. So I went to the doctor to get checked out.
"He ran all kinds of tests for testicular cancer and a bunch of other stuff. Nothing. Nada. But he did find out one thing.
"I was sterile. He couldn't figure out why. Asked me if I had recently worked with toxic chemicals or exposed to high levels of radiation.
"Radiation, no. Magic, yes. The blasts of magic Willow hit me with had a lasting side effect I guess."
"They don't know, do they." A saddened Joyce said more of a statement than a question.
"No. They think I had a vasectomy after Anya left. And I'm not going to tell them, especially Willow. I'm not hitting them with more guilt that they don't deserve."
It was yet another routine in a place ruled by routines. Being a maximum-security prison, roll call happened at least three times a day to ensure none of the inmates was missing.
But one was.
The head guard for the cellblock wasn't looking forward to telling the warden that Richard Wilkins had escaped from a locked cell.
"I thought it nothing more than rumor, a legend whispered in the dorm rooms at the Watchers Academy." The young watcher told the head watcher.
"It is tradition handed down from the centuries. All Slayers upon reaching 18 are tested. There will be no exceptions for Miss Summers. Start your research." Quinten Travers instructed.
"What of the second Slayer? If we test one the other will learn of it before her time."
This gave Travers pause.
"An unforeseen complication to be sure. One best handled by testing both at the same time."
"Would Rupert be able to carry that out?" the younger watcher pondered.
"The Slayer isn't the only one to be tested. You have your instructions."
"Yes sir."