CSI-Sunnydale

Author: Tenhawk <tenhawk[at]sympatico.ca>

Disclaimer: All characters belong to their rightful owners... none of which are me. If their proper owners had the slightest concept of how valuable their characters really were... I wouldn't have to write this stuff.

Summary: Response to XanderZone discussion. What really happened the day Tara died?

Warning : Crossovers ahead. (Yes Plural.)

Rating : PG-13. For mature themes and all the other fun stuff that rarely makes network TV.

Feedback, It's the coin of the realm


Chapter 1

Night had fallen outside, and Xander was still sitting on the bed. Dawn was downstairs, curled up on the couch. Buffy knew that she didn't want to come upstairs, and the jaded Slayer could hardly blame her.

Tara was dead.

It was perhaps the worst blow that the group had taken in the entire time they'd been together, Buffy supposed. Though, one second thought, her own death(s) had probably been in the same area as well.

But she'd come back. And Tara wasn't going to.

The Slayer looked in on Xander for the twentieth time of the night, wondering what her friend saw in that room that he had to stay there for so long. Neither she, nor her sister, could stand being inside it for more then a few moments. Long enough to tell him to come for dinner, or ask that he come down and watch TV with them, or even just sit and stair at another wall for a while.

"Xander?" She spoke softly, "Are you ok?"

Xander snorted harshly, and Buffy winced. She knew he wasn't ok, but it was what one was supposed to ask. Wasn't it?

Maybe it wasn't Maybe there was another question. "Xander... Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Xander turned to look at her and Buffy's breath caught in her chest. His eyes were so expressive, they always had been, and now they were screaming with pain. But... But there was something else as well. Something hidden in their depths that Buffy couldn't unlock.

Maybe something that she didn't want to unlock.

"Nothing." Xander said softly. "I'll be down in a bit."

Buffy nodded and backed away from the door, wanting to be clear of the rom her friend had died in.

*****

Xander listened to Buffy's footsteps as she went down the stairs and he sighed deeply as he got up.

"Buffy's right." He mumbled to himself. "What am I doing here?"

The truth was, he didn't know. There was just something about the room that was simply... wrong.

He didn't know what it was, he just knew that it was there.

The Police had come and gone, taken their crime scene photo's and left their muddy boot prints behind in compensation. Xander didn't know anything about crime scene's but he knew that you were supposed to be more careful then that.

He shook his head, coming to stand over the rusty red stain where Tara had fallen, the blood soaked carpet the only thing left of the blond witch in the house. She'd taken her things when she moved out, and hadn't yet brought anything back.

That saddened Xander for reasons he couldn't quite place. Maybe it was just the feeling that she was really gone, and he was looking to blame it on something material. He didn't know.

Xander turned and looked at the broken window, the hole where the bullet had past still scarring the Summer's home. Xander supposed that he should get some glass to fic it, but it would wait until tomorrow.

Beyond the glass, he could see the house across the way, the lights were still on there and someone was stepping off the porch and were out of sight a second later.

Xander blinked.

His eyes widened, his mouth opened in shock, and he just stared.

"Jesus." He whispered, suddenly walking toward the window in measured steps, counting off the distance as he stared out the window and watched the landscape reveal itself.

When he reached the window he stared down at the back lawn and the fence that separated it from the next house.

"What the?" He muttered, then spun on his heel and stormed out.

*****

Buffy and Dawn were watching a movie in silence, niether of them really 'seeing' the TV, when Xander stormed down the stairs at a dead run and ran through the living room and outside.

The sisters looked at each other in confusion for a moment, then both scrambled off the couch and chased their friend out the door.

"Xander, what...?" Dawn began.

"The hell are you doing??" Buffy finished.

Xander didn't respond, he just lifted his had, as if he were holding a pistol, and aimed it at the window above.

"Xander!" Dawn said, shocked at his actions. They seemed irreverent, wrong, somehow.

"Dawn... shhh..." Buffy laid a hand on her sister. "Xander... what's wrong?"

Xander shook his head, "I don't know. I just don't know."

He kneeled down, searching the ground by the light of the porch lamps, until he found what he wanted. He straightened up with a small brass casing in his hand and stared at it for a long moment.

"Xander?"

"It's nine millimeter." He said after a moment, his face contorted in concentration.

"So?" Dawn asked, confused.

Xander tried to remember the details he used to know about weapons. The things that he had learned from the Soldier that had borrowed his body for a time. Unfortunately he didn't know any of those details any more, and could only remember most of the experience as though from a dream.

But he didn't know somethings.

"There's no way." He said finally, looking between the casing and the upstairs window in confusion.

"What are you talking about, Xander?"

"Huh?" He looked up, as though seeing them for the first time. "Oh... Nothing, nothing, Buffy. Just... just a stray thought."

Buffy stared at him for a long moment, before shaking her head. "Come inside, Xander. It's late, and it's been a horrible week."

Horrible week. God that was such an understatement that it was practically hilarious. Xander stifled an almost hysterical laugh and nodded, dropping the brass casing to the ground as he walked in.

<There's no way.> He thought to himself as he let Buffy and Dawn wrap their arms around him and lean on him for strength as he led them back to the couch. <It's just not possible.>

*****

"The bullet was deflected then."

"Listen, Giles, I'm telling you no." Xander said, tired of going over the same point again and again. "Besides the fact that there's not a goddamned thing for it to ricochet off of out there, the bullet is a 9mm, Giles. It wouldn't have the muzzle velocity to blow *through* a human body after a ricochet... for god's sake, most bullets are designed not to over penetrate even when fired at point blank range! Now can we get on the same damn page before I have to mortgage this phone bill!?"

"Calm down, Xander." Giles said patiently. "What are you suggesting? A second shooter? I know that American's are dreadfully fond of conspiracies, but really now..."

"I don't know what I'm suggesting." Xander said tersely. "If I knew that, then I wouldn't be calling you for advice. I'm just laying the facts down. There is no way that Warren killed Tara."

"Have you checked for other bullets... maybe one went through the baseboard... that would solve your angle dilemma, wouldn't it?"

"Sure, it would solve the angle bit no problem." Xander conceded. "So of course I checked. Nada. But even that wouldn't solve the power problem. The bullet went through her, Giles."

"Yes, yes." Giles hurriedly shut him up. "Please. Spare me... and you should show some more decorum yourself."

"Giles... Someone else HAD to have shot her. Warren simply couldn't have done it." Xander said firmly.

Giles sighed, "I hope that you will agree with me that telling Willow this is not a good idea?"

"Hell yes." Xander said, whitening at the thought. "Willow is NOT on the need to know."

"Good." Giles breathed in relief. "Then what are you proposing?"

"I don't know. I..." Xander frowned, "I need to see Tara's body again."

"Xander... take care. Perhaps this isn't something that needs to be pursued..." Giles suggested softly.

"Giles. She was family." Xander said.

"Yes... Quite." Giles sighed. That was that, as far as the young man was concerned. "Alright. But be careful. You can help no one from behind bars... or on a slab yourself."

"I'll be careful." Xander promised.

"I'll talk to you soon then."

"Bye Giles."

*****

The morgue wasn't a pleasant place at the best of times, not that there was a 'best of times' to be visiting the morgue, and it was even worse this time around.

Xander moved softly, shaking his head in wonder at the fact that no security was put in place here at all.

<Have to love Sunnydale.> He thought, <The only place where security might actually be needed for the safety of someone, and of course there's none to be found. I guess when your dead bodies might be trying to *leave* the morgue, security seems a little... farsical.>

He stopped in front of a large steel drawer and checked the number twice. Finally he nodded and pulled the drawer out.

"Hey Tare..." He whispered to the body, as the slab slid out on greased rollers.

Her body was peaceful in it's repose, her arms at her side and her eyes closed. She looked, well like she always looked. At peace.

Xander winced, taking in the body's nudity. "Sorry, Tare..."

He rolled her onto her side, using a small flashlight to examine the wound in her back.

Small, neat, almost perfectly round. An angry red pucker against the skin, marked by the slight burn marks that characterized the scorching entry of a bullet.

The story on the other side was something else.

The skin over her left breast was torn and ruptured outward, damaged by the spiraling bullet, but also by the expanding pocket of air the bullet had trapped and compressed as it entered her flesh. The wound was roughly the size of a silver dollar and the flesh was horrible ragged.

Xander swallowed as he grimaced, eyes welling with tears. "God speed, Tare... Rest easy, alright?"

He slid the drawer back in, just as a noise scraped behind him. Xander spun around in time to see another of the drawers shake from someone banging on it from the inside.

For once, anger overtook fear and Xander just strode over to the drawer, palming a stake in one hand. He ripped the drawer open, stake held high, and plunged it down the instant he saw the yellow eyes.

The vampire looked up at him in shock as it dusted, but Xander was already walking away.

*****

"Is he back yet?"

Dawn nodded.

Buffy smiled, "Where is he... I think maybe we should go out for..."

Dawn stopped her forward motion with a palm on her shoulder. "He's in the room again."

Buffy's smile dropped, her breath driving out of her as she slumped. "Why can't he let it go? She's dead. He's not going to bring her back."

"I know." Dawn said softly her eyes welling, "I know."

Buffy grabbed her sister, hugging the young woman tightly. "Shhh... it'll be alright. It'll be alright."

"Oh God, Buffy... I hope you're right."

*****

It had taken him three hours to find it, which was two hours fifty five minutes longer then the cops had looked. The reason it had been so hard to find was that the bullet wasn't where anyone would expect it to be.

He had dug it out of the corner of the room, buried in the cracked molding like it had tried to hide itself from prying eyes. Once he had it in his hand though, Xander knew two things.

One, it was the bullet that killed Tara.

The blood on the evil little thing was enough to tell him that.

The second thing had him completely confused.

The bullet was a nine millimeter.

Xander just stared at the flattened slug as it seemed to laugh at all his little theories about a second shooter and the ballistics of the pistol in question.

He sighed, shaking his head. <It doesn't make any sense, god dammit! The angles are all wring and a pistol shouldn't be able to DO that!>

He looked back at the window, his eyes connected the space from the hole in the glass to where he had dug out the slug.

Nothing made ANY sense.

"Jesus. It's just not possible." He said for the fifth time since finding the slug.

The bullets path, from window to molding, did, in fact pass over where Tara had been found.

The problem was, she would have had to be over nine feet tall for it to have struck her where it had.

"I! Don't! Fucking! Understand!!" Xander screamed at the ceiling as he finally snapped and let out the anger.

*****

TBC…