The Cosmic Prank

Since Xander and Buffy became official, he met Cordelia the following morning. Dressed in simple khakis and a long sleeve gray Henley, he waited by her usual spot in the student parking lot, leaning on his stealth-black scrambler until her red BMW drove in. It was beside her car that he broke the news that they couldn’t continue their physical liaisons any longer. At first, Cordelia assumed Faith was the reason, remarking, “Damn, that girl works fast.”

Xander shook his head, and asserted, “Not Faith. Buffy. Buffy’s my girlfriend now.”

Cordelia laughed hard from her gut. The amused cheerleader had to lean against her luxury car to keep upright. After he’d assured her three times that he was in a romantic relationship with Buffy and that, no, it wasn’t a joke, he explained how he’d always be there for her.

“Crazy as this is,” Xander voiced, “you’re super important to me, and I don’t want to lose you just ‘cause I’m with Buffy.”

Xander was surprised the stunning cheerleader wasn’t all that upset. Instead, she casually shrugged before telling him, “Well, let me know when you break up.”

Blinking in surprise as she opened her pocket mirror to check herself, Xander assured her, “Uh, we’re not breaking up, Cor.” He leaned in closer, trying to catch her attention as the boy added, “I mean, I know we’re not official just yet, but— We’re not breaking up!”

Clapping her mirror closed, Cordelia casually asserted, “I’m not trying to be negative here; I don’t need that kind of energy in my life.” She grabbed her bag as she added, “I’m saying this as a total ‘people person:’ I don’t think Buffy feels for you what you feel for her. If you don’t break up; Fine, great, whatever. If you do, call me.”

Though he found her assessment insulting, Xander took the win and felt satisfied their friendship was still intact. Walking with Cordelia to class, Xander spotted Buffy and Willow at the end of the hall, walking toward them. The golden-haired girl wore a lilac-colored halter top with white pants, while Willow wore a cute fluffy pink long sleeve under orange overalls. They were engrossed in conversation, making Xander nervous. If Buffy saw him and pretended nothing happened between them, then he’d know Cordelia was right. But if the blonde beauty smiled, or did anything other than pretend they weren’t together, then he’d know genuine feelings were involved.

Willow saw him first and smiled brightly before rushing him. The ecstatic redhead hugged him tightly, calling out, “I can’t believe it!”

Half hugging her back, the confused boy turned to Buffy, who was walking up to them, smiling warmly at him. The amorous gaze in her greenish-blue eyes felt answer enough, and Xander stopped holding his breath. With relaxed shoulders, he returned the smile before extending a hand. The blushing Buffy took it, and Cordelia groaned with a heavy eye roll before leaving. Watching his friend go, Xander felt for Cordelia, but he knew this was better than cheating, and she still had her love in the future.

Walking down the hall hand-in-hand, Xander and Buffy attracted the attention of many nosy classmates. However, the two only paid attention to an excited Willow. She had more questions than she could ask for Buffy, then for Xander, and then for the both of them.

The big one Xander focused on was when Willow asked, “Why now?” Buffy drew her brows in confusion, and Willow elaborated, “Well, I know how long Xander’s been gaga for you. I was just wondering when you started returning those feelings.”

Xander turned to Buffy, who didn’t seem too keen on answering. She looked down as she tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, then eventually said, “Well, it’s kinda hard to point to when. I mean, I’ve always loved him as a friend. And he’s doing all this amazing stuff, right? It’s like a whole new Xan, and, I guess, it just grew from there.”

Willow turned to Xander and added, “You really have come into your own, which is amazing.”

“The Year of Xander was a rousing success,” Buffy concurred, squeezing his hand.

Walking between the two girls, Xander should’ve been happy, but he felt conflicted. The cold reality of their union was due to the simple fact that Angel was no longer an option. The realistic side of him wanted to hear the honest answer: ‘I can’t be with Angel, so I’ll be with Xander.’ It wouldn’t feel nice to hear, but it would—in his estimation—be closer to the truth. The hopeful side of him wanted to believe in the friends-to-lovers scenario. However, Xander vividly recalled the pain of hoping for what wasn’t there.

“Now we can finally double-date,” Willow called out with a beaming smile, interrupting his thoughts. “We can take cute pictures together, and go to a fancy restaurant, and, well, probably order chicken fingers because, you know: We’re only in high school and don’t have a lot of money.”

“As a skilled laborer, I happen to have a lot of money,” Xander reminded them.

Turning to them with wide eyes, Buffy confessed in disbelief, “I completely forgot you had money!” She then joked, “I’d just like to remind everyone that I knew you before you had money.”

Xander had a joke lined up when he noticed Scott down the hall eying Buffy. Beside the handsome teen were his friends, Debbie Foley and Pete Clarner. The doleful gaze Scott gave Buffy wasn’t nearly as important as Pete Clarner, with his arm draped around Debbie’s neck. All Xander could think about was how Pete would murder Debbie—and three others—just because he wanted to be more manly for her. While Xander could admire the lengths some might go for love, he couldn’t allow the monstrous Pete to kill because he was tragically misguided. Fortunately, Xander thought of an easy way to prevent the murders.

Become the target himself.

Rather than risk the lives of others, Xander talked to Debbie a few times in front of the rage-repressed Pete. Their conversations were brief and of nothing serious, however, he made certain she laughed or smiled at least once simply to make Pete jealous. Then Xander waited. When Pete attacked him, killing the monster would just be self-defense. His plan didn’t take long to work. Xander, Buffy, and Faith were patrolling the next night. Xander was dressed in black with Dreadnought at his back. Buffy wore a similar stealth-like outfit with a black beanie, and Slaymore at her waist.

Faith was advocating, “If you make a magical weapon for one Slayer, make ‘em for all Slayers. I mean, it only makes sense.”

“You can call it the Xander Welcome Package,” Buffy teased with a mischievous grin. “Only instead of a fruit basket, it’s a sharp object of death.”

Shaking his head, Xander would’ve pointed out how Faith would need to die for the next slayer to get a welcome package, but he heard a twig snap. Magically heightening his senses, all three turned toward the direction of the source; darkness and patches of obscure woodland. An ominous forested graveyard surrounded them and masked the target of the sound. The three looked around them a long moment before another twig snapped.

“There!” Buffy called, pointing at the columns of timber to their east.

She immediately began chasing. Faith and Xander were right on her heels. Speeding through tree branches and leaping over headstones, the three hunters gave chase for some time, but the galloping humanoid was surprisingly fast. When the sound of running suddenly stopped, their target once again merged with the surrounding nature. They then heard a clear sound of heavy footfalls coming from behind them.

Turning around, they look upon a large, monstrous human. Without a shirt on, his muscles were visibly beyond toned; bulky, heavily veined with greenish rivers running up his beefy arms, rippling chest, thick neck, and even face. He was a Hulk, only very tan instead of green. Despite his face appearing like that of a caveman’s—large jawed, extended brow that made his black eyes look small, and thick lips—there was no doubt in Xander’s mind who this growling mammoth was.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say that’s Pete Clarner,” Xander casually voiced.

“Who’s Pete Clarner?” Faith asked, keeping her eyes on the giant.

“Debbie’s boyfriend?” Buffy asked, without looking away.

“Haaaaarrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssss,” the monster hissed as the hulking mass lowered its stance.

“Yeah, that’s definitely Pete,” Buffy said, nodding. “What happened to him?”

“Why don’t we ask him,” Xander quipped, spinning Dreadnought in his hands to lead with the blunt end. It told the Slayers he wanted to try taking him alive. Groaning at the tough battle ahead, Buffy sheathed Slaymore and took out her stake just as the monsterfied boy charged them.

“Flank him,” Xander told them as he sprinted straight for the monster.

Using a supreme sense of distance, Xander leaned his head forward, giving the beast a target. When Clarner threw a wide punch, Xander dodged it before bashing the blunt end of Dreadnought into its knee. The monster threw his head back, screaming, before swinging both arms widely. Pete’s attacks lacked any technique, but one clipped Xander’s chin, throwing him back and making him see triple.

Buffy and Faith came in from either side of the monster. The brunette Slayer kicked Pete’s knee, dropping it to the ground while Buffy jumped on his broad shoulders and wrapped her arms around its thick neck. Buffy held on, trying to choke it into submission as it whirled left and right and growled in growing rage. It tried to hurl the blonde Slayer as Faith’s fists were digging into its steel stomach, but the wild Pete kicked her ten feet away. Grabbing Buffy’s arms, it ran backward, smashing the blonde Slayer into a tree and shaking all the leaves.

“Guaah!!” Buffy grunted and let go, falling to the ground.

Pete ignored her for Xander, who called out, “Come and get me!”

Pete growled before running at Xander. It swung wildly, but the punches were telegraphed, and easily dodged all the strikes like a professional boxer. When Faith kicked Pete in the side, Xander once again smashed the blunt end of his hammer against the monster’s leg, making it scream, and run away as best it could. Faith chased after it while Xander ran to Buffy’s side.

When she was feeling better, she told him, “Go. Back Faith up.” Xander didn’t want to leave, but she tapped Slaymore and told him, “I’ll be fine. Go! No more Welcome Packages.”

Sprinting through the forest, Xander soon found Faith on the floor with Pete over her. He was choking her, and at the first sound of Faith’s gargled choking, Xander threw Dreadnought with all of his might. The magical axe spun several times in the air before its sharp blade embedded several inches into Pete’s skull. The highly pressurized blood that must’ve been pumping incredibly fast within his body spurted high out of his head before the boy went limp and fell over lifeless.

Faith gripped her neck, gasping and coughing for air when Xander reached her. He helped her up as he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Haah… Y-yeah,” she voiced, though she swayed on her feet.

At the sight of her wounded state, he resolved to begin work on her magical weapon as well.

“Come on,” Xander said, offering his arm for her to lean on. “We’ll get Buffy, then call the cops.”

However, they didn’t find Buffy. When he saw her the following morning, she told him she’d gone to look around for victims, of which none were found. Despite Scott and Debbie’s sadness over Pete’s death, Xander was just happy they were alive.

As word of his status as Buffy’s boyfriend spread throughout the school, Xander felt a sense of accomplishment that still baffled him. It seemed so unbelievable that the two were now in a romantic relationship when all he wanted to do was get back at her. Xander nearly felt guilty about his initial motivations, but then he would be plagued by that night of Buffy underneath Spike. Those memories always made him feel less guilty about his intentions but never completely removed the feeling.

In the days that followed, Xander and Buffy balanced their time between being with their friends and being a couple fairly well. He made her laugh and feel loved with every passing day, but after a few weeks, Xander couldn’t help but note how far away she felt sometimes. She wasn’t always present when they were together and they hadn’t done more than kiss. In fact, every time she felt too good, she’d ask if they could stop, which he did. It made him wonder if everything he learned from Casanova wasn’t working with her.

He’d ask, “Is everything alright?”

Her answer of wanting to be Homecoming Queen felt blameworthy. After all, he was nominated for Homecoming King as well, and he couldn’t deny being distracted himself. Unlike everyone else, Xander knew Buffy and Cordelia—or anyone in the limo—would be kidnapped on the night of the dance and taken to the forest to be slaughtered by assassins. So, while they went about their day, Xander paid extra attention to their surroundings, and eventually spotted the same brown van tailing them.

Xander noticed the surveillance vehicle following Buffy, Faith, and himself, and after some deliberation, he decided to bring it to the group’s attention the night before Homecoming. Entering the library, Buffy and Willow were seated at the table discussing canvassing for votes. Oz was holding up hand pads for Faith to hit, and Giles was reading a large tome. Reasoning that the men surveilling them tapped the phone and were using parabolic mics, Xander walked up to Giles, then touched his shoulder, getting his attention. He then walked up to Faith. Tapping her shoulder unleashed an automatic three-strike combination to the head, solar plexus, and liver. He slipped the first, parried the second with his shoulder, and caught the third fist at the same time he softly dabbed her cute nose. At her good-natured sneer, he grinned before motioning for her to follow him. Xander took the confused Buffy’s hand and motioned for Willow to follow him as well.

After pressing a finger to his lips, alerting them to remain silent, the raven-haired teen led them to the payphone in the student parking lot. Xander dialed 911, then waited for the “911. What’s your emergency?”

“Yeah, hi,” he responded. “I’m calling from Sunnydale High and there’s this brown van, license plate, two, golf, alpha, tango, one, two, three parked in the westside access. I’m pretty sure the men inside are crack cocaine dealers. I’ve already seen a few students buying. Come quick!”

Xander hung up and turned to the stunned group behind him, who were on the verge of yelling all the questions springing to their minds. However, he—once again—raised his finger, emphasizing with his eyes that they shouldn’t speak just yet. Fortunately, they listened, and he led them to the westside access of the school. They waited there until two police patrol cars rolled up behind the brown van. Displaying two fingers to his friends, Xander pointed where he wanted them to see. They walked around the corner and the group subtly observed two, blond Caucasian males being forced out of a van at gunpoint. From afar, the Scoobies saw all the surveillance equipment inside the van, then left after more police showed up.

Back in the library, Xander explained, “That van was surveilling us.”

“How can you be certain?” a curious Giles asked.

“I saw them following me for a couple of days,” Xander answered. “Then, I noticed them following Buffy and Faith. So, I’m expecting wacky—possibly bloody—high jinks.”

“Following?” Buffy quickly repeated. “For how long?”

“Not sure,” Xander replied, tilting his head in thought. “At least a week.”

Willow asked, “What do they want?”

“Again, no clue,” Xander replied. “But I bet we’ll find out. We just gotta act like everything is normal. Faith can keep an eye on them while they keep an eye on us. And when they strike—before Homecoming, I would guess—she can back us up.”

Though they went back and forth on the plan, the Scoobies ultimately decided on Xander and Buffy feigning ignorance, with Faith waiting in the shadows. On Homecoming night, the black limousine Xander had rented stopped outside of Buffy’s home. Dressed in a fitted tuxedo that James Bond would appreciate, the dapper teenager with his slick back hair stepped out with a corsage in hand.

Walking up the walkway, Xander greeted Buffy at her door, and the stunning girl was dressed in an orange silk dress, which surprised him. He thought she’d dress to fight comfortably. After Joyce took a few pictures of the couple, Buffy and Xander were promptly kidnapped. It was a very slow kidnapping; nothing more than a wrong turn that could have been missed if he weren’t paying attention, then driving them into the forest. Of course, the driver running away once they were parked was a bad sign.

The pair were taken to a terribly old abandoned cabin–so dilapidated the ceiling caved in. Green plants nearly covered the entire withered building, and all the windows were broken. Despite being surrounded by dark ominous forest land, on a large rock in front of them, the pair saw a television connected to a VCR with a piece of paper that just read ‘Press Play.’ While Buffy pressed the play button, Xander went to the trunk of the black limo and grabbed his guitar case.

The pair of warriors adjusted their clothes for a fight and grabbed their weapons as the video of Mr. Trick was saying in the background, “Hello, ladies. Welcome to Slayerfest ‘98.” As Xander was securing Hellguard to his lower back, he appreciated the welcome, since he’d missed this event entirely last time. “What is a Slayerfest, you ask? As in most of life, there are the hunters… and the hunted. Can you guess where you two fall?”

“‘The hunted,’ said no one ever,” Buffy replied right before he could.

“Nice,” Xander complimented. She beamed before he added, “I was going to go with, ‘Hunters… in hunted clothing.’”

Buffy snorted before replying, “I’m glad we share the same sense of humor.”

“From the beginning of this tape,” Mr. Trick continued, “you have exactly thirty seconds—no, that’s seventeen now—to run for your lives.” With Odin’s ring, Xander expanded his senses and heightened his physicality as Mr. Trick concluded, “Faith, Buffy. Have a nice death.”

The cold of the forest slid up his skin and each of his arm hairs felt like antennas receiving signals from their surroundings. The hard dirt under his dress shoes, the creaking of branches in the wind, the unnatural silence of the animals, and the faint crunching of dry leaves under the feet of bodies in five different locations. Other than grass, pine needles, and algae-covered wood, Xander could smell three different odors that didn’t belong in the forest: Cologne, cigarettes, and something tangy and cloying, like a sweet cheese.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, hitting the television and forcibly shutting it off. The pair immediately started running. Staying low to the ground, they ran through the forest faster than the typical human was capable of. Xander pointed toward another shifty presence thirty yards away while he went toward the nearest one. Hearing cotton clothes quickly stretch, Xander threw Hellguard at the source.

“AAHHHHH!” an old man screamed, popping out of a bush with a Viking dagger sticking out of his trapezius.

The old man saw Xander coming and tried to aim his bolt-action hunting rifle—with scope—at the teen, but before the elderly hunter could pull the trigger, he called his Viking dagger back. The blade ripped out of his left trapezius, spurting out blood and making the man drop his rifle. With his full run, Xander punched the assassin hard in the face, knocking him out instantly. He then secured the bleeding, unconscious man with handcuffs the old man had on him. Using the man’s clothes, Xander wiped the blood off of his dagger before grabbing the rifle.

When the dapper teen heard a distant breaking of glass and wood echo through the forest, he grabbed a handful of ammo and darted off. Sprinting through the forest, Xander then heard a lot of automatic fire from a semi-automatic rifle, making him fear for Buffy’s safety and run faster.

Xander arrived in time to see two men dressed in black tactical gear aim their guns at an old cabin. Peering through the hunting rifle’s scope, the teen saw one man switch from a German-made automatic rifle to a revolver grenade launcher. Xander wasn’t sure if Buffy or Faith were in the cabin, but he took careful aim at the 40 mm round as it sank into the chamber. Xander held his breath at the end of his exhale—when his body was the stillest—then pulled the trigger.

The explosion that killed the two assassins was enormous and blinding. With his heightened senses, Xander turned away as the shockwave washed heat and twigs over him. He shook his head to rid himself of the ringing before turning to the smoky ruin where the men used to be. At the sight of the small crater, Xander wondered what other explosives the assassins were carrying on them to produce such a large explosion.

From the cabin, a yellowish demon with scales down the middle of his head like a Mohawk burst through the boarded window with Slaymore ran through its stomach. Buffy hopped through the window, calling her sword back to her in the process, and killing the yellow Mohawk demon.

When Buffy came up to Xander, she asked, “Is that all of them? I can’t sense anymore.”

“Me neither,” he agreed, wondering if Faith was alright. Xander drove them back into town and, though slightly dirty, the couple entered the decorated gymnasium just as Faith showed up. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“You had two vampires lying in wait in the library,” she informed them. With a gleeful grin, Faith emphasized, “Had.”

The music abruptly ended, and everyone turned to the stage. Principal Snyder tapped the microphone before announcing Sunnydale’s ‘98 Homecoming King and Queen. Xander tilted his head down, smiling at Buffy. However, she wasn’t nearly as hopeful. Her distant eyes told him she was distracted again. Before he could ask her if she was alright, Xander’s name was called over the PA system.

Like a knee-jerk reaction, Xander blurted out, “What? I didn’t do anything.” As the sudden center of attention, it took Xander a moment to realize he had been voted Homecoming King. “Oh,” he said before the cheering started. Buffy and Willow call out in joy, pushing him toward the stage. The smiling faces and pats on the shoulder as he passed through fellow students felt superficial, but good. Standing on that elevated stage, blinded by the spotlight, Xander was surprised to be standing there at all. His hope that Buffy might stand beside him was dashed when Snyder called out Cordelia’s name for Homecoming Queen.

In his head, Cordelia made sense, but Xander couldn’t understand why he had been picked until a photo was projected on a silver screen behind them. For those who cared to ogle, holler, and whistle, the picture showed a muscular Xander, wet, in nothing but his speedos during his time on the swim team. His ripped body left enough of an impact to vote him Homecoming King, apparently. After a dance with Cordelia, Xander found Buffy seated at a table and asked her if she was alright. She said everything was fine, but he wondered how honest she was being.

Walking into school two days later, Xander noted the large blue banner hanging from the balcony of the campus square cheering on the school’s football team, the Razorbacks. As he walked toward his locker, he wondered if he should join the football team next. Then he saw Principal Snyder once again forcing students to sell chocolate bars to raise money for the marching band’s new uniforms.

Before Xander went looking for the Scoobies, he looked at the boxes of chocolate as he asked Snyder, “By any chance, do you know where they’re shipping these from?” At Snyder’s cold dead stare, Xander smirked as he added, “I could buy two boxes if you happen to know.”

“Ten,” Snyder countered.

“Five,” Xander returned.

“Deal,” Snyder shot back with a stern finger point. Xander extended the two hundreds he had in his wallet, but didn’t let go when Snyder grabbed it. At the teen’s raised eyebrows, Snyder answered, “Milkbar Co, on Spin and West.”

As Xander looked for his friends, he pondered skipping class and driving straight to the warehouse. Trying to convince anyone not to eat a candy bar without a good lie seemed harder than just burning down the building. Fortunately, this event wouldn’t suffer any casualties. Even if the adults eat the candy, no one died. When Xander finally found Buffy, she already had a box of candy bars, and in an effort to prevent Giles and Joyce from eating them, he offered to buy the entire box.

“Awww, that’s so sweet,” the touched Buffy expressed.

“I have to go get the cash though, so don’t sell those to anyone till I get back,” Xander told her. He skipped school and went directly to the distribution warehouse on Spin Street and West. The building was larger than he’d expected, and he didn’t think he’d be able to burn it to the ground by himself. He voiced to himself, “Just the candy, then.”

Xander filled two sports water bottles with gasoline, and with Hellguard in his backpack, he walked into the building with all the confidence of a weary worker. Walking into the spacious warehouse, nearly the entire floor was full of boxes of cursed candy, piled nearly to the ceiling. He didn’t think the amount of gasoline he had was going to be enough. With a sigh, he thought of one thing that might work. However, he’d only ever used the spellwork when he had been possessed.

“No time like the present,” he mumbled to himself, walking deep into the aisle and away from the production line.

Scanning the ceiling, he located two sprinkler heads with stacks of boxes directly underneath them. He doused the boxes with gasoline before lighting a match and starting two sources of fires. With his head down, he walked outside and waited. After a few seconds, the fire alarm went off, and soon after that, workers began exiting the building. They were gathering together as they focused on the white smoke emanating from the building.

Clearing his mind as Merlin did, Xander closed his eyes and focused on feeling the ethereal all around him. It was the one spell Merlin had said wouldn’t backfire on him. Xander couldn’t sense anything, but that didn’t mean there was nothing there. In his mind, he voiced in Latin, ‘In regno nostro nox sit, et illis qui intra gressum dormiunt.’

Four people in front of him fell asleep and dropped to the floor.

“Holy shit,” Xander gasped, suddenly realizing how tired he was. “Holy… shit,” the fatigued teen repeated when he felt like sleeping as well.

Using Odin’s ring to keep his energy level up, he tried the spell again, putting another three workers to sleep. With seven people falling to the floor, the other adults panicked, stirring a frenzy. As no one could tell the spell was coming from him, Xander slipped between groups of frantic people and randomly put more people to sleep. When the firefighters, police, and ambulance showed up, the warehouse was shut down. Xander left the scene, feeling far more drained than he could have anticipated.

With the ring’s assistance, Xander stayed awake as he grabbed his spare cash, bought Buffy’s box of candy, and tried not to sleep in class. Regardless of his efforts, by nightfall, the Scooby Gang were still forced to deal with the adults that had eaten the cursed candy bars, including Giles, Joyce, and Jenny. Once responsible adults, they were now immature, unreliable annoyances who didn’t care about anything but delinquent fun and casual sex.

Rather than researching the cause in the library with Oz, Cordelia, and Willow; Xander went to the hospital while Buffy dealt with the love triangle raging between her mom, Giles, and Jenny. With Dreadnought on the latch at his back and Hellguard at his lower back, he hid and waited for vampires to come and kidnap the newborn babies. However, even after Xander killed them and saved the babies, he couldn’t ignore the giant snake-like demon in the sewers.

‘If it stays alive, it’ll always be a threat,’ he reasoned, which is why Xander let one of the four vampires leave. He followed the wounded and limping vampire to a manhole, which is when he ran into Buffy, Giles, Joyce, and Jenny. Giles was dressed in blue jeans and a white tee with the short sleeves folded up to his deltoids. Joyce was quite a sight in black shorts and a black top showing plenty of cleavage. Jenny had on a conservative skirt, but tied the tails of her tight dress-shirt right under her breasts, showing her entire toned stomach.

“Xandy-man!” Jenny sang at the sight of him, stretching both arms up before wrapping them around his neck. “There’s my delicious Xandy-man, mmmn!” Xander looked at Jenny like she was crazy, and both Giles and Buffy looked at him with heavy confusion. Eying Giles—who was holding Joyce’s hand—with vindictiveness, a jealous Jenny added, “Now here’s a guy I know can get the job done! All! Night! Long!”

With tremendous effort, Xander resisted the urge to look like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He slowly extricated the feckless woman from him, voicing, “Ooookay… Not sure what that’s about.” Though Giles stared daggers at Xander, he ignored it to inform the suspicious Buffy, “I’m following a vampire who tried to nab babies from the hospital. He went into the sewer. We’re going to lose him if we don’t hurry.”

Buffy nodded, getting serious before the group went down the manhole. The childish adults were complaining about the sewer water and the stench too loudly for Xander’s comfort, so he and Buffy had to move fast or risk alerting their enemy ahead. The tunnel they were traveling down led into a large room with the entrance of another tunnel at the other end. Three torches to every wall were lit, and several more were on the platform leading into the tunnel ahead. Four hooded figures dressed in the brown robes of a monk were arguing with Mr. Trick around an empty stone cradle where the babies were supposed to be.

Xander extended Hellguard toward the Slayer. She gratefully took it, and, without delay, they stormed the room. All four robed vampires attacked Xander and Buffy, however, it was no contest. With Xander’s enhanced physicality and combat IQ, he could handle two vampires as easily as Buffy could. Hop-stepping left and right to dodge three consecutive punches, Xander countered the last strike with Dreadnought’s handle, smashing into the nose of one vampire, while he kicked the second in the ribs. Continuing the spin, he decapitated that vampire before tossing the battleaxe to his last opponent. Though he dodged the weapon, Xander called it back, lopping off the vampire’s head.

He didn’t even break a sweat.

Buffy was done as well; however, they couldn’t celebrate. The group sensed a powerful vibration rumbling around them, along with the sound of stone grinding against a tough hide, and Xander knew what was coming. Recalling how Buffy defeated the snake-demon in the previous long loop, Xander located the exposed gas pipes above.

“Buffy!” he yelled, pointing to the pipes above them.

He leaped and came down with the skinny pipe spewing gas out of the broken end. Buffy followed his example as the demon Lurconis appeared out of the tunnel in front of them. The elephant-sized snake was black and green, hissing and ready to dine on the teens in front of it. Aiming the flowing stream of flammable gas at the torches on the platform, both Xander and Buffy used their make-shift flamethrower to burn the snake. For nearly a minute, they incinerated the violently thrashing giant snake-demon until it was charred black and dead.

After dealing with the baby-eating snake demon, Xander found himself following Buffy from afar. For ten days, he couldn’t shake the feeling she was behaving off. Though they still met and talked, they did little more than that. He felt she was pulling away, and his gut was telling him why. On the third night of tailing her, Xander saw, with enhanced vision, Buffy and Angel kissing in the abandoned mansion on Crawford Street.

Watching how passionately they kissed, as if they would die the second their lips separated, he immediately felt like a gutted fish. His intestines were being pulled roughly, making him feel emptier by the second. Xander felt cold, light-headed, and his enhanced vision spun in circles before the magic feeding them ended. The window he could clearly see through suddenly zoomed much too far away for him to observe Buffy and Angel anymore. Xander felt a different torture than when he was forced to see Buffy under Spike; less physically repulsed, and more dehumanizing. He then remembered Cordelia’s words.

‘You love her more than she loves you.’

Scoffing at the depths of his stupidity, Xander walked home alone, feeling himself throw away more and more of his emotions with every hour. He couldn’t sleep that night, and the following morning, he didn’t know how to deal with Buffy—or what to say—so he stayed busy. Exercise, school, the forge, training with both Faith and Cordelia in his house’s training room, and slaying at night. He didn’t reach out to Buffy in school or talk to her when it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and Xander found it telling when she didn’t confront him about the change in his behavior.

When Gwendolyn Post arrived as Faith’s new Watcher, Xander quickly retrieved the Glove of Myhnegon. From the previous long loop, he recalled it hidden in the Von Hauptman family crypt in Restfield Cemetery. Instead of handing the glove over to the bitchy Englishwoman, Xander took it to Wild Dinks, where he stayed for the weekend. He broke down the glove, transformed fire into Living Flame, and immolated it to begin constructing Faith’s magical weapon. In the meantime, Buffy and Faith dealt with Lagos, the warrior demon, who was searching for the glove of Myhnegon as well.

The numb Xander only left the forge when Willow called, worried something happened to him.

“Can you come by?” Willow pleaded. “I feel safer—we all feel safer—when you’re here. And it’s weird without you.”

The only reason Xander returned to the library was because Willow said Lagos nearly killed Faith trying to retrieve the glove. Xander still wasn’t sure if Faith’s death would force him to loop back, but he didn’t want to find out. He leaned against the wall, holding Dreadnought in his hands as Buffy insisted the glove wasn’t in the Von Hauptman family crypt. Without the energy to engage, Xander didn’t tell the group he melted down the glove already. He simply stood in silent numbness.

Gwendolyn was certain Giles and Buffy were keeping secrets, though Buffy denied it. Xander didn’t expect Faith to accuse, “So, you’re not hiding your ex-boyfriend in a mansion on Crawford? Angel was his name, right? The vampire who went crazy and killed a teacher.”

With rounding eyes, Buffy looked stunned while Giles, Willow, and Oz appeared confused. Giles turned to his Slayer and asked who, what, when, where, and why in a single word: “Buffy?”

The blonde girl slowly turned to the silent and still Xander, and she could see in his brown eyes that he already knew. Cordelia’s eyes landed on her ex-boyfriend and saw the depth of his heartache unlike anyone else in the room, then leveled Buffy with a fiery, “You bitch!”

As Xander and Buffy stared at each other, Faith told the group, “I was wondering why he’s been such a miserable sack of crap lately. Spotted Miss ‘I Have No Secrets’ sucking face with her ex.”

“Xander…” Buffy tried, only to be cut off.

Turning to the Englishwoman, Xander expressly told Post, “Actually, I have the glove. I found it days ago.”

“Xander, please. Let me explain-” Buffy tried again, taking a step toward him.

Sarcastically, Faith interrupted, asking, “Explain what? How you weren’t really cheating when you were sucking face with a vampire?”

“Buffy, did you… cheat on Xander?” Willow weakly asked, underlying her tone with genuine hurt.

She was across the room, but that one step already felt too close. Now that everyone knew, Xander was feeling angrier by the second. He kicked off the wall and walked to the door when Giles spoke up.

“Xander!” he called. “We must destroy it before Lagos can retrieve it.”

“No,” Post asserted, stepping toward the cage. She opened the cabinet with all of their weapons and grabbed the crossbow before telling the group, “We must use it against him.”

“Why?” Giles argued. “Destroying it would be the only way to ensure no one can use it for evil.”

Xander ignored them all, then Post yelled, “Halt, young man!” Xander turned to the Englishwoman, aiming the crossbow at his chest. “You will take me to the glove.”

“Whoa, hey, Post,” Faith called, clenching her fists in sudden worry for Xander. Buffy was inching closer to Post as Faith said, “That’s going a bit far.”

“A piece of advice, Faith,” Post started. “You’re an idiot.” Turning to Xander, she told him, “Move. Now.”

“Great… you’re evil,” Xander voiced sarcastically with a sigh. “That would be the cherry to end my day with.”

Feeling the furthest thing from fear there was, Xander walked toward Post without a single regard for personal safety. She aimed the crossbow more threateningly, but he didn’t waver. “Xander!” many of them called just as Post pulled the trigger, launching the bolt straight at his heart. Xander had such an awareness in his daredevil state of mind that his hand instinctively snapped to his chest the moment she pulled the trigger. Though the skin between his pecs was cut, his flexed hand caught the wooden bolt before it did more damage than cutting his shirt. Faith punched Post as Xander tossed the bolt, turned. and left. Cordelia and Faith were right behind him.

“Xander! I didn’t think he’d be back!” Buffy called after him, but he didn’t stop.

—B—

Wounded on behalf of her childhood friend, Willow looked at Buffy as if she didn’t even recognize her, and the guilt paralyzed the blonde tremendously. The slayer felt like she were in an oven when her best friend asked, “Please say it’s not true, Buffy. Please say you didn’t cheat on Xander with Angel. Or that Angel is even alive, to begin with!”

At a loss for words, Buffy’s expressive face looked a mixture of lost and conflicted. She knew that she wronged Willow nearly as much as Xander, for they’ve been friends since kindergarten and Willow would feel just as betrayed. Ignoring the heat hibernating in her armpits, Buffy softly answered, “I don’t know how Angel came back. But it’s not what you think.”

“Which part?!” Willow yelled back, making Buffy’s chest clench. “Lying to us about Angel? Or cheating on Xander?” Buffy lowered her blonde head in shame and Willow recoiled away from her, as if slapped in the face. The offended redhead was repulsed at the sight of Buffy, and hotly declared, “You need help, Buffy. But don’t count on me to give it.”

Willow turned her back on the Slayer and left the library, followed by Oz. Despite how guilty she felt, Buffy still needed to explain herself. Angel had been feral when he found her, but he was GOOD now. He had come back from hell for her, and even though she and Xander had something special, it had never been as soul-searing, heart-stopping, star-crossed lovers type of love. Angel came back for HER. How could she just abandon him, even knowing what Angelus had done to those she loved? Buffy needed to make sure she didn’t lose her friends, because she didn’t know what she’d do without them. She was lost without them.

In the silence that followed, Giles softly voiced, “Putting aside the tremendous lack of character it takes to betray the emotional bond with your significant other, it appears you’ve been hiding Angel. And that you lied to us.”

“I was going to tell you about him,” she desperately asserted, needing one person on her side. “I just didn’t know why he came back. I was waiting, but he’s good now, Giles. I swear.”

“Don’t interrupt me again,” Giles softly spoke, and yet the words felt like a slap in the face to Buffy. “I won’t remind you that the fate of the world often rests with the Slayer. What would be the point? But sadly, I must remind you that when they took me, Angel tortured me. For hours. For pleasure. You should’ve told me he was alive. You didn’t. Where Angel is concerned, you have no respect for me, the job I perform, or even your friends.”

Her blonde head dipped, and her toned shoulders sagged. Buffy appeared defeated, half-crying, and clenching her fists so tight they shook. Swallowing what felt like a rock in her throat, her voice trembled as she tried to respond, saying, “G-Giles…”

However, he told her, “Secure Ms. Post while I contact the Watchers’ Council.”

He left his ward standing in the middle of the library, alone and in silence. Her once home-away-from-home now felt like a cold tomb.

—X—

For the first time in a while, Xander didn’t want to do anything, but at least he wasn’t soiling himself in his bed this time. Feeling buried under the heavy weight of despondency, he skipped school the following day and stayed in his room. Xander didn’t eat, nor did he react much when Faith, Jenny, Willow, and Cordelia came to check on him. He’d told them he was fine and just wanted to be alone, but in truth, he felt grief and regret more than heartache. It was as if this was always the expected outcome; the one thing he could never change, no matter how many times he tried.

Later that night, Xander suddenly heard Buffy’s voice. He rolled over to see her in the doorway opposite his bed as she whispered, “May I come in?”

The morose teenager rolled back the other way before answering, “If you’re here to tell me how sorry you are, don’t bother. It’s not going to change anything.”

Buffy waited a moment, then took a step inside. The nervous girl took a deep breath before confessing, “I was more than ready to move on with you. I even felt so lucky to have you. But then he came back. I don’t know how, but I was just confused.”

Xander didn’t move an inch as he calmly asked, “Is that why you kissed him?”

Taken aback, the blonde asked, “You were spying on me?”

“You were acting distant, so I followed you to him.”

“So Faith didn’t tell you?”

Disturbed by her question, Xander sat up to ask, “Why are you here, Buffy? Because you can’t possibly think that looking at you is making me feel better right now. Do you know what pouring salt and acid on a wound feels like? Because this feels pretty damn close.”

“I’m really, really sorry, Xander.”

“You’re sorry,” he slowly repeated, as if tasting the words in his mouth. His face grimaced as he asked, “You’re sorry? What does that even mean? Are you sorry you cheated? Are you sorry you got caught? Are you sorry you were too chicken-shit to tell me? Are you sorry that I’m not some handsome, dark, brooding, two-hundred-year-old vampire for you to fall for? What the actual fuck are you sorry about?”

“You deserve someone better-”

“That’s bullshit!” he cut her off, jumping to his feet. Glaring at her, he asserted, “I’m not the Chosen One. I’m not the one saving the world from apocalypses on a yearly basis! You are! I’m just a regular, no-name geek from a hick town in California! If anyone here deserves better, it would be the Slayer! But you’re all about Opposite Day when it comes to love. If he ain’t a walking corpse that murdered a bunch of people in the past, it’s not good enough for you, is it?”

Unable to look at him, Buffy only stared at the floor; sad, angry, but deeply ashamed as well. Without another word, she left.

Willow stayed with Xander, Cordelia, and Faith more than Buffy, to support him through a hard time. Xander didn’t want to go to school, or Wild Dinks, or train, or even to slay. He simply didn’t have the energy he’d once had, and neither Dreadnought nor Odin’s Ring could fix this pain. Sadly, Xander had people who cared about him, and they wouldn’t let him suffer in peace. With Jenny’s help, Willow, Cordelia, and Faith tried to keep Xander busy, dragging him out of bed, and forcing him to engage with the world. For a week, the fighters slayed together; the students studied together, and they would all hang out in his house. Xander avoided Buffy and the library whenever possible, but one day, she came to him.

Faith and Xander were training and talking in his basement when Buffy knocked on his door upstairs. Though she was apprehensive about engaging with him, Buffy explained that Willow, Oz, and Jenny had been kidnapped by Spike. Giles had left for a Watcher’s retreat, and Spike took some ingredients for a spell from the library before fighting Buffy off. The slayer came to Xander hoping to merge forces and save their friends because other than Angel, she had no one else.

“You got a lot of nerve,” Faith scoffed at the sight of her sister-slayer.

Xander wasn’t sure what Spike could do to them with a soul, but he didn’t want to risk it. Pulling his scrambler out of the garage, Xander spotted Angel waiting by the curb, and immediately, he felt like killing him. If not for the threat of looping back, he would’ve called Dreadnought and ended the undead life of Angel. Instead, Xander ignored the tall vampire and raged internally.

Xander rode around town with his enhanced sense of smell with Faith at his back until he picked up Willow’s scent. Buffy and Angel followed him in Giles’ car, all the way to the burned wreckage of the Bric & Broc warehouse. The group quickly went down to the basement and found Spike, knife in hand, threatening Willow and Jenny to hurry. Oz was on the bed, bleeding from the forehead and unconscious.

Spike quickly sensed them and took Willow hostage, ordering Jenny to keep working. Lifting a sharp knife to her neck made him shiver in pain, so he moved it down to her stomach before declaring, “Stay back! I might not be able to kill her, but I can hurt her bad!”

“Let her go,” Angel threatened with a stake at the ready.

“Listen, you goody-posh-twats,” Spike started. “Just let the misses over there cast the same soul curse I got, on Dru. Then you can have your dearest Red back.” Buffy barely leaned forward when Spike pressed the sharp blade dangerously close to Willow’s stomach. “Ah-aah. Just give the witch ten minutes, luv. Then we can all go home for a nice cup of tea and biscuits.”

Reluctantly, Buffy stayed back. Despite being backed into a corner, Buffy, Angel, and Faith couldn’t risk Willow’s safety. However, Xander’s been seething since he saw Angel, and told Spike, “Fine. I don’t have a problem giving Dru a soul. Just switch Willow with me.”

Eying him as if he were crazy, Spike asked, “How stupid do you think I am, mate?”

With his enhanced strength, Xander threw Dreadnought to the side, and its blade embedded deep into the stone wall. The sudden action put everyone more on edge, unsure of what he was going to do.

“I’m weaker than a Slayer,” he explained. “You can handle a regular human. I just want Willow.”

“Stay where you are,” Spike warned. “I might not kill her, but I can still hurt her.”

The growing fear on Willow’s face was an injustice. His childhood friend shouldn’t be the one scared and hurting. Xander genuinely offered, “You can break my hands so I can’t hold anything. Just switch her for me, Spike. Please. I know you can do that.”

Smiling at the violent offer, Spike nodded to Buffy and stipulated, “Have her do it. You let the Slayer break both your hands, and I’d be up for a switch-er-roo.”

Xander turned to Buffy without delay and extended his hands to the appalled slayer.

“No,” she emphatically asserted, shaking her head.

“Do it,” Xander told her.

“No, I won’t-”

“Buffy! Stop,” he interrupted. Eying Angel for a moment, he said, “You already made your choice. Let’s just live with it.”

As they stared at each other, a dozen seconds passed in silence. When it appeared he wouldn’t relent, Buffy reluctantly grabbed his hands. Her hands were surprisingly warm, but he wished they weren’t. She started squeezing, but at Xander’s first grunt, she immediately let go.

“No,” she yelled, backing away. “Sorry, but I can’t. I can’t.”

Eying her with the dead eyes of a corpse, Xander incredulously asked, “You think because these are my bones, it’s going to hurt worse than what you already did?”

Guilt came across her face before the ashamed Slayer suggested, “Just let Ms. Calendar finish-”

Xander didn’t let Buffy finish. He took off his ring, walked to the nearest stone wall, then punched the red brick as many times as it took to hear the most disturbing CRACK echo throughout the room. He groaned terribly from the mind-altering agony burning up his arms and blurring his vision, but kept the cry in his tense throat. His skin reddened—feverishly so—and his forehead was sweating. His bloodied hands were shaking, and his tears were welling up in his eyes.

His throat was wavy as he asked Spike, “Good?”

The blond vampire nodded, and Xander traded himself for a tearful Willow. With Spike’s arm around Xander’s neck, the raven-haired teen appreciated the coldness. Then the bad boy vampire had to speak, curiously asking, “So… you two… a thing?”

Rolling his tear-filled red eyes, Xander replied, “I’m in enough pain…”

“Fine… fine,” Spike accepted with a cordial nod. After another few seconds, while Jenny was casting in the background, the blond vampire continued. “Just… couldn’t help notice the tension, is all. Trouble in paradise?”

“...What paradise?” the suffering boy slowly asked.

“Listen, mate,” tilting his head in hope of catching Xander’s drooping eyes. “I won’t deny I was touched you’d go so far for a friend. Real admirable, that. So I’ll give you a piece of advice; free of charge.”

“Oh, just kill me,” Xander groaned miserably.

Ignoring the request, Spike advised, “Forget her, mate. If you don’t got it in you to take what you want, no apology, she won’t ever notice you. Not till she’s thirty and been through enough bad, bad men like me to know any better.” Xander groaned more from the friendly advice than the throbbing pain poisoning his body like millions of tiny stabs. “You gotta get in their heads like a parasite. Keep fucking with ‘em till she don’t know what’s what.”

“Is that... what Drusilla... has to look forward to?”

“Dru’s my everything,” he happily shared. “I’d do anything for that girl, clearly; if stuffin’ a sodding soul in her isn’t proof of that…” Xander’s vision was blurring and his balance was wavering so badly Spike had to hold him still. When Jenny finally managed to cast the curse, Willow and Faith took care of her while Spike threw Xander toward Buffy. She caught him while the vampire fought for his escape. Faith wanted to chase him down, but was more worried about Xander.

The brunette Slayer pulled his battleaxe out of the wall and forced his hand to grab it. Though it hurt like crazy, he also felt a pleasant, cooling sensation spread through him. With the help of Odin’s ring and Dreadnought’s magic, Xander rested the entire weekend before function returned to his hand. Faith, Cordelia, Willow, and Buffy watched over him. One of the few times he awoke, he saw Buffy sitting in the chair next to his bed.

Xander sat up, but didn’t look at her when he stoically voiced, “If I’ve learned anything this time, it’s that I can’t force you to love me.” His voice was gruff, as if he hadn’t used it in days, when he added, “Maybe you can’t force anyone. Maybe it’s there, or it’s not, and that’s it.”

“That’s the thing,” she softly spoke. “I know it’s there. I know I could be happy with you.”

“You know that, huh?” He said with a laugh, as if it were a solid joke. “But…”

“But…” Buffy sadly continued. “I can’t stop… My heart can’t stop gravitating toward Angel. It’s not something I can control, Xander; as much as I would want to.”

“You can’t control who you love,” Xander replied. “I get that—too much. But you can control honesty and integrity. That’s neither here nor there, I guess.” Finally looking at her, he saw the streams of tears rolling down her lovely cheeks and told her, “Just go, Buffy. There’s nothing more to say.”

“I’m sorry,” she said before moving toward the door. Just before she left, she confessed, “You know, Spike was right about one thing: If you and I are single in the future, I’d definitely go after you.”

Considering his time prison, he snorted at the absurdity before remarking, “If I ever make it that far.”

“I’ll keep you alive, Xander,” she assured him. “It’s why I’m here.”

If Sherlock’s numbers were correct, Xander didn’t believe he’d live on past January, but when she said that, he had to laugh. ‘It’s why I’m here,’ he repeated in his mind over and over again; only making him laugh continuously, because that sentence felt like the ultimate death sentence.

Getting out of the day, week, and month loop required altering the perception of him in the minds of key figures; himself, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Angel, and, likely Spike. As Merlin said, the time braid was about a realignment. There was no magical object to steal, no powerful spell to learn, or a godly foe to take down. No, he thought that the sickest joke Fate, or the Gods, could play on him, was making Buffy—the girl who breaks his heart the most—the key to his freedom, and that was too hilarious not to laugh about for hours. The time prison Xander felt stuck in, now felt he was on death row, and he was losing his mind.

‘Knowing my luck,’ Xander thought between heaving laughs. ‘The key to getting out would be the most impossible task; getting Buffy to pick me over them.’ Xander laughed sporadically throughout the night at the most cosmic of pranks across all levels of realities and dimensions.

Since he already wrote off getting past January, Xander did whatever he could to make the next one the last one. Aside from having regular sex with Cordelia, and now Faith, he would ask them questions he never had before; especially Faith. The Bostonian girl always came around in the last few months of the year loop, so he never had much time to get to know her. She wasn’t much for sharing, but with every passing day, he learned something new.

The first time they had sex, it was after fighting a formidable demon. They hacked away at the stout beast until they were covered in blue gore. Xander couldn’t deny how sexy she looked in the shiny ichor. He didn’t care about taking it slow or asking permission. He simply stepped up to her and kissed her. Immediately, the passionate brunette returned the kiss, and they couldn’t get back to Xander’s shower quick enough. Though he instinctively made mental notes of what made her moan louder, he simply fucked her into the shower wall and then the mattress all night. Faith was just as strong as Kendra, and as vigorous as Cordelia. Xander was thrilled to use all his enhanced strength to dominate her.

It didn’t take long for Cordelia to discover them and it was the next night that Xander started alternating between the brunettes. Though Faith tried to convince the popular beauty into a threesome, Cordelia simply wasn’t into other women like Faith was. Fortunately for Xander, Dreadnought and Odin’s Ring helped recuperate his energy between sessions. But overall, Xander enjoyed waking up next to a naked beauty every morning.

More than anything, Xander hung out with Willow as often as he could. Being with her was the most innocent and carefree moments of the day for him. She would tell him what was going on with Buffy and Giles, and the intel empowered him to defend her and Amy when the town came after them for witchcraft. Xander, Faith, and Buffy stopped the adults from trying to burn Willow at the stake, while Giles, Jenny, Oz, and Cordelia undid the spell controlling the town. With the demon cursing the town exposed, Buffy quickly killed it, ending its influence on Sunnydale.

Xander skipped Buffy’s birthday, so only heard about how she lost her powers, and was forced by the Watcher’s Council to kill a vampire without her Slayer strength after the fact. Willow explained it was an asinine trial all Slayers underwent when they turn eighteen, but Xander was more surprised that Giles was fired from the Watcher’s organization. Apparently, caring about Buffy like a daughter instead of a weapon to use against evil was not tolerated amongst his superiors.

Later that night, Buffy found Xander at Wild Dinks, working over his anvil on Faith’s long-awaited weapon. He didn’t greet her as he set the red-hot metal down to cool next to its twin, then waited. Buffy twiddled her thumbs a moment before saying, “I want you to come back.”

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” Xander replied.

“Please, Xander,” she sadly voiced, taking a step closer. “I’m so beyond sorry for what I did to you, and I hate that it turned out this way. I mean, do you really think I’d want to throw away what we shared for someone I can’t fully be intimate with? I don’t, Xander.”

The blacksmith didn’t answer, because he was observing her. Somehow, she looked different; aged, nearly desperate. He wasn’t sure why, but it was possible she hadn’t been sleeping.

Rubbing her red nose, Buffy continued saying, “I’d love it if it wasn’t all so complicated. But I want you in my life. I need you in my life, because we’re not the Scoobies without you.”

“I wish it wasn’t so complicated either,” he admitted. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s how you want me in your life that’s the problem, Buff. So…”

“Don’t give up on me,” Buffy quickly voiced, halting him from returning to his work. He looked at her stern expression as she asserted, “I know I don’t deserve it, and… and, I know that you’re… with Faith sometimes… at night.” He smiled at how sex-talk embarrassed the blushing blonde. “But, I know… I know you and I aren’t done here. So, please, Xander, all I’m asking is that you don’t give up on me; even if it takes me thirty years to earn your trust again. Don’t give up. Because I won’t give up on you.” The sweaty teen looked at the seriousness in Buffy’s greenish-blue eyes—a determination he’d seen so many times before—and knew she was being genuine. Though he found it odd when she stoically added, “I’ll keep you safe.”

Buffy left him, and he didn’t ask what she’d meant by that. Then he couldn’t ask what she meant, because several mornings later, Xander woke up in the smelly and unkempt room of a geek. The day was October 31st, 1997, and once again, the dejected teenager had lost all the hard work and effort he put into every single day. The fit body, the beautiful girls, the bountiful money, and the sense of progress, but Xander didn’t feel doomed. He had the spark of an idea that just might make the next year-loop the very last one.