Xander Harris had survived a lot. Bad family situation, can do. He'd just slip out of the house while the folks battled it out, and hang with Willow. Her folks never seemed to notice they were feeding two, instead of one. Non-existent social life? Not a problem. He had his Will, and Jesse, and then later, when Jesse was gone, he had Buffy. Quality overpowering quantity. Dating? Cordelia, Anya... he wasn't doing so badly, thank you very much. Weird relationships, absolutely, but he was moving forward, come a long way from suck-your-fat Ampata.

He still had bad dreams about her. Sad dreams, too.

So, all in all, he felt like he'd come through adolescence pretty well.

But nobody told him that the hard part came later. That the older you get, the worse the damage inflicted could be.

"Will? Hey, Will, come on. Talk to me. It's me, Xander. Willow?"

Her eyes never blinked, never focused on him, three inches in front of her. Her expression never changed, and her breathing, that soft, measured, too-quiet breathing, stayed exactly the same, hour after hour. Day after day. Willow Rosenberg's body was curled in a chair in Buffy's dorm room, but nobody was home, inside.

Which is why he was here. Now. Standing in the hallway outside the room, seeing and not seeing the college students passing by, intent on their lives, their concerns. Thinking, and not thinking, what could have driven his best, oldest friend into catatonia.

What did he do to her?

Cordelia had wanted to take her to the school infirmary, get her checked up, but Buffy had vetoed that suggestion. They weren't going to leave her alone, not even for a moment. Not even to confirm what they all pretty much knew. And if the school nurse saw her, they'd have Willow bundled off to a hospital before anyone could protest, and who would protect her then?

Which kind of begged the question - was there anything left they could protect her from?

Xander pivoted, suddenly, sharply, with an economy of motion remembered from Soldier!Xander, and slammed his open palm against the wall, welcoming the pain that shot through his nerve endings. He had started to think he was as numb as Willow. As dead as Jesse.

Oz came out of the room, in response to the noise, and looked at Xander. No need to say anything - Oz had a splint on his wrist from where he'd tried to tear down a door, and ended up fracturing something instead. Physical pain was always preferable to the emotional kind. At least, if you were a guy.

"I gotta get some air," Xander finally muttered. Oz nodded, and stuck his head back in to tell Buffy and Cordelia where they were going. Not outside, not all the way, but the dorm had a little courtyard thing, low walls and a couple of benches, where smokers congregated. Crowded, even in health-conscious California, and therefore as safe as safe got these days.

Which was, not at all.

"Okay, laundry, laundry...mom did laundry! We're having a lucky day."

Oz leaned against the wall, watching Cordelia watching him while Xander rummaged through his room, looking for clothes to shove into the duffle bag at his feet. Buffy and Joyce were using the daylight to load Willow into the car and get her to the Summers' house. They were all moving there, permanently. If the thing that was wearing Giles' body was testing them, it took some of the pressure off protecting everyone else. People who were where they weren't should be safe. Which made sense, kind of.

Buffy had wanted to get them all out of town, but Mrs. Summers had put her foot down pretty hard on that one. She'd made good points, too, Oz mused. They knew this town, knew what to expect. If they ran, the demon might have trouble.. but so would they.

Here, if Buffy Summers yelled at someone to get inside and stay inside, they did it. Mostly. Out there, she'd probably get herself shot by some overzealous cop with a macho infusion.

"Come on, Xander. Don't worry about making anything match - it won't, anyway. And Mrs. Summers has a washing machine, so it doesn't even have to be clean."

"Right. Good point, well made." Xander shoved one last item in his bag, looked around at the basement apartment, and shrugged. "Let's go."

"Sunlight. Nasty stuff." The vampire tested the strength of the sun with one finger outstretched, and pulled it back quickly.

Ripper looked at his lieutenant with an unpleasant smile. "Suffering's good for you."

"No, it's good for you. I'm not so much on it. Give me a nice '75 vintage, AB positive, a comfy place to snooze, and cable tv, that's all I ask out of life."

"And the chance to crack open heads every now and then."

"Well, yeah, that too," Spike admitted cheerfully, leaning against the wall. They were standing under an overhang along the side of the Harris house, well out of reach of the sunlight. Spike's face had a decidedly pink tinge to it, and the hair on Ripper's forearms gave off a slightly singed smell, but otherwise, they were suffering no harm from being out in the daylight.

"But I prefer doing it somewhere my skin won't do the combustin' thing."

"Move fast, and the damage will be limited. And do put your hat on." The voice was that of Ripper. The tone was that of an exasperated parent.

"Right. Here we go, showtime!"

"I don't see why we even have to go to the mansion," Xander was saying. "I mean, it's not like he'd be hanging around there, would he?"

"Shut up, okay Xander? We're talking about my boss, here. He disappears, the office account gets frozen, I don't get paid. So if he's dust, I want to know about it, so I can look for another job."

"Lovely. Nice to see your priorities haven't changed all that much in L.A."

Their bickering had a nastier edge to it, the fear and uncertainty making them reach for available targets.

"Guys?" Oz, cautionary.

"Right. Okay, we'll swing by the mansion, see if dead-boy's there. But then straight home. I'm not wanting to be out at dusk with psycho Watcher-vamp on the prowl."

The coarse rope noose around his neck caught Xander by surprise, and he only had time to hear the start of Cordelia's scream before the world went black.

Xander came up fighting, taking out one of the bodies holding him before the others wrestled him back down to the ground. His throat was on fire, and he felt like the end result of one of Willow's more spectacular spell-failures, but all that faded into trivia when he realized that the hands holding him down were cold. Dead-cold. Corpse cold.

He looked up, and saw a pair of legs standing in front of him. Black dress shoes, spit-shined. Black trousers, wool, pleated, probably some designer Cordelia would approve of. Shirt, a bright blood red, cuffs turned up.

"Snazzy new look," Xander managed. "I think I preferred the tweed though, if you ask me."

The vampire gestured to his henchmen, and they dragged Xander to his feet. Another gesture, and they left the room, leaving the two of them together. Alone.

Do it! Do...something! a little voice screamed in Xander's head.

Yeah, right, Xander told the voice. With what? My fingernails? 'Cause unless you happen to have a stake handy...

The voice went silent.

The vampire that wasn't Giles sighed, and the sound was so familiar, Xander's chest contracted painfully. 'Giles?'

He risked looking into the vampire's face, and felt all his hopes shrivel and die, once and for all. The pale eyes that looked back at him weren't the Watcher's. Weren't, in fact, human at all.

"Xander. And once again, you manage to be a complete and total lack of help. The military guy, the one with all the instincts... none of it did much good now, did it? Didn't save you. Or your friends."

Cordy. Oz... Xander felt panic rise. Oh god, he killed them...but then why am I still alive?

"You didn't kill them," he said out loud, braver than he felt. "If you'd wanted to kill us, we'd be dead already."

The vampire laughed, walking away from Xander a short distance, turning his back on him in a cleanly calculated insult. "True. I was hoping some of you would show some...initiative. Talent, even. But, as usual..." He shrugged, an elegant maneuver, and turned back to face the teenager. "As usual, Xander, you disappoint. I can't imagine what I ever thought would come out of you - there wasn't even the potential for potential."

The cold in his voice slipped into Xander's brain first, then down his spinal cord, until he could feel everything freezing as it went.

...Good for nothing...stupid...lazy son of a bitch...what did I do to piss god off, to end up with a kid like you?

"And then, you don't even have the talent to be a good little bunny, and make the hunt exciting. Leaving the house like that, without checking..."

"It was daylight..." Xander said, trying to shout out the memory-voices in his own head as well as the educated, hated voice in front of him.

"You made assumptions. Assumptions will get you killed, little boy. Like the pretty witch..."

"Willow?" Fear made his voice into a tight squeak. God, oh god, had he gotten to her again?

"She assumed I would kill her, too. But such a lovely, bright brain..." The demon leered. "And the tight little body to go with it. Such smooth skin, and even softer inside. That was delicious, almost as delicious as her fear."

Xander gagged on the bile rising, and lunged forward. But the vampire merely moved out of his way, faster than Xander could react to.

"She wasn't a virgin any more, of course, more's the pity. But I showed her a few new tricks before we were all done. She didn't want to scream... good girls don't make noise now, do they? But I ... insisted."

The vampire paused, looking down at the human with a distant, distracted look on his face. "And the sound of her mind snapping, now that was a lovely, lovely noise..."

With an animalistic yowl, Xander lunged again, the complete mindlessness of it giving him the slight edge he needed to make contact with his tormenter's neck. He grabbed, dug in...

And felt a pair of hard, cool hands touch the back of his neck, the small of his back, and then a sharp pain cutting, fire on ice... and then all sensation ended.

Ripper let the body crumple at his feet, the bright red blood pooling untouched on the basement floor, and sighed again, the exhalation of a man who has wasted an evening on a particularly uninspired play.

"You should have tried to kill me the moment you saw the Witch. The puppy knew that much, even before he saw the evidence.

"I'm afraid that once again, Xander, you just didn't make the grade."