Xander woke up confused.

Confused but alive.

He sat up slowly, almost afraid he'd find some vital part of his anatomy missing.

Looking around carefully, he was only mildly surprised to find the bodies of the two demons he killed.

The larger one had obviously survived.

The last thing he remembered was the demon's large red eyes staring at him, and knowing, without a doubt that he was going to die.

He hadn't been overly alarmed or even very afraid.

Death seemed to be inevitable.

It had seemed that way in his other life, back in Sunnydale, and seemed even more so the way he had been living these past few years.

Only apparently death wasn't so inevitable.

He stood up, a little disoriented and tried to stake stock of his surroundings.

He was still in the alley behind the pub. He must have been unconscious for a while. The sun was beginning to rise.

Xander looked over his body, inspecting himself for injuries.

He didn't find any. Though if the large bloodstain on his shirt was any indication, there should have been at least one.

Taking his shirt off, Xander looked more closely. The skin was completely clear.

Weird.

Shaking his head from the strangeness of the situation, Xander moved out of the alley and back towards his motel room.

He wanted to take a shower, change his clothes and get as far away from this town as possible.

*~*~*~*

Willow sighed heavily as she looked through the day's mail one more time.

"Nothing?" Cordelia asked as she sat down next o the redhead.

"No." Willow told her girlfriend sadly. "I'm worried. We haven't heard from him in months. I know he isn't exactly dependable with the mail, but still."

"Maybe he doesn't know how to reach you. You haven't heard from him since we left Sunnydale." Cordelia offered.

"No. If he really wanted to find me, he could. We're not exactly hiding." She smiled slightly but her eyes were still worried.

"Maybe we should talk to Angel." Cordelia said, just as worried as Willow was.

She knew when Xander left Sunnydale it was a sign of things to come; That they would all eventually leave, and they had. But what she hadn't realized at the time was that they might never see him again.

"No. Not yet." Willow said. "Xander will probably call soon. Angel will just."

"Yeah, I know." Cordelia nodded. She knew exactly what Angel would *just* do.

He may have been one of her closest friends, and her boss, but the souled vampire was extremely touchy where Xander Harris was concerned.

A subject no one was prepared to bring up unless it was absolutely necessary.

"So." Cordelia nodded at the pile of mail. "Anything interesting?"

Willow shrugged as she flipped through it, stopping at a postcard with a Nevada postmark. "Faith says that she and Spike are supposed to meet up in a few days. They'll be heading back soon."

Cordelia nodded. "They haven't killed each other yet. That's a good sign."

Willow laughed. "This is true." She turned to look out the far window. "You know when we left Sunnydale after everything had been so."

"Bad." Cordelia offered. "Intense. Oh, and don't forget psychotic."

Willow smiled, allowing Cordelia the adjectives of her choosing. "When we left, I never imagined that we'd be friends with another Slayer."

"Another Slayer shacking up with a vampire." Cordelia added.

"Yeah." Willow stood up, taking the stack of mail and setting it on the table near the door. "Come on, I'll drop you off at the hotel before I go to class."

Cordelia stood up, grabbed her purse and followed her girlfriend out the door.

"'Night Dennis." They both called as the deadbolt slipped into place behind them.

*~*~*~*

Xander hid in the shadows as he watched two people fighting. He was standing pretty far away, so it was hard to tell, but they appeared to both be human The weird thing was, it wasn't like any standard fight he'd seen by people other than demons or vampires.

Normally, when mortals fought, it was over money, or some other trivial thing, and more often than not it was between a couple of guys who weren't necessarily skilled in combat.

This, however was different.

Both of these guys were obviously pretty well matched, and pretty well versed in martial arts as well as in the use of the long swords both carried.

Xander was more than a little curious.

He crept a little closer, only to become dizzy and back up even further. His head seemed to be spinning, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them up again, one of the guys held the blade of his sword against the other guys neck and with a quick movement, sliced his head clean off.

Xander blinked in shock.

It wasn't that decapitation was so unfamiliar to him. He used it himself more often than not.

You'd be amazed at how many things are killed that way. Still, it was unusual for two mortal men to end a fight that way.

Anything else he thought of saying was suspended when out of nowhere a freak lighten storm started, seemingly situated right over where the two men had been fighting.

The lightening hit the survivor in the chest. But instead of killing him, or even incapacitating him, it seemed to move through him, as if it had a will of it's own.

The man screamed, and sunk to his knees.

Xander stared in shock and disbelief until the man looked up, and their eyes locked over the distance.

Xander ran.

*~*~*~*

It wasn't long before Xander had convinced himself that he had imagined whatever he had seen that night.

Two men had not had a duel, with actual swords. One of them had not killed the other, and then been a victim on a weird lightening storm.

That was just too weird, even for his life.

Or so he thought.

*~*~*~*

Three weeks later, Xander was in another town about fifty miles away, and was convinced that he was being followed.

He wasn't sure what led him to that conclusion... exactly. He hadn't seen any evidence, but... it was just a feeling he had. Or maybe it was the killer headache he'd had on and off for three days. Maybe it was making him hallucinate. Or maybe not.

Deciding he was too tired, and getting to be too old for hide and seek, Xander led his pursuer into a deserted street.

His pursuer attacked him.

That in and of itself wasn't necessarily unusual.

Xander spent his life wandering from town to town, hunting, killing and maiming demons.

Occasionally one got it into his head to attack him first.

But this was different.

This wasn't a demon, or a vampire. Though there was something unusual, and disturbingly familiar about him.

It was too dark to get a good look, but Xander was almost positive that his opponent was human.

And packing a large sword.

Flashing on the fight he'd witnessed weeks earlier, Xander made an effort to keep the blade as far away from his neck as possible.

The man was a better fighter than he, but Xander had picked up a few things.

He embedded his lucky knife into the mans thigh, causing him to fall down.

Xander moved away from the man, content to just leave him wounded, but something made him stop.

His eyes traveled over the man's body, still hard to see in the dark. He saw the man's grip on the hilt of his sword loosen, and for some reason he couldn't quite explain, Xander grabbed the weapon, and before he had realized what he had done, the man's head was lying two feet away from the rest of his body.

In a bizarre repeat of the earlier beheading, a freak lightening storm appeared, causing Xander to see the man's severed head clearly.

It was the head of the man who had won that other fight.

It was the last coherent thought he had before he was taken over by the first bolt of lightening.

*~*~*~*

It wasn't long after he had survived what could only be described as another bizarre event in the life of Xander Harris that he found himself, quite by accident in an even smaller town on the eastern coast.

The town itself had a dwindling population of less than five hundred people, but was a popular area for the college students of the nearby towns due to both its spot near the shore, and it's one attraction. A nightclub.

The club was in a bad area of the small town, as if there were any good areas.

Despite the fact that the town boasted more than it's fair share of demons and vampires, the college students still flocked there.

Maybe because it seemed so dangerous. Or maybe because even the local police stayed away.

Either way, Xander knew that this particular place was too easy for vampires to pass up.

What he hadn't counted on was a piece of his past to rear its ugly head.

He'd gotten to the club early; a full hour before the band was due to come on.

Xander spent that hour moving through the throng of bodies, trying to spot anything that shouldn't be there; anything that might have come looking for a meal, or an unwilling plaything.

His search was pretty much a bust when the band started to play.

Xander recognized the opening notes of the song and froze.

What were the odds, really?

Pretty good, apparently.

The smart thing would have been to get out before he could have been spotted.

He just stood there, staring.

Eventually the song ended and Xander could feel his feet again. He moved through the crowds, towards the door before anything else could happen. If he was lucky, maybe no one who knew him had seen him.

Luck wasn't on his side.

"Xander?"

Xander had just gotten outside and was moving away from the building when the voice stopped him.

"Oz." Xander sighed as he turned around.

"Hey." The musician nodded. "You look good."

"You too." Xander shrugged, seriously uncomfortable. "How've you been?"

"Okay." Oz stepped closer. "You hear about Buffy?"

Xander nodded, though he wasn't sure what Oz was talking about, exactly.

"She was never the same after you left."

Xander looked across the space between them. "You mean she was never the same after I helped send her beloved Angel to Hell."

Oz shrugged. "You did what you had to. Willow understood that."

"But Buffy never did." Xander stated. "Is Willow happy?" He asked suddenly.

Oz shrugged. "I think so. She and Cordelia are in Los Angeles now. After Buffy died, they didn't really see much point anymore."

Xander took in this bit of information, his expression never changing, though he hadn't known about either Buffy's death or Willow and Cordelia's leaving Sunnydale.

"Is there a new Slayer?" He asked, though he didn't much care about the answer.

"Yeah. Faith. She's. a bit unorthodox."

Xander shrugged.

"Xander, about Buffy. it's not your fault. She changed."

"Everyone changes." Xander stepped back. He didn't know what else to say. "I have to go." He started moving away. "Don't tell anyone you saw me."

Oz let him go. There was something off about him. Something he couldn't quite place. Something in his manner, or maybe in the way he smelled.

Maybe Xander was right. Everyone did change.

*~*~*~*

The brief encounter with Oz had left Xander feeling hollow.

He knew that the news of Buffy's death should have shocked him. Surprised him. Something. But. he didn't feel anything. Not anger, or guilt, or sadness. It was almost as if he was dead inside.

Now, more than ever, he knew he could never go home.

*~*~*~*

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