Chapter 6: In Which Things Get Better "Oh no. Xander. That skank." Anya screamed. She paced the floor where the scattered remains of the scrying spell lay. "She won't hurt him while they're on a date Anya. At least I don't think..."Tara said helpfully. "How dare she touch him! He's mine. And mine alone! Why if I still had my powers!" "Well you don't. We need to stay calm. I hope Xander realizes that as long as she stays drunk he'll be fine." Giles added to the pacing. His spectacles were being rubbed out with the cloth by his nervous fingers. "What do we do now? Find Buffy. Find Dawn or save Xander? Because I don't know which is worse." Willow let a tear trickle down her cheek. "We don't have to worry about Glory going after Dawn right now so that takes some pressure off. She's only in danger from the normal evils." Anya said focusing a little. Willow gave her an alarmed look. "Let's focus. How did your scrying spell go?" Giles stopped moving around and looked at the wiccans. "Bad. Then worse. They aren't on any planes we checked. Of course there are so many more. And ones we haven't even imagined." "It could take a lifetime." Anya moaned. "There has to be obvious ones we haven't checked. Tell me which ones you've checked." "Obviously ours. Then we looked through the parallel ones. There's all the other ones. Every moment in time exists in a universe of itself. That's so many gazillions of universes." "Is there a way to look through them all simultaneously?" "Yeah. But almost every one of the people who tried it exploded with the intensity. I watched once. It wasn't pretty." "Most not all?" "Willow you can't consider it." Giles shook his head. "It's Buffy. We have to do everything possible." "Not if it kills you." His voice was sharp and final. "There will be another way. We just have to be observant." Elsewhere... "And I said, ‘Hey are you the minion? Then do it!' Those were good times." Xander nodded. She took another gulp of wine from her glass. So far so good, she hadn't touched him, at least not in that I-Want-To-Kill- You way. "Maybe if you said it nicer he would be more willing?" "Nice? I'm a goddess. I shouldn't have to be nice." "Not nice. But polite. We had this evil Mayor who was very polite. It helped him almost achieve the domination of Sunnydale." "Really? But it's so not me. I threaten and I piss off and I don't bow down to anyone." "It's not bowing down. It's appeasing your non superiors to put them at ill ease." "Well I like the ill at ease part. I'll have to think about it. You've been really great about this whole date thing. The only dates I've been on have been with women as Ben. Of course, I don't really remember them. I usually end up sucking the life out of my dates or killing them, depending on what species they are. But with you I don't think I want to." "That's good." "Shut up. I'm ranting." She stopped long enough to take in a forkful of pasta then continued. "But your little girlfriend is probably gonna get in the way. It's gonna be a pain to kill her." "No killing. There's enough Xander to go around." "We'll see. I'm tired of dinner. Let's go back to my place." She finished off her wine and stood up shakily. Xander tossed some money on the table before she dragged him outside. While being dragged he thought he caught sight of Dawn. "Dawny!" "Xander?" "Go home. They're looking for you." "What about you?" "I'm fine...hey Jonathan." "Hey." Xander looked suspiciously at Jonathan but he was dragged away to fast to process the information. "Told you they cared." Jonathan smiled. "Do you want to come back with me? I'm sure they won't mind." "I don't know. It's been a long time since we talked." "Please?" "Ok." He shrugged. "Don't have much else to do." They walked back to the house. Everyone was running about but when she arrived they all rushed at her and enveloped her with hugs and shouts. "Dawny! We were so worried. We didn't know what to do." "I'm ok. Do you guys remember Jonathan? I hope you don't mind if he came over." They exchanged glances. "Come in." Willow said at last. "I saw Xander. Do you know he's with Glory?" "Yeah. She's a drunken bitch. Oops. I mean witch." Anya smiled. "He's ok right?" "No bruises as far as I could see." "What about lipstick marks? Any of those? Or rumpled hair?" "None of those either." "Good." "Hey. You guys. The bot is still out there looking for Dawn. We should go get it. It might try to rescue Xander." "Oh. Right." "What's a bot?" "As long as you're here, be useful .Come with me. We'll go get it. That way I can check up on Xander. Lord knows what that whore has done to him." With that Anya marched Jonathan out the door. Chapter 7