needsaparrot | Xander's room at the Arms, early Thursday Morning

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Xander's room at the Arms, early Thursday Morning

Right, this wouldn't be Xander pacing around, worrying about Bridge and Z and cursing the lack of new news, in between poking verrrrry carefully at the old news in his in-box in case something jumps out and bites him. Which hey, Fandom, always a possibility.

He was also hoping he might hear from somebody who'd be likely to understand how completely fraxx0red his brain was right about now.
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[OOC: For

willbedone]

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"He was evil, and he had an evil thumb. That's pretty much the short version."

Willow couldn't hide her wince. She reached over to hold Xander's hand. "Did I hurt him a lot?"

Oh, that wasn't a loaded question.

That wasn't Xander's other hand behind his back with his fingers loosely crossed, either. "Buffy got to him first."

Which wasn't a lie, and he was pretty sure Faith would forgive him the omission under the circumstances, but a good finger-cross when you're not being completely honest never hurts. Unless somebody's watching your fingers and then it's just dumb.

"I guess that's okay," Willow said. She still scooted closer though, as though being nearer would somehow comfort him retroactively.

He considered telling her exactly what Buffy had done when she got to him, but didn't. There was a reason why it was a loaded question, and it didn't have anything to do with Faith - more with what his Willow had done with the one she did get to first.

"Sunnydale kind of went kaboom, not long after that," he said instead. That much was in the e-mail he'd sent everybody.

"It's totally gone?" Willow asked.

"Fell into the Hellmouth." He wasn't sure what kind of details to give her - or how little or much she even wanted to know - about a future that might or might not be hers. That much, though, could've happened... any given Tuesday, really.

"Good way or bad way?" Willow asked, quietly.

"Most people had left town already, and it killed a whole army of vampires, so... pretty good, overall."

Getting confirmation that Sunnydale was gone brought up a whole host of issues. But Willow wasn't sure she was ready to talk about them yet.

Luckily there was another topic of conversation readily at hand. "So what brings you back to Fandom?"

"I don't know what got me back to Fandom, but ..." And only Willow would get the WTF of this, of everyone here, he suspected. "I'm working for the Watchers' Council now."

Willow gasped. "THAT'S SO COOL!"

"We all do, actually," Xander told her. The people this Willow would think of when he said we, anyway.

Willow bounced at this news. "Where's the tweed? Did you bring tea? Oooh! If you brought good tea can I have some for Peter? He tries to hide it but I know Lipton doesn't make him entirely happy."

Xander fingered his shirt. "There's a flannel option now. Also a black leather one but only for Spike because we already know he doesn't have a soul." He hung his head. "No tea. I could file a requisition, though."

"Could you? I know Peter would appreciate it," Willow said. "So are you here to Watch Buffy?"

Xander shook his head. "I'm not a Watcher; I just work for the Council." Which was a phrase that had worn its own grooves in his mouth from the number of times he'd had to give it. "I do recruiting runs for new Slayers, but not the long-term Gilesy partners-in-crime stuff."

Willow eeked. "New Slayers??"

Oh God, something else he'd been saying for so long that the OMGWTF of it for her hadn't even entered his head. "No, no, Buffy's fine," he said quickly. "She's in charge of them. Things got a little weird, and it's not exactly one girl in every generation, anymore."

Willow stared at him. "Okay, I realize that someone who may have looked an awful lot like me used to kid about drowning Faith and bringing her back to life a few dozen times so that Buffy could occasionally take a vacation, but we're all on board for how that's not actually a workable plan, right?"

Xander winced at the accidental near-accuracy, and wondered not for the first time how much about Faith he should say.

"Actually, it's a spell. Pretty huge thing: woke up all the girls who could be Slayers, instead of having to wait for somebody to die." Even if somebody -- more than one somebody - had, it hadn't happened directly because of that.

"Oh." Willow pondered all the implications of that. "That's kind of neat, if possibly confusing for all those girls who don't understand why they suddenly don't need help getting jars open."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, it's not all sunshine and weetiny snowmonsters in bunny suits. We wouldn't have done it if we hadn't hit the Apocalypse that eats other Apocalypses for breakfast. See above re: vampire army."

"A Slayer army does make sense then," Willow agreed. "Actually it would've made sense a long time ago but nobody asked me to cast a deciding vote on whether the whole 'one girl in all the world' concept was dumber than trusting Spike with the remote control."

Xander snorted. "Yeah. So we're still finding them all. I mean we know where they are, but there's thousands of them, and only so many of us. We're not going around with tranq-guns and a dog-catcher van; it's an offer you can refuse, now."

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