Chapter 9: The Heir

"Hey Buff'"

"Xander!" She rushed at the kid and— Aw man, and now with the hugs. Why'd he have to land in the middle of a goddamn Soap Opera?

"Okay, break it up now. You forget there's an apocalypse goin' on!" Ash complained

"Wouldn't be the first." Buffy released the boy, although she continued staring at him in wonder.

"How?"

"I don't know, I just woke up and I was myself again…" He looked quite as confused and unsettled as Buffy did.

"Where are Willow and Giles?"

"I don't know…" He was cut off by a crash coming from the library's office and an annoyed voice, Willow's annoyed voice. Buffy ran across the room and tried to open the door, it was locked. The voices had stopped when she tried the door handle, and she heard shushing noises coming from within. She rolled her eyes and kicked the door down. Cowering inside where Willow and Cordelia.

Willow yelped as the door flew off its hinges, but stopped upon seeing Buffy as the perpetrator. The few seconds of silence was then broken, as usual, by Cordelia.

"Buffy watch out!" Buffy turned and saw nothing

"What?"

"Xander! He's one of them!" She pointed a shaking finger at the bemused Xander, and backed away several feet.

"Cordelia! It's okay. He's not a zombie --"

"Deadite"

"—anymore"

"Oh…" She stopped backing away and quickly traded her look of terror for look of irritation, "why am I always the last to know these things?" Her eyes traveled the room and settled on Ash; a flirtatious smile brightened her face for a moment before she caught sight of the chainsaw and grimaced.

"What were you doing in there?" Buffy asked the two girls, looking slightly amused.

"I don't know what happened, one minute Xander was in the cage, and then he was attacking us. Willow grabbed me and pulled me into the office, my arm still hurts by the way, and then she locked the door. I wanted to come out when it got all quiet, but Willow said that Xander was probably trying to trick us again, and then I broke one of Giles's weird magic thingy's--" she pointed at what looked like very expensive pieces of pottery, "--And…hey, where is Giles?"

"We kinda hoped you could tell us. Wasn't he with you guys?"

"No, he was in the back, something about another book, like he needs any more." Cordelia answered, "It was all very traumatic" she began walking towards Ash, apparently deciding that the chainsaw arm was a fair trade for someone so good looking. "I don't know how I'll ever recover…"

"I can think of a few ways…" Ash moved towards her, when he suddenly found a very unhappy slayer blocking his path, which was pathetic considering that he towered over her.

"Oh, no…you guys do whatever nasty things you want on your own time."

"And far away from us please" Xander added, horror-struck.

Ash scowled …stupid, nosy, goody two shoes.

"Xander, you're really you again?" Willow asked accusingly, it was apparent that she thought he might have been tricking them again. Xander recognized this as a challenge to prove her wrong.

"Yeah Wil' I'm me…Xander Lavelle Harris--"

"Your middle name's 'Lavelle'?" Buffy asked shocked as Cordelia and Ash snickered. Xander had a slight deer in the headlights look, obviously he had not meant for that particular bit of information to slip out, he soldiered on all the same.

"–we've been friends since we were three, I stole your Barbie once, sorry 'bout that by the way, and I've still got its head somewhere in my room, again sorry. Oh and remember that one time on that fourth grade field trip when you—?"

"Okay, I believe you…" Willow said quickly, blushing slightly before smiling, "But how?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out." Buffy replied as suddenly four pairs of eyes focused on Ash.

"What? Whaddya all looking at me for? I don't know!"

"I thought you said you knew Deadites?"

"When?!" He challenged

"A couple hours ago, you said 'there's one thing I know and that's Deadites'"

…Stupid slayer, with her stupid amazing memory.

"Okay, so maybe I said that…I meant I know how to kill 'em, I didn't say anything about knowing the particulars!"

"Have you ever seen any one just recover like this?"

"Yeah, o'course…Me. Told you this earlier, dontcha listen?"

Apparently she had a selective amazing memory.

"Anyone else…" She continued her interrogation…making him mightily annoyed.

"No!—Well…yeah, Sheila…but I'm pretty sure that was just a fluke." Ash watched as Buffy's face fell, he couldn't fathom what the problem could have been. He figured she'd be ecstatic that her friend had made a miraculous recovery; instead she was glaring at him!

"You said no one could come back!" Oh…that. "You told me! Now you're saying that there was a possibility! All those people I killed, they could've gone back to normal?"

"Hey babe, don't go blaming me for your hero complex. I didn't think they could come back…still don't in fact. 'Sides who cares, really…in the long run, we'll save more then we killed."

…wow. That pissed her off. The dark look on her face was enough to make Willow and Xander both shoot Ash a sympathetic glance. Oops…he was pretty sure she was about to kill him.

"What are you?"

Then again, maybe she'd just gone insane.

"Huh?"

"You can't be human. No human could talk that way. Those were people we were killing, do you even get that?"

Now it was Ash's turn to be pissed. It wasn't him who didn't understand, it was her. What did she know? She thought she was so put upon being the slayer. What a strain it must have put on her precious social life. She knew nothing. She still had her family, her friends. She hadn't been forced to watch them turn evil, forced to kill them. She was such a spoiled brat, who thought she had it bad. They hadn't killed humans, they'd killed monsters. Sure, there was a chance of them coming back, but how many others would they have killed first, how many of their friends and families.

"I killed my girlfriend!" He cut her rant off, struggling to remain a bit calm, it'd be no good losing his temper with his gun and chainsaw in such close proximity "And my sister…my best friend…How can you stand there surrounded by your friends and lecture me about not getting it! Could you do it…could you hack them all up?" Okay, so it had been Scottie who'd done most of the hacking, but he knew he'd said the right thing as he watched her struggle to respond. The answer was written all over her face but she couldn't say it. She had to remain the Slayer…to remain on the higher ground.

"To save the world? I think I could…" She glanced at her friends, her eyes betraying her lie.

"No. You couldn't. Even I couldn't, not at first." Wow…where had all that come from. He was usually so good at hiding all that. Now to have it brought out by this bleached blonde valley girl …he must be suffering from lack of sleep. Yep, that explained everything. He seemed to be doing well though, so he decided to just go with it…he'd probably regret it once he'd had his usual 3 hours.

"Look babe, I don't know why I survived…If I am this special keeper of the book, then I probably wasn't meant to be possessed. If I was I would have died with my friends. I'm no smarter then they were, better looking, sure, not smarter. Scottie should have lived, he was the smart one. The hero." An awkward silence followed his outburst…well, at least that was something. Although after a few minutes it began to get annoying.

"But…if – Xander?" Buffy broke the silence…although she didn't seem to be able to formulate words. She was looking off into the distance, her brain probably working furiously.

"Xander." She repeated, still lost in her own little world.

"What?" he said, staring at her concerned.

"Giles said that the book arrived here a month before you, right Ash?"

"If you say so" like he was expected to remember…

"Why here? Why this town…" She turned to Xander who seemed to think she expected an answer from him.

"The exciting lure of Hellmouthy goodness?" Buffy paid no attention to him and looked back towards Ash before her eyes began an odd game of pong back and forth between them.

"Don't you guys get it? The heir is here."

"Where?" Xander looked around for some mysterious person to step out of the (nonexistent) shadows. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"Xand', I'm pretty sure it's you"

"Huh?"

"Him?"

"Ya-wha?"

Willow's mouth hung open, while the two men stared at Buffy blankly, nearly identical looks of shock plastered across their faces.

It was Xander who made the first decipherable noise, he began giggling.

Well that did it, the girl was whacked…no heir of his would giggle. Unfortunately the nervous humour was addictive and he soon found himself guffawing along with Xander (a manly laugh…not some sad giggle).

"It's not funny…think about it, Xander could recover because you could recover, and you do sorta look alike…"

"Him! He's all chin--"

"He's not nearly as good looking"

"Literally, like half his face—"

"C'mon Buff', do you really think…"

"It may be not be good, but my sperm's better than that!"

Buffy listened to her friends (and Ash), arms crossed, wondering how long it would take for them to accept what she was already (almost) certain of. She glanced about the room, ignoring them as their banter turned into logical questions and retorts…this was an instinct, logic didn't factor.

It was only then that she realized what was missing (besides Giles, who the others seemed to forget about in their shock and determination to prove her wrong)

"Hey…" she cut them off, "Where's the book"

Where was he?

Giles winced as he sat up. This was just bloody brilliant…the amount of times he'd been knocked out, he felt he was qualified for a world record. And again he had to wonder were he was, and where Cordelia and Willow were.

It was dark, but wasn't it always. If you've awoken in a strange place after being unconscious, it was a sure bet that said place was going to be dark and dank. After all, when someone hit you over the head and kidnapped you, it wasn't usually to lock you up in a bright, warm room and offer you tea. His glasses were missing, not that he needed them in the impenetrable darkness, but he never knew when his situation might change.

He felt about on what appeared to be a cement floor…always a bad sign, and he breathed a sigh of relief, lying besides him were his glasses. Probably a bit worse for wear, but then again, so was he.

He replaced them on his face and stood up, his head spinning slightly as he did so. His hand traveled instinctively to steady it and he felt something wet and sticky…either someone had spilled ample amounts of Karo syrup on him, or his head was bleeding. Yes, this whole situation was just brilliant.

A sudden burst of light caused him to squint and hold his now clearly blood covered hand in front of his face. A door had opened and a dark figure stood in it.

"You awake?" the figure stepped forward to see him more clearly, "Good…c'mon we need you"

"For what exactly?" Giles asked and the man chuckled and held up something, Giles inched forward his eyes adjusting to the light. It was the Necronomicon.

"To translate this" The man replied

Oh…just brilliant.