Fiction by Lorraine

Xander settled down into his aisle seat and smiled companionably at the middle-aged woman wedged between him and the tiny airplane window. She cast a lengthy sidelong glance at his missing eye, smiled tentatively, and immediately returned her attention to the crossword puzzle spread across her ample lap. The woman’s obvious interest in his defect didn’t flush his cheeks under their tan or radiate self-pitying heat down to his chest, as it would’ve a year ago. Still, Xander couldn’t help the unease that skittered down his spine with her glance. Even after all the lack he’d noticed in Africa—human bodies missing parts far more essential than a single eye—Xander felt a deeply secret shame, a brokenness, every time he was reminded of what he’d lost. He shifted slightly in his seat and forced his attention away from his missing eye.

Xander pulled a novel, one he’d read before, from his rucksack and began to read. Lady Audley’s Secret was perhaps a surprising choice for the Scoobies’ scholastic underachiever, but his work for the Council had awakened in Xander a thirst for the simple, uncomplicated, unmechanized leisures of life. He remembered acutely that first month in the desert before he’d come to terms with the differences between his life in Sunnydale and life in a developing country.

Of course the village didn’t have a television; it didn’t have electricity, either. Or running water. Or a septic system. Two weeks of a nagging restlessness, an itchy twitchy feeling under his skin, and Xander was ready to make some serious negotiations with Lucifer himself just to watch commercials. For anything. Even feminine hygiene products. He’d discovered in his first days at the camp that sitting around the fire listening to the aid workers translate tribal stories that sounded like brutal, strange poetry relieved his boredom more fully than he ever would’ve imagined. Xander also found that the passable singing voice he’d uncovered thanks to Sweet’s spell improved rapidly with practice. Fire time usually included several rounds of songs that often lasted into the late hours of the evening; Xander eagerly learned the words to African folk songs, old English ballads, and a surprising number of eighties’ top forty hits.

But alone in the night, when all the camp was sleeping, and Xander could feel the cold air wrapping around his body and seeping into his bones, could hear muffled crying, and smell the rot of sickness around him, he longed for the oblivion of television, the radio, the PlayStation. Something to drown out Africa and transport him somewhere else.

One night, Xander remarked to Andrew during one of their scheduled phone calls, “I would chop off my left hand and complete the Captain Hook ensemble just for something to do at night, Andrew. I think I’d even read!” And they both laughed, and Xander forgot what he’d said almost immediately. A week later, a box of books came for him. Andrew had apparently indiscriminately cleared out a shelf of a used bookstore. The box contained science fiction novels, romances, some biographies, murder mysteries, and more than a few classics. Xander read them all over the next months, discovering that he truly enjoyed the Victorian novels. They were full of fantastic situations, outlandish secrets, and written with subtle, but witty humor. He didn’t always get the literary allusions or the outdated British slang, but Xander had only time on his hands, and he was patient. Sometimes he’d let himself think, This is something Spike might’ve read when he was living.

As the plane began its ascent, Xander turned the well-worn pages of Lady Audley’s Secret to a familiar passage:

Once, while they were abroad, Robert Audley ventured to congratulate him upon his recovered spirits. He burst into a bitter laugh. “Do you know, Bob,” he said, “that when some of our fellows were wounded in India, they came home bringing bullets inside them? They did not talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well, perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the weather, however slight, every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battle-field. I’ve had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I shall carry it into my coffin.*

Xander closed the book and rubbed at the scar under his eye patch. He wondered idly if the plane would fly over Sunnydale’s crater.

~ ~ ~

Xander walked cautiously from the elevator onto Angel’s floor of the Wolfram and Hart office building. Seated directly in front of him at the receptionist’s desk, Harmony stared intently at a computer screen, her brow furrowed in intense concentration. Over the staccato of one-fingered typing, Xander imagined he could hear her brain gradually overloading from the exertion. Some things never change. He immediately spotted Angel’s office and strode quickly across the open foyer, hoping to avoid a high school reunion with the former Cordette.

Two steps from Angel’s door, a cold hand grabbed his arm with surprising strength. Harmony tugged Xander back towards her desk, her eyes slowly appraising him as Xander resisted. With some shock, Xander realized Harmony was checking him out and evidently not disliking what she saw.

“Where do you think you’re going? Nobody sees the boss without an appointment. I’m, like, Angel’s executive assistant.” (Xander snorted internally.) “If you want to see him, I’ll schedule you in. I think the boss has an opening for next Thursday.”

Harmony let her hand linger on his arm a few seconds longer than necessary before releasing it. The blond woman smiled at him, and not so subtly allowed her breast to brush his back as she leaned over the desk to retrieve her appointment book.

Xander smirked. “Look, as fun as all this is, Harm, I really need to see Angel. Before next Thursday. I don’t think he’ll mind the interruption.”

Harmony’s eyes widened comically, and she put one perfectly manicured hand to her coral mouth before squealing, “Oh. My. God. Xander!!! You look . . . really sexy. Which is a completely new look for you. I should’ve recognized you, though. You still smell the same. I guess my vamp senses are going wonky on me; it must be all the pig’s blood the boss makes us eat. Company rules. Anyway, what are you doing here? What happened to your eye?”

“Long story. Let me see Angel.”

“Okay, but wait until I buzz you in.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “He’s been in a joy-sucking broodathon for, like, forever now.” Harmony rolled her eyes and pressed a button on the speakerphone. “Angel, you have a visitor that needs to see you immediately.”

Xander heard a long sigh and then the low timbre of Angel’s voice. “Fine. Send whoever or whatever it is in.”

As Xander once again approached Angel’s door, he heard Harmony call out from her desk. “Hey, Xander. Maybe we could get drinks or something tonight after I get off work. Rehash old times.” Xander waved his hand behind him noncommittally and pushed open the door.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Xander noticed that Angel seemed to have aged at least a decade since they’d last met, his haggard look even more shocking to Xander since vampires can’t physically age. Angel radiated weariness; his eyes were bloodshot, and the intensity of gaze that Xander remembered so well was gone. In its place was a look of numbness, the kind of apathy only created through relentless pain. Xander knew that look; he’d seen it staring back at him in the mirror many times.

Finally, Angel broke the silence. “Why are you here, Xander? Andrew made it very clear that the new Council isn’t interested in any of our problems.”

Xander crossed the room and put his hand on the large window that shed light into the office. I bet Spike loves this glass. “I don’t want to waste my time in L. A. on small talk with you, so I’ll just get this all out at once. Not everybody agrees with the Council, Angel. Not even Andrew. Giles sent him here to do his dirty work, and Andrew looks up to the G-man too much to argue. You might have been a murdering bastard, but I'm willing to give you a break. For every time you’ve tried to kill me, or actually killed someone I care about, you’ve also saved my life or the life of someone I love. If you need help, I’m offering. Secondly, I’m here because of Spike. I want him to know he doesn’t have to stay in L.A. if he doesn’t want to. He’s got a Scoobie-sized list of people, myself included, who wouldn’t mind putting up that particular vamp for as long as he needs. Finally, I’m here because of Cordelia. You’re hiding something about her coma. And before you give me a hard time, Andrew could tell that everyone’s memories are mojoed. Everyone except yours. What’s going on, Angel? If Cordy’s in danger, I can take her out of here. She’ll be safe in London.”

Angel glanced down at his hands, his lips set in a grim line. When he looked back up, the vampire suddenly looked very fragile, as if he might shatter from the sheer effort of continued existence.

“She’s not in any danger, Xander. I’ll tell you what happened.”

~ ~ ~

Xander held Cordelia’s hand and softly stroked it with his fingertips. She looked good, like maybe she’d just drifted off to sleep on top of a pile of books after a late night Scoobie research party. Angel had spared no expense for her care. Her hair was combed and arranged, her nails manicured, her lips shiny and smelling faintly of strawberries when Xander placed a chaste kiss there.

“Hey, Queen C. How’re ya doing in there? I’ve really missed you. Not the soul-crushing emasculation, mind you, but your smile and your honesty. Those I’ve missed. Angel told me everything that happened. I’m so sorry, Cordy. I really thought that one of us would get the prize in the cereal box, and I always thought it would be you. You escaped the Hellmouth and never looked back. I guess I was naïve to think the creepy crawlies couldn’t find you here in L. A.”

Xander settled back in the bedside chair, still holding Cordelia’s hand in his own. “So, Angel has a son. Who knocked you up with an ancient hellgod. Man, we’re an incestuous little group. Me and you. Me and Anya. Me and Willow that one time in high school. You and Connor. You and Wesley. Anya and Spike. Let’s not even mention Buffy’s track record.” Xander grinned at the motionless woman in front of him. “I understand why Angel wanted everyone to forget. Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a spell that could erase Sunnydale for me.” Xander sighed. “I guess you didn’t know that Anya and I were going to get married. Well, we didn’t. I left her at the altar. Some tiny piece of me thought we might make up one day, but she went and did what we white hats seem to do best. She died.”

He peeled the eye patch from his face and stuffed it in his pocket. Not like Cordy’s gonna mind. “You would’ve liked her, I think, once you got past the whole she-sent-me-to-a-hell-dimension-where-I-was-eaten-by-vampires thing. You and she were a lot alike, actually. Totally tactless but full of heart. I miss her. You probably don’t know this either, but Spike’s alive. What am I saying? You probably didn’t even know he was dead. The last time you saw Spike wasn’t exactly his finest moment, what with the hot pokers and all. He changed so much, Cordelia. Underneath all that Big Badassedness, Spike is just as vulnerable and alone as the rest of us. We really should have been friends. He’s the only reason I’m not sporting a seeing-eye dog. I never told him how much that means to me. I don’t say the ‘w’ word anymore, but I hope he knows.”

Cordelia opened her eyes and grinned. “Well, dumbass, why don’t you just tell him?”

TBC.....



*Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Penguin Classic pg 52



I took the title for this fic from the song “The Shadowlands” on Ryan Adams’ CD Love is Hell because that album is the inspiration for this fic. Each song will make an appearance somewhere in the course of this piece.

The Shadowlands

God, please bring the rain
Yeah, and bring it soon
Let it flood right through the houses
Into Judy’s room
With a father on amphetamines
Her mother hides the pearls
Reach out into the darkness
And find my little girl
Because she’s angry like a salesman
That couldn’t make a sale
Threw her wedding ring in the sewer
And damned them all to hell

Please lead her to the mountain
That you fashioned out of sand
While the roaches climb the walls
From the hotel where he calls
Most people never find a love
Most people never find a love
Sometimes you just can be a man
Sometimes you just can be a man
When you’re living in the darkness
Of the shadowlands
The shadowlands

The gender’s all wrong, but I think this song has some eerie parallels with Xander’s life. Although a variety of ideas exist on what exactly happened in Xander’s home life/childhood, I think we all can agree (from canonical evidence, at least) that some of it was unpleasant and probably involved his father. The first stanza of this song really captures a family torn apart by a father, the financial difficulties that arise from his problems, and a child’s impotent rage at the circumstances. I think the “her” that’s throwing away the ring in the song is the mother, but it still evokes the notion of a marriage destroyed by a family’s pain. Xander chooses not to marry Anya for fear that he will recreate the trauma he apparently witnessed in his own home. The final stanza of the song is very poignant for me—I can imagine Spike (and possibly Xander, too) feeling like love is an option his life no longer contains. But there’s hope at the end of the song. The song ends in darkness, but that darkness is tempered by the speaker’s assertion that Sometimes you just can be a man. Finally, all the Scoobies are liminal figures, but Spike especially. He has one foot in the demon world, one in the human (and is marginalized in both); he’s very much in the present but also tied to the distant past; he’s supernatural, but living in the natural world. Xander is similarly a liminal figure; he wants desperately to be “normal” but his involvement in the supernatural precludes that normality. I think “shadowlands” is as good a term as any for the in-between space the liminal figure occupies—not dark, not light; neither and yet both. Sorry for the lengthy and rather obtuse explanation, but I really feel very strongly about this song!

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