Xander as Cop. t delighted shiver sorry, just imagined him in a rumpled suit, looking world-weary as he berates some punk. "You think you're a bad ass? You? I laugh."

no ... no more bunnies . . . please . . .

"I like the quiet streets."

Xander as Cop. sorry, just imagined him in a rumpled suit, looking world-weary as he berates some punk. "You think you're a bad ass? You? I laugh."

This is a really, really, REALLY good idea. Older Xander. Worldly wise Xander. A Xander who isn't going to take any shit.

But will he be Bitter!Xander? or Cool!Xander?

Go both! Choose both! Not Suave!Xander, though.

Suave!Xander is a secret agent.

You people are all just members of the Society for the Procreation of Fic Bunnies, aren't you. Too bad a man with one eye would have such a hard time qualifying on the shooting range. Or would he?

stop it, brain, stop it!

In an effort to divert my muse, here is, at last the begininng of the end game of V!Giles. This may take a while, but the engine's finally revving.

Willow turned and ran for the dormitory. "Where are you going!" Spike yelled.

"The spell for Tara! I have to get it!"

Spike nodded, then turned to Joyce. "Right, then, into the chapel with you."

"Spike, there has to be something I can do, throw rocks or something."

He raised his eyes to the night sky and muttered about Summers women. "Yes, there is something you can do. You can go into the chapel and stay out of harm's way and not get hurt. Because that's what I promised Buffy, and I keep my promises."

"But--"

Without a word, he crouched and scooped her up in his arms. Ignoring her outrage, he strode to the chapel. "Sister," he called to Sister Agnes, "would you mind bringing her walker in? She might need it."

He winced as he crossed the threshold, but the pain was ignorable. The Minoto, with Tara sitting next to Baynar, sat on a couple of pews at the far side of the room. All the nuns were clustered in front of the altar, praying and whispering. Spike barely got a glance at that end of the room before the crucifix made him turn his back. Carefully he set Joyce on her feet.

She smacked his shoulder. "Don't you ever dare do that again! I will not be hauled around like a useless bag of old clothes!"

He raised a finger and took a deep breath, then fought back the first dozen words. "You are going to stay in here where it's safe--safer. If you get yourself hurt, I will have to find a way to dust myself, because I will not be here when Buffy gets back to answer to her for why I let something nasty get one finger on you. Do you understand me, Joyce?"

Joyce took a deep breath of frustration. "I just want to help. I never get to help."

He snickered. "Says the woman who saved her daughter's life by taking a fire ax to the back of somebody's skull." All humor went away. "Joyce, if it gets to the point where anything you can do will be of any help, then me and Red and Harris and Gregor and all his lads will be dead, and you and the sisters will be on your own. If you were up to it, I'd hand you an ax all over, but you're not. You know that. Right?"

"I hate being helpless!"

"I know the feeling. Deal with it." He took the walker from Sister Agnes, who had followed them in, unfolded it, and placed it in front of Joyce. "We haven't lost you yet, Joyce. Let's keep it that way?"

She nodded and leaned on the walker, using it for balance as she made her way to one of the pews.

Outside, Gregor ran up the steps to the parapet and Xander. "Open the gate. I must go out to meet her with my men."

"No can do, General," Xander said, staring over the sights of the rifle at the approaching sedan bouncing along the dirt road towards the convent. "I can't open the gate without moving the bus, and I'm not moving the bus because I'm not opening the gate." He turned his head to smile at Gregor. "But feel free to jump over the wall. I'm sure the drop won't do more than break a bone or two."

"I must be out there! We only have swords and spears, that red-haired bitch snapped all our bow strings--"

Xander slammed the butt of his rifle back into Gregor's stomach, then he glared down at the gasping man laying on the parapet. "You've already cost me my fiancee. Keep your mouth away from my best friend. I don't like you, General. Please keep that in mind."

Willow came running up as Spike stepped out of the chapel. She was looking over her pages of notes with the desperate air of someone who knows she hasn't studied enough for the big final exam. Spike caught her before she could run into him in her distraction. "You either know it or you don't, Red. Panicking isn't going to make it make sense."

She stared at him with big scared eyes. "Buffy's not here. How are the rest of us going to stop Glory when Buffy couldn't do it?"

Spike reached for his cigarettes, discovered he was down to his last one, pulled it out and lit it. "Drown her in our blood, bind her with our entrails, smother her with our corpses, the usual."

Willow frowned. "That's not the kind of uplifting pre-battle speech I was hoping for."

He chuckled. "'Dishonour not your mothers; now attest that those whom you call'd fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of lesser blood and teach them how to make war.'" He grinned at her. "That better?"

She blinked at him, and he jogged off to the wall.

erika, it just keeps getting better and better and....

And I think Xander as cop would alternate between resigned and romantic disillusionment.

Before crashing, today's Sunday 100 drabble (the theme is "getting caught in the act").

Diagnosis

Eye to eye, meeting in the mirror. Facing herself, facing it.

There was nothing unusual, nothing to see. Everything was normal, her complexion, her blonde hair with its careful chestnut highlights. It was a damned good hairstyle; she'd worn it since Buffy was twelve.

She lifted a hand to her skull, touched the spot where the MRI had found the growth. The hand in the mirror did the same. Nothing was different. Nothing would ever be the same.

In the mirror, her eyes met eyes that weren't her own: Buffy, standing in the doorway, silent with the horror of realisation.

sniffle.