fandomhigh | Construction Site: Tuesday July 31st, all day

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Construction Site: Tuesday July 31st, all day

Blissfully unaware of any regime-changes that he's missed while on vacation in the future, Xander is back at the construction site. He's also staring at Fraser's safety signs with a mixture of amusement and approval.

"Glad to see you guys have been keeping up the good work while I was gone. Not that me being back is a signal to start falling off things and breaking parts we can't replace, by which I mean the ones attached to you. Or each other."

[OOC: Open!]

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"I didn't tell you not to do it," Xander answered after a pause for way too many thoughts to blow through his mind, including the idea that maybe he should have. But he didn't. "I just said be sure it's what you want. You didn't make him crazy and evil even with a soul. You just tried to give him a choice."

Mel slumped a little at that. "Actually... It's my fault he's a vampire."

"How the hell do you figure that?"

"He was with me when we got attacked by a lurk named Icarus," Mel said quietly. "I dragged him out of the house with me to go on a grab. He didn't want to go and I just-"

She sighed and just shook her head.

"Such a rutting mess."

"You didn't bite him." Xander winced as the memory kicked him in the head of what the vampire-him might have done to Mel if they hadn't been interrupted. "Sh-- uh, stuff happens. And it sucks. It is a mess sometimes. All we can do is--" Xander waved a hand around at the destroyed and resurrected school. "Try to clean up and go on."

"I know," she said. "but the whole guilt thing tells me otherwise."

Xander nodded, realizing there wasn't a lot that just telling her he didn't think she had anything to feel guilty for would change about that.

"Buffy was like that," he said instead of repeating something she already knew. "When Angel lost his soul, and when she couldn't kill him right away, afterwards."

"What did she do about it?" Mel asked.

Not that she could relate to the situation at all. Nope. Not a bit.

"Took a lot of crap from me, back when I wasn't being the best friend in the world," Xander admitted. Time and exposure to more than one person - more than one Angel, even - who'd turned their life around after a second or fifth chance had given him some perspective on that. "I don't know if the guilty part ever went away, but when it came down to him or everybody else..."

He was about to finish that with 'She did what she had to,' but it hadn't been quite as uncomplicated as that, had it. Which left him trailing off, because he didn't really want to mention that part - even if something was telling him that maybe he should.

"She took him out," Mel prompted. "Right?"

"Eventually, yeah." If he sounded guilty or evasive there, well... yeah.

"It's never that simple though is it," Mel said quietly. "What happened?"

"Willow's resouling spell worked then, too." Which was dancing way too close to a truth he'd never told anybody, though he wouldn't be surprised if Bridge knew. "But it was too late - he started something when he was evil that would've sent the whole world to hell, and the only way to stop it was to send him instead."

Mel fidgeted a bit that. "Did he come back?"

"Yeah. Not for months, though, and nobody thought he could." Xander snorted slightly. "Actually I don't think anybody knows how he got back, even him. He just kind of showed up."

"Bet he was a happy camper," Mel said trying not to think about Harth.

"He wasn't mad at Buffy," Xander answered, kind of avoiding the part where he hadn't exactly been all that gung-ho on the camping issue. Though he probably covered it with the 'gave Buffy a lot of crap' comment.

"Well I guess I have something to look forward to when Harth comes back, right?" Mel half-joked.

"Do you want him to?" Xander asked carefully.

"No," Mel said quickly. "Not at all."

"...Right." He sighed and wondered if Giles had felt as clumsy and useless as Xander did right now. "It's okay to miss him," he added, like it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world. "No matter what he turned into. He was your brother."

"I don't know what he is anymore," Mel said quietly.

"Me neither," Xander admitted. "I only ever knew one vampire with a soul, and he's...way different."

"The guy with the dye job?" Mel said trying not to be obvious as she rubbed her eyes.

"Dye jo-- you mean Spike?" Xander blinked and shook his head. "The one I know doesn't have a soul."

Construction Site: Tuesday July 31st, all day

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