Disclaimer: I am the sole owner of Buffy, Angel and Ranma ½. I also have a twenty-inch penis, which urinates greenbacks in a range of denominations. Here's some cheap marshland!

Rating: T

Warnings: moderate language, mild violence, large amounts of nudity and sexual references, though nothing explicit. Also, a fair number of spoilers, including for the comics. And, honestly this is the big one: Gratuitous Trope Parody: Fun with Portals (FWP), Crack (het) Pairing,Godlike!Xander, Multiple!Xander, Everybody Female/Xander, Agent-of-Chaos!Xander… all played (mostly) straight.

Canon: Very close…up to a certain point, though technically an AR. This point, to be precise:

Timeframe: Early 2004, post-S7 (Buffy), around S5/Ep12 'You're Welcome' (Angel).

Pairings: see Warnings. Or at the end of the fic, where there will be a listing for convenience's sake.

Summary: Had Buffy realised the significance of Xander being the buttmonkey to Willow's organgrinder all the way back before her 17th birthday, this could probably have all been avoided… A post-Season 7 divergence, involving Xander, a Hell Dimension, hippie weirdness, one of the weirder het pairings you'll ever come across and the gratuitous flogging of several dead horses…er, Xander!tropes. And yes, the pun is definitely intended.

A/N: 1) Disclaimer to the contrary, this is not actually a crossover. Those who know Ranma ½ will find significant holes in its depiction; this is due to Xander's poor in-depth knowledge of it. 2) The root of this story, along with its title, came from wondering at the symbolism behind the S2 Slayer-dream. Hopefully the conclusion I took it to is somewhat original… That said, I have also shamelessly borrowed inspiration from themes and rationales (though not plots) developed by such well-entrenched authors as dogbertcarroll (mainly Walking in the Shadows), as well as 'TheDivineDemon' (the drabble 'What is My Worth?') and 'Greywizard' (who has posted many rather well-done variations on these tropes) on TTH. Their work is largely awesome and well worth reading, if you haven't already.

To Grind the Organ of Divergence

Chapter 1: Welcome To My…

—ox-oxo-xo—

As he 'listened' to the bizarrely familiar individual speak, Xander Harris tried to be surprised by what he was hearing. Not with any great effort, mind you. For seven years now he'd maintained to all and sundry that he was the universe's buttmonkey, despite a range of protests to the contrary. So who was he to argue when an apparent expert on the subject told him straight out that he was right?

He did have to admit – hearing all this from the mouth of someone who, if he didn't know better, could pass as none other than Elder Ku Lon of the Chinese Amazons? The selfsame 'person' that insisted he call 'her' by said name, and treat her as if she were said fictional character? That was just WEIRD. And that was even after he got the hang of using the strange, almost telepathic spiritual connection that Ku Lon used to translate the dimension's speech into something that Xander could at least mostly comprehend.

Though considering how he got here? Weird would pretty much cover all of it...

—ox-oxo-xo—

It was fairly well-known among the more worldly class of supernatural denizens that the term 'chaos demon' was not to be taken as a statement of said demon's species. 'Chaos' in such a case was commonly supposed to represent an alignment with certain demonic energies which might be called 'chaos', which well-suited the general disposition of a certain species of demons which thus tended to be called 'chaos demons' as a class.

This much, Xander had known.

What was certainly not so well-known, largely because said 'chaos demons' didn't make a habit of clarifying matters even if they knew or cared about them, was precisely where the 'chaos' part of the equation came from. If Xander had known that part, then the erstwhile demon-hunter would have made a far greater effort to utilise fire in killing the demon in question, paying particular attention to setting alight the viscous goop slathering the demon's antlers, as opposed to merely beheading the mouthy little moose-bastard.

Sadly, as was eventually established much later, the 'goop' turned out in fact to be the actual chaos demon, which existed in a symbiotic relationship with the antlered bipeds who had been given the moniker. Sure, it wasn't precisely sentient, or capable of surviving the death of its host for more than a few seconds. But as it turned out, those few seconds had been enough to fuel at least the momentary opening of the portal that its host had been trying to open.

If nothing else, it was at least fortunate that the loss of the host demon's input at the crucial moment stopped the portal from opening into the 'hell' that it had been trying to reach (if for no other reason that one should not leave random portals to Wisconsin floating round in the middle of the Congolese jungle). Of course, it was even more fortunate that the mental cue that the portal's energies thus seized upon was none other than a passing thought in the mind of Xander Harris at the moment the portal swallowed him, regarding what he might consider a personal 'hell' were he suddenly condemned to one.

Really. It's like trying not to think of that white rhinoceros behind you.

—ox-oxo-xo—

It was with a great sense of foreboding that Xander had looked round when the portal spat him out. That feeling was soon joined by a great sense of nakedness; one look down had proven that both feelings were there for a reason…unlike his clothes.

Or his axe.

He'd looked up, and examined his surroundings once more, this time for more detail than oh-shit-what's-jumping-out-at-me!, and this time paying more attention to certain aspects of the scenery that really should've been obvious the first time.

Like the fact that he was standing in the middle of a strange village, like one of the primitive ones he'd seen over the past few months in Africa, only with different, somehow familiar building materials and designs. And vegetation, for that matter.

Like the fact that there were over a dozen villagers in the immediate area, all of them staring at him with a strange look in their eyes, running the gamut of emotions between confusion, hostility, and a brazen calculation he'd always tended to associate with his female friends when they were taking a day out shopping.

Like the fact that all these stares belonged to women. Most of them being highly attractive. Most of them looking at him with that calculation in their eyes. And all of them being armed.

Yup, he'd reflected, it's official. I'm in one of the special hells…

The next couple of hours had for the most part passed in a high-speed blur, as he frantically evaded and fended away what seemed a never-ending stream of weapon-wielding villagers – all of them women, and most of them grinning. It had occurred to him fairly early on in the chase that they were toying with him. Not that he minded not being caught – not when he'd already had a taste of this particular hell years back, thank you very much!

But all good things come to an end, and he'd finally tripped over a cane. A cane which had belonged to an extremely old, short, wrinkly woman clinging to the top of the cane like it was a pogo stick. An extremely ugly, strangely familiar old woman who, terrifyingly, had that same glimmer of calculation in her eyes as all those women who had just backed off.

Then, blankness. Like a sequence of memories had been removed.

Followed by waking up, clothed in Oriental garb which looked and felt like pyjamas, at a table with a large meal in front of him – at the other end of which perched the old woman who had been the last thing he'd seen.

—ox-oxo-xo—

Xander idly ran his fingers through his conspicuously silky hair, steadfastly ignoring any and all clues to what that 'shampoo' could have excised. There were far more important – not to mention, far more sanity-friendly – things to think about. Such as what 'Ku Lon' had just told him, albeit in some nightmarish mix of audible mental suggestion and montage which a writer might call 'soulspeak' if they were feeling flowery.

The way he understood things, this place was at least technically a version of hell. Only, it was the kind of version that reminded him of something that Benny Hill might have come up with. And its denizens could be called succubi, if they weren't content to call themselves Amazons – with a dash of Futurama just to make it more hellish.

Hah. He'd always been thought of as a demon-magnet. And as it turned out, that was absolutely correct. More to the point right now, this unfortunate fact had somehow subsequently saved his bacon.

Xander still wasn't sure that the explanation he'd been given had sunk in; it was the sort of thing that Giles and Willow would've salivated over, kinda like the way even Ku Lon still did when she couldn't catch herself in time. There was much talk of 'higher frequencies of spiritual energies between dimensional planes' and 'insufficiently differentiating modes of perception' and so on. But from what he'd gathered, what it boiled down to was that his unconscious mind and spirit had gotten together behind his back and jacked his senses with something that he could understand, pulling together a bunch of pop-culture references – or in this case, one pop-culture paradigm – to allow him to function here. Which, as an added benefit, allowed Ku Lon to plug into that mindframe and communicate with him.

A 'village' full of 'Amazons', all named after girly things, led by an 'Elder'? Certainly easier to think about than a hell dimension full of weapon-wielding succubi, led by a elderly and cunning demon-lady…

Ku Lon had explained that, a lot like the fictional Chinese Amazons portrayed in the anime 'Ranma ½' his mind had pulled out of wherever to keep the rest of his brain from performing a realistic impression of Fyarl-snot, the succubi-like demons here did capture and essentially enslave their men, raising any resulting boys as slaves as well. But more importantly, each man was kept as the de facto property of just one, or occasionally two demons. This was tradition, and had been that way for time immemorial. One demon could steal another demon's manslaves, by killing the other demon – but who in the hell got that up in arms about some manslave?

Tradition, fortunately, didn't count on demon-magnets dropping in. For the 'village's' inhabitants, it was like dropping Ranma Saotome into the Chinese Amazons' village – only ten times worse, because not only did just about all of them want Xander, but they wanted him so badly that it was increasingly looking like many of them would kill their 'sisters' to keep him. Ranma Saotome, Elder Ku Lon wanted for her grand-daughter. Xander Harris, 'Elder Ku Lon' wanted for herself…

His mind shuddered away from that awful precipice.

Again fortunately, and again much like the anime and manga, 'Ku Lon' was nobody's fool. Even the hell-dimension's ruler would only be able to hold Xander for so long before her 'village' rose up in revolt, to try to take him away from her. And, she almost immediately recognised that her attraction to him was simply not natural.

—ox-oxo-xo—

It had been a long-held opinion among Xander Harris's friends that there had always been a touch of chaos to the guy. Now whether this could be attributed to his dress-sense, his predilection for breaking prophecy (just that one time, honest!), his sense of humour, the Halloween thing, or simply the fact that said friends tended in most cases to be supernatural women and thus predisposed to associate 'chaos' (read: genetically incomprehensible levels of mundane male stupidity) with the young man, was a matter of opinion. Most, however, would have been quite surprised to find that the complete opposite in fact applied.

Unwitting agent of chaos? 'Zeppo' was only the worst moniker that other people had used to refer to him. No, the one he had kept utterly silent about for years, the one he had tried to fight with the desperate fatalism of the inevitably doomed, was none other than 'Cipher'.

'Cipher.' Pawn of the fates, railing helplessly as his life and experiences were used and abused ad nauseum, just one of the many control mechanisms by which the champions and assorted other heavy-hitters (which in this context pretty much boiled down to 'everyone else') were subtly steered to the desired conclusions.

There was reasons he referred to himself as the universe's buttmonkey, after all. And the big one, very much in keeping with his long-held habit of hiding the tragic behind the tacky, was that the friends who rolled their eyes at his put-upon whining about the universe having it in for his own mistakes were thus that much less likely to think in broader terms, cotton on to the game – and start driving away all the 'normal' people wholesale in a doomed effort to minimise their contact with the fates' pawns…starting with him.

Selfish? Sure, but hey, most of them were still alive – and once people started cutting themselves off from the normal, bad, bad things happened. The fates didn't need to go ensuring that kind of thing when simple psychology could do the work for them.

In more recent months, in the wake of Anya's death, Xander had privately developed a hypothesis concerning this; namely, that fate (much like Anya) preferred to lead him around by the penis. Which only made sense, really. He was a guy – what better tool was there, pun definitely intended?

Ms. French, just to set the trend and precedent for everything that followed. The Hyena Primal and its attempt on Buffy's virginity to frighten her away from him, turning the young Slayer further towards Angel – such that even resuscitating her in the Master's cave failed to get her attention. Then that dance at the Bronze to get him to begin turning away from her, opening Xander up to further inroads for the various fates' plans. Saving Cordelia from the Epps. 'Impata', and saving Willow from her. Halloween, and Cordelia's interest in Soldier-Guy. Then, the Terakan assassins and making out with Cordy, along with Oz piquing Willow's interest as she began to despair netting her longtime crush…

And why? All to set up for the fall.

For Angel/Angelus, the breaking of his curse led a little over a year later to his relocation to L.A. – and the fallout over Cordelia's breakup with Xander, along with her family's I.R.S. woes, led her to join him there…falling right into the hands of 'Jasmine' and her plans for world conquest, the ones which had only come crashing down as things built to an implosive end in Sunnydale. As well, the resulting fallout of his breakup with Cordy had pushed him to the outer edge of the Scoobies, leaving him in a position to defuse the threat of Jack O'Toole – not to mention lay the formwork for his subsequent inability to sway Faith from her traipse down the Dark Side of the Slaylicious Violence, a path which would mostly put her out of the way for several years and leave Buffy as the only active Slayer…which left her isolated. And so led to her sacrifice to end Glory, her resurrection months later (not just to save her from 'hell', but to get the Hellmouth's Slayer back), her destructive liaison with Spike which eventually led him to attaining his soul… The list went on.

And that list just got longer when you included Willow in that. The eventual demise of her relationship with Oz, her relationship with Tara, the resurrection and her subsequent dark magic addiction, which culminated with her taking on a massive amount of magic (with Xander there to save her for long enough for the world's new magical superpower to adjust to dealing with said magic)…

The result was nothing less than the simultaneous setting up and knocking down of both the First Evil and a titanically potent Power That Was.

Now, if he factored in Anya – herself brought into the mix as a result of Xander and Cordelia's breakup? Under her influence, Xander became a more confident individual, with something approaching a life away from the Scoobies – but that influence also served to keep him alienated from the others as her personality constantly rubbed the others the wrong way, thus keeping him from having too much influence on events. On the plus side, Xander's money from his construction jobs and Anya's financial smarts had come in greatly handy after Joyce had died and the Summers fell into financial straits. But very much on the negative ledger, it ruined him for anyone else for a long time, coming after a particularly blatant round of manipulation turned his wedding into an unmitigated disaster.

That didn't mean the games were over though, no sirree. Lately he'd been quietly entertaining the idea of taking a break and popping in to visit Buff and the Dawnster in Rome. He'd been quietly horrified – and utterly furious – to realise that in the depths of his cot in the late, late nights, a growing part of the urge was to see Dawn as much as, if not more than Buffy.

As in, in the potentially romantic sense.

Sure, it'd be a cold day in hell before he pulled a Deadboy. But he was perfectly well-aware that Dawn had been crushing on him ever since she was created…and just incidentally, was beginning to develop a run of dating flops that showed every sign of following in the footsteps of Xander's sterling example – with the unsurprising result that she wasn't going to be getting inappropriately close to another romantic option. And that while it would likely be years before he could really bring himself to consider moving on and finding happiness without Anya, by the time that happened…well, how old would Dawn be then? Legal, definitely. More likely hitting her twenties.

He could smell the wife-trap from years away. And sure, he was pissed about that right now. But since when had the universe ever really given him the choice? Give it a few years, wear his resolve down with a continuing succession of crappy dates that invariably ended with Slaying, and who knows?

Hell, he'd even thought once, what were the chances Buffy would finally 'realise' she'd fallen in love with him, just in time to lose him to her little sister? Now wouldn't that take the cake?

—ox-oxo-xo—

He sat rapt as 'Ku Lon' finally, finally explained one of the deepest mysteries of the Scoobyworld: why was Xander Harris such a demon-magnet?

It all came down to souls, and their innate, instinctual, varying levels of magic, and what a great many parties could work with that knowledge. Though he did have to admit, Xander did find it somewhat disappointing how lazy the Powers That Be could be when it came to that sort of thing. Contrary to his late-night musings on the subject, the Powers didn't really have to do anything but take advantage of his own heart.

Or more specifically, the big honking karmic loudspeakers screaming "PROPERTY OF WILLOW ROSENBERG AND DAWN SUMMERS!" as high as they could go.

Willow's spiritual hooks were perfectly straightforward, once he remembered that even back when she was just starting out in playing with the Wicca, Willow had always had more power than Giles had thought safe. For over a decade even back then, her soul's inborne magics had already latched in proprietary fashion onto Xander, her friend and crush. Jesse's death and the mystical upheavals since had only intensified that link, which lost none of its possessiveness even when the romantic aspect fell away.

Dawn's hooks had been in place ever since the Key was made human and given soul – and the resulting link had been made all the stronger, both by the heady power of Dawn's own soul (probably something to do with the Key, Ku Lon said and he reluctantly agreed with), as well the way that the Dagon monks had assigned those soul-bonds in the first place.

After all, there really hadn't been the need for that many. And some of them had broken soon thereafter. The sister-bond with Buffy remained strong, certainly – only strengthened, if very unwillingly and often against the flow of events, by the addition of the mother-bond with Joyce's death. But the father-bond had been practically severed even as the monks spelled it into existence, and was predictably subsumed into the blatantly constructed soulmate-bond she had with Xander, though parts of both bonds had drifted off to hook onto Spike for a while as she waited to grow up enough to net her Xander-shaped husband.

A lot of demons were sensitive to that sort of thing, especially the ones who were interested with sex in all its uses. Not that they listened to what the message was – but when they ran across someone metaphysically screaming at the top of their lungs everywhere they went, of course they were going to wonder who was making all the racket!

How all that was important right now, though, was both the reason this qualified as a certifiable Special Hell to one Xander Harris – and, paradoxically, the reason that he was going to be allowed to escape it.

Basically, it was the Ranma Saotome factor – on steroids. Because in this hell-dimension, as far as the Amazons' appetites went, it was all down to three things: Size, Taste and Dibs—

(Xander frantically stomped on the spontaneous mental image that the phrasing caused, as Ku Lon started drooling again.)

—of/on the potential manslave's soul. Willow and Dawn's deep, powerful connections had, in the ways of true love everywhere, caused his own soul to swell in sympathetic response and an attempt to be worthy of that love, making his soul more potent than most. Then the 'taste', which, as Ku Lon informed him with a lecherous grin that made him shudder, was apparently scrumptious. That was apparently due to his long list of life experiences, particularly of the supernatural flavour.

And as for the 'Dibs'? Well, greed was a popular theme in the demonic makeup, now wasn't it? Especially in this case, where dibs had been placed on Amazon Village's newest never-ending banquet…only by a pair of foreigners.

Which, all put together, certainly explained the collective reaction of 'MINE!' upon his arrival.

Only, the very magnitude of that mass attraction to Xander, was exactly his saving grace. Because that attraction was so great, with so many wanting him so badly, that not even Ku Lon herself held the ability to actually keep a hold of him – not when Ku Lon informed him that the entirety of the village would be rebelling against her rule en masse before the week was out if she tried. And worse, those very spiritual links that helped make him so irresistible – were held in the hands of two young women who, almost uniquely, had both the will and the means to form rescue expeditions and take him back by however much force was required.

Taking that on board, Xander solemnly nodded in complete understanding and agreement. No-one in their right mind wanted Darth Rosenberg blasting through their home dimension with the Wicca-boots of Stompiness strapped on – let alone the kind of people she'd be bringing as backup.

So in short: he was getting sent back as soon as 'Ku Lon' could possibly arrange it to be so.

He asked, pretty fluently because it was such a simple concept, if she had any idea how.

The method went right over his head, as expected. But he gathered something about siphoning off a smidgeon of Dawn's latent Key powers from her soul-link, then snapping that link and using that partially freed portion of Xander's soul to follow the other soul-link to Willow, zeroing onto her location and using that little splinter of Key to open a portal there.

Needless to say, Xander was immediately aghast at this.

Assurances were dealt out in matter-of-fact fashion. Dawn's link to Buffy would anchor her, even assuming that she didn't have enough real life experience to anchor her sufficiently anyway, and even then it was only a momentary sundering – it would grow back into place almost immediately. A soul-bond took two people, after all, and it was only being sliced at the one end. The sheer force of habit would take care of it growing back on his end. And as for the Key-fragment, of course she wouldn't keep it – who knew what Willow and the Council's forces would do to get that fragment back? Oh, and the link to Willow wasn't really going to be damaged at all – it would just be given a big ol' TWANG for triangulation purposes.

Xander momentarily paled – having lost that potential threat among the mystic technobabble and worries about Dawn exploding. But okay, if Willow wasn't going to go nuclear, then that was fine.

He relaxed…

And flinched when he saw that damn smirk crossing her face.

Of course, there was always going to be a condition. It was her home ground, her making the travel arrangements. And dammit, she was a demon – a demon cunning enough for his mind to pick Elder Ku Lon of Ranma ½ as her avatar, no less!

And by the lecherous glee etched into her wrinkly visage, he knew exactly what she wanted.

Xander pulled into himself for a while, mulling over his options.

Xander knew his Willow back to front, his time here being forced to think in those terms only intensifying that; as such, he could take a very educated guess at what Willow's range of reactions could be, depending on the condition he was in when they next met. What was immediately obvious was that Willow would probably forgive a lot, providing 'Ku Lon' fired off enough excuses along the lines of 'so sorry, we couldn't get him to you so we had to wait for you to open the way, what with the blah-blah, mystic technobabble, yadda-yadda inserted in this sentence he didn't do too well here, etcetera, etcetera, no hard feelings?' to satisfy her that it wasn't malicious. And what with the pervasive levels of soul-reading going on, he was willing to bet excessive amounts that Ku Lon was familiar enough with Willow's workings by now to eke out the maximum mistreatment she could get away with without reprisal.

But to go there…the mind shuddered!

But then, what condition would he be in when he got back? Africa HQ was probably dealing all kinds of not-well with his sudden suspicious absence, and he wanted back there ASAP. But the worse condition he was in when he did get returned, he realised with a sigh, the longer Willow would mercilessly baby him to death and stop him from getting back to what he should be doing.

But to go there…!

But— hang on a minute…

Xander looked back over at Ku Lon, wondering 'aloud' if there was any other reason she wanted…that.

The answer was simple, and came back to the 'soul as power' concept. She needed to expend power to short out Dawn's soul-link and shave off a slice of Dawn's power anyway. So why not harvest some off him in exchange for providing the service herself? That her condition involved 'that' was just a bonus to her, really.

Xander sat there, torn. On the one hand…eugh! But on the other hand, his people back in Africa were counting on him, and Willow would go ballistic when she heard about this, and— hey, there was an idea…

That grin was terrifying. But it was also confirmation. So, secure in the knowledge that at least he wouldn't have to live with the memory of doing this after the deed was done, he braced himself to grin and bear it, and stood—

—ox-oxo-xo—

—And found himself stretched out naked and sweaty, mildly exhausted and aching in vaguely familiar places on a surprisingly luxurious bed, and a (normally clothed) Elder Ku Lon happily perched on a chair across the room, smoking a cigarette of all things, with an immensely satisfied look on her face.

He ran his fingers through silky smooth hair, and thanked his lucky stars.

"So, clothes? Any chance of a bath?"

"No point with the clothes, sonny, it'll be hard enough just sending you back. There's a barrel you can use out the back."

Xander began to consider a response. Then he blanched, staring at a similarly surprised 'Amazon elder'.

"Oh, that can't be good…"

"Huh, that didn't happen the first time…"

They stared at each other for a while.

Then Ku Lon shrugged. "Oh well, nothing we to do about that now. I'll be sending you off when you're ready."

He sighed, resigned to yet another round of The Inevitable Mindfudgery of Xander Harris, and staggered off to find that barrel.

—ox-oxo-xo—

A short time later found a visibly replenished Xander Harris and a sprightly 'Elder Ku Lon' out the back, with the unwilling dimensional interloper standing – still sadly bereft of clothing, to Ku Lon's mild amusement (and lust, don't forget the lust) – in the centre of a ritual circle. Ku Lon tore her eyes away from the uncomfortable ex-carpenter for long enough to check over the circle. She nodded with satisfaction.

"Well, time to get you on your way! First…"

Her face scrunched up in concentration. Xander shivered like a bucket of ice-cold water had been splashed on his head.

"Don't worry sonny, all part of the process. Next…"

A shocked gasp ripped its way out of his throat as that metaphysical water, which felt like it instantly hardened like a second skin around him, snapped out in a Mr. Fantastic impersonation. And a picture flared into his mind…

Dawn Summers stopped, tensing as she felt a familiar yet improbable presence. The fine fabric of the dress she'd been examining in a mildly interested fashion, the product of Buffy's suggestion of a bout of shopping to take their minds off worrying about her closest male friend's sudden disappearance last night, slid unheeded through her fingers and back onto the bed.

"Xander…?"

"And a tiny little snip…"

Xander's new, latex-coated spiritual appendage started to burn like wasabi up the nostrils…

Dawn twitched.

…as the image of a suddenly apprehensive Dawn Summers receded to almost nothing—

"And now a good hard RIP…!"

—And then snapped off like a TV with an almost audible burst of pseudo-electrical discharge. The 'arm' snapping back into itself, leaving him at once bloated and impossibly, achingly empty.

Buffy came storming in at her sister's cry, to find her in a sudden, inexplicable panic, dropped to her knees and clutching at her chest with wide, wide eyes.

"XANDER!"

"Good. Now it's your turn, sonny. Think of your Willow, and…"

He didn't need to be told that. With what felt like half his soul broken off and lodged in his gullet, Xander was searching frantically for his Willow before the words could leave her mouth, the spiritual earthquake that rattled him to his bones shrugged off in his single-minded mission.

That titanic shuddering, though, was plenty in evidence when he attempted to look in on his childhood friend, leaving him a mental image distorted as white water rapids…

Willow snapped upright in her bed. "Xander?"

A familiar pressure, with a hammering sense of urgency and an garbled element of pleading that actually compared to the emotional broadcast he never did figure out he was blasting her with on Kingman's Bluff, exploded into her consciousness. Xander was in trouble! Xander was trying to get through to her! And her link to him was being twanged like a rubber band!

Well, she could do something about that! A twist of mental focus, a magical boost to the signal, another tendril of pure power to shove aside the barrier, and there he was! And – yes, he was reaching out to her! She gathered power to herself from the magically consecrated earth surrounding the entire estate, Gaia dancing to her will as she strained out and shunted away the incidental energy draw from her sleeping girlfriend and reached out with a joyful, "I'VE FOUND YOU!"—

"Aaaaand..."

When the picture cleared up and Willow stared right back at him with with that beautiful Willow-face, he didn't even care about the abrupt way that second skin hardened again and surged out, burning chunk of Keyness in its grasp. He just knew, just knew with the conviction of someone who was consciously and wholeheartedly convincing himself and not daring for even a picosecond to believe anything else – that he was about to go home, to his people, to the people that he loved.

Xander took advantage of his pretzelled sense of reality one last time, to bask in the priceless privilege of understanding exactly what that love felt like—

"…off you go!"

Ending A/N: this will be a three-parter, or more accurately a two-parter with epilogue. The next chapter, about twice as long as this one, will be up in a couple days to allow for final revisions. Until then, please leave comments (especially concrit) on your way out/past.