Xander's Undead Cats

"So how is she?" Xander asked, after Jacob had finished examining Anise or rather a digital pad that had been set inside the foot of the bed that had been revealed when he had tapped a button.

Jacob smiled. "She's fine, the virus simply taxed her body beyond what it can normally handle. Really there should have been a hormonal surge before she passed out that would have increased her healing rate and had her on her feet already, but apparently that didn't occur."

Xander frowned. "She said we needed to work off her hormonal surge."

Jacob shook his head. "Yeah, good luck with that. I don't care how big you are, she'd have less control than normal and would end up cracking your ribs if she didn't break them outright."

Xander checked himself over, poking at his ribs. "Eh, I feel okay. She was… enthusiastic, but it felt about the same as normal."

Jacob just stared at him for a moment. "Would you mind laying down on one of the bio-beds so I can make sure you don't have internal injuries?" he finally asked.

Xander shrugged. "Sure, but I'm feeling the best I ever have, so I don't know what you expect to find."

"Just humor me, please," Jacob said, waving him towards the other medical bed.

Xander nodded and laid down on the bed, which looked like a thin exercise mat on a stone base, but was much more comfortable to lay on. He felt a slight tingle as Jacob tapped away on the pad.

"Huh," Jacob said. "Not a bruise, scrape, or burn on you."

"I did hop out of a sarcophagus recently," Xander pointed out.

"Yes, however I hit you with a blast of a Zat'nik'tel and not only did it fail to knock you out, it apparently failed to do… anything," Jacob explained.

"I've had bigger shocks sticking a nine volt on my tongue," Xander told him as he got up, pausing to brush his blond locks out of his face, still adjusting to his new hairstyle.

Jacob shook his head. "You're impossible."

"I've been told that too," Xander said agreeably. "So… when is Anise going to be coming around?"

"Not long," Jacob said, glancing at her readings. "Give her a half an hour or so."

"I've avoided touching anything since I can't tell the difference between a button reading self-destruct and one reading lights. Thankfully I was shown how the bathroom worked before she passed out," Xander said. "Any way you can find me some food and maybe some pants?"

"I'd be more than happy to help," Jacob assured him.

0o0o0o0o0

"I am clean once more," Xander said cheerfully as he stepped out of the bathroom.

"Ack! Pants!" Buffy exclaimed, red faced and spinning to avoid seeing more of her friend than she was used to.

"Can I get a towel?" Xander asked Tara, who was still in the bathroom.

Tara handed him a towel as she stepped out of the bathroom wearing a fluffy white robe, and Xander wrapped the towel around his waist.

"Xander's semi-decent again," Willow assured Buffy, who cautiously turned around and relaxed.

"That's a lot more of you than I am used to seeing," the slayer told him.

"Everyone's seen everything I've got and I'm going to be chained up again in a minute, so I didn't think it was a big deal," he said apologetically.

"Well it is-" Buffy began.

"Big," Willow interrupted with a grin.

"Kind of a surprise and embarrassing," Buffy said firmly, giving the stink eye to her best female friend.

"I'll try and keep my nudity confined to certain rooms," Xander said, trying not to laugh.

"I'd appreciate that," Buffy said, "thank you." She stuck her tongue out at Willow.

"And now I can get a shower," Willow said, just before Dawn slid through the four and ducked into the bathroom, "as soon as Dawn is done."

"We'll meet you in the basement," Xander said as Tara grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the stairs.

"Pancakes," Tara corrected him.

"We'll meet you in the kitchen," Xander said.

"Put on some pants before you cook!" Buffy called as the pair headed down the stairs. "This has been a really strange week." She shook her head.

"Death of a goddess, though thankfully not one we like, Xander died and came back as a male model, and Tara is nibbling on his soul like a really finicky succubus," Willow counted off. "Yes, it has been a bit strange even by our standards."

"Plus Xander being in two places and I really don't like the idea of Xander being out there on his own," Buffy said, before chewing her bottom lip in thought.

"He's not, not really," Willow said. "Xander is here and not at the same time. It's kinda like Schrodinger's cat."

"Pretty sure Xander is alive and not dead, at least not any more," Buffy said.

"Not the point," Willow said. "See, the whole thing was about how the cat was in both an alive and dead state at the same time until a conscious mind observed it and collapsed the wave form, making it one or the other."

"Lots of us see Xander and he's still in two places," Buffy told her.

"Yeah, magic does come in handy," Willow replied, "but the point I'm making is, Xander is one person though experiencing two different lives in two different places, so he only thinks he's not here when he's over there."

"I have no idea what you just said," Buffy told her, "you're going to have to dumb it down even further if you want me to get it."

Willow rolled her eyes and said, "There is only one Xander, he's just refusing to admit it and reality is going along with it because it thinks it's funny. Once Xander admits it he'll have been here the entire time and never been without us."

"He has a unique sense of humor," Buffy said, "and the world sharing it explains so much."

Willow opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again with a frown on her face. After a minute she said, "I really hope you're just messing with me."

Buffy gave Willow her best vacant blonde look. "Would I do that?"

When Dawn stepped out of the bathroom she found the two in the middle of a tickle fight and couldn't help but grin, glad to see Buffy was in a much better mood. Of course that didn't stop her from jumping in on Willow's side.

0o0o0o0o0o0

"Now that you have pants and some food in you, may I ask who you are and why Anise would go to such trouble to revive you?" Jacob asked.

"Xander Harris," he introduced himself, before taking a sip of the juice which tasted something similar to grape juice. "I was visiting my uncle on base when I met Anise and we hit it off."

"You're a civilian?" Jacob asked doubtfully.

"Kind of," Xander replied. "I'm a bit of an unusual case. I'm not part of the military, but apparently they keep an eye on me, like a mining canary. My uncle was called in for some emergency just after he'd picked me up from the bus station so I ended up on base and that had people hitting the panic button until I explained I was there because they called in my uncle and not because I was investigating anything."

"Private detective?" Jacob guessed.

Xander considered that as he took a bite of the flatbread and egg sandwich thing he'd been given. "That's close," he decided. "I have to do a lot of research and investigation at times to figure out what I'm dealing with."

"Huh," the retired air force officer rubbed his chin. "Who pays for your services?"

The blond giant chuckled. "I don't get paid, unfortunately. People in my line of work don't do it for money, we do it because it needs to be done."

Jacob frowned in thought. "You've been speaking around the subject without addressing it directly. The only subject I know of that we avoided speaking about in the military dealt with things… well things like we are living right now, come to think about it."

Xander laughed. "Yeah, need to know is part of my job and keeping people from knowing what is actually going on is almost as important as the job itself, unfortunately."

Jacob leaned back and sipped his coffee.

Anise joined them, gathering a mug of coffee and a flatbread sandwich for herself. "Good morning Selmac, Jacob," she said, taking a seat next to Xander and giving him a peck on the lips.

"Good morning, Anise, Freya," he returned her greeting. "Is there a particular reason you decided to work off the hormonal surge rather than allowing it to do what it was designed to do?" he asked dryly.

"Freya pointed out that we had no data on what occurred when the surge was absent and I like to nurture her experimental side," Anise said with a straight face before digging into her food as if she hadn't eaten in a week.

Jacob rolled his eyes. "So, how did an alien hunter end up catching the eye of these two?" he asked.

"I'm not an alien hunter," Xander replied. "Ever heard of a Queller?"

"Can't say that we have," Jacob replied after consulting with Selmac.

"Need to know," Xander said with a shrug. "Sorry, but I can't talk about it with someone not already in the know and since we are not on Earth it's not really important anyway."

"So it's a problem unique to Earth?" Anise asked.

Xander shrugged. "Haven't been off Earth before now, so I can't say for certain, but it likely is due to… local factors," he said, thinking of the Hellmouth.

"Ra never explained why he decided to forbid all contact with Earth," Selmac spoke up, Jacob's eyes glowing gold for a moment.

"Let's just drop it," Xander said, "one of the reasons we don't talk about it is because it tends to get people tossed into mental wards."

"The person talking about it or the one who learns of it?" Anise asked.

"Initial response is that the person talking about it must be insane and then if they discover proof… Well, they tend to lose it. That's why I am not going to be telling anyone about the subject unless they are already in the know," Xander told them firmly. "It's not worth the risk."

"Sounds like something Lovecraft would write about," Jacob offered.

Anise tilted her head. "Lovecraft? Well, Xander is very skilled in making love, but I fail to see how that would drive anyone insane."

Xander choked on his juice.

"H. P. Lovecraft wrote about creatures beyond the bounds of reality who's very sight would drive men mad," Jacob explained, trying not to laugh, "usually involving squid like tentacles and such."

"Like the ascended," Anise offered.

"The ascended?" Xander asked curiously.

"That… fits a bit," Jacob said with a frown. "The oldest race in the galaxy, the ones who built the stargates in fact, physically ascended to a higher plane and became beings of pure energy. For some reason they take the forms of glowing squids when not trying to appear human."

"The ascended however do not cause insanity… unless you count the time O'Neill stuck his head in an Ancients' repository and tried to download the entire database into his head," Anise offered.

Xander nodded. "And in a complete change of subject, when can we get me back to Earth? I've got to check in with home, so they know I'm alive again."

"I thought the military would keep your death a secret," Anise said with a frown. "I'm also curious about the manner of your death, as you had no obvious wounds and I noted that the use of a sarcophagus did not cause any obvious hormonal upset as is normal."

Xander nodded, stopping to brush his voluminous blonde locks out of his eyes as he was not quite used to it. "Normally I wouldn't explain and my explanation is just going to confuse you anyway, but since you resurrected me I'll explain what I can. Unlike you guys, with two people in one body, I am one person in two bodies… or maybe existing in two places at once… Anyway, my other self was going to do something that was probably going to kill me, so he gave the base a heads up so they might be able to restart my heart, which didn't work, but that was a faint hope anyway."

The four beings in two bodies just stared at him in silence for a moment.

Xander sipped his juice. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Typing by: Me!

Beta by: Mist of Shadows and Abyssal Angel