fandomtownies | The Perk, morning

"Yeah?" Parker looked up, expression easing a little. "How-- how did you figure out what it was?" She looked away. "Half the people I talked to were just made I tried to do it alone."

Xander thought of the moments before Buffy went into the mansion to kill Angelus. The night they found Willow surrounded by candles with an urn in her lap.

"Did it and waited to see if the world exploded or somebody ended up hating me, usually. Not saying I recommend that method. Professional dumbass on closed course, do not try this at home."

Parker nearly snorted mocha foam up her nose, then stopped to laugh, albeit shakily. "Right. Got it. Jumping in the volcano only for the experts who've bungee-jumped off the Empire State building." She took a sip of her drink, then put it down, one cheek cushioned on her hand. "Anyway. That investigation-- it's done, and the villain is alive but very unhappy, and I owe Jack and Jarod big for making that possible. Too big to ever repay. Weiss too, for keeping me from being an even bigger dumbass."

"Do I wanna know what qualifies as dumbassery that would top what you already told me?"

"Succeeding." Parker raised her eyebrows. "Imagine what I could come up with if I thought I could always get away with crap like that."

Xander opened his mouth - and immediately filled it with coffee, because it stopped him from saying I think I met that you. After a moment, he said instead, "You're not pointless there."

"Yeah." She shrugged a little, and said more quietly, "But, hey. Less temptation at Oxford, or in London, for me to investigate the Centre. Maybe when I start looking for more answers again, I'll be able to handle it better."

"Oxford? Is that where you're going after you, ah, blow this joint?" If his voice got softer towards the end there, it was only because he'd just let himself realize how close graduation was, how soon a bunch of people would be leaving the island.

"Mmm-hmmm." Parker put her cup back down, smiling, with some wistfulness. "I was accepted a bunch of places, but Oxford had the best program. Econ and Modern Languages. I can get Chinese and Arabic, if I want." She went quiet, then admitted, "The idea of starting over again scares me a little. I've gotten too used to this place."

"Been there too," Xander pointed out. "But hey, Oxford - that's pretty impressive. Willow got accepted there." ...both of them, probably, but Xander realized he ought to be clarifying. "My Willow, I mean. She didn't go, we all went to UC Sunnydale, but she could've."

"Hunh. Why'd she stay?" Parker asked, curious. "I almost went to Georgetown, but, well... aside from the program I wanted to take, my father would've been a nightmare to talk into letting me go there."

"Buffy," Xander answered, a little taken-aback to realize how long it'd been since that had been his one-word automatic answer for everything. "With the Hellmouth still open, she couldn't go away anywhere, so..."

"Ah." Parker considered that. Thought of Angelo laughing at her when she talked about staying in the U.S. and going to Georgetown, and humming the British National anthem at her. Remembered wanting to stay in Blue Cove when she was fourteen and angry that Jarod couldn't go anywhere, and not being given a choice. Thinking it over, she was glad she didn't have to make that choice now. "Willow's a good friend." She smiled at him a little, then said, "And so are you. You didn't have to go back, after all."

"Yeah, I did." It's an answer that he'd had six years to mull over, and a few months of things he never knew piled on top of it when he got back here. "I mean, I really did. If I hadn't gone back, something bad would've happened."

"I'm glad you did, then. But you didn't know that last August, did you?" She studied him over the rim of her cup. "And Bridge said that you had to go back, later. But he never said why?"

"That was a lot of last Augusts ago for me." Xander smiled ruefully as he took a drink. "But no, I didn't know Bridge had some kind of premonition; he didn't tell me til I got back here."

"See? So, good friend without needing any other reason." Parker took another sip of her mocha, then frowned. "Reminds me. I should whap you for letting that Faith girl stay on your couch. What were you thinking?"

Okay, yeah. She saved the world later. But still. She tried to kill him way before that.

Xander didn't bother pointing out the same arguments that he'd had with himself before he left - that there wasn't exactly a college on the island and what would he have done if he'd stayed here - make coffee? Especially since the barista was passing their table just about that time.

He concentrated on Parker's Fandom-segued question instead. "At first? That Buffy was dead and we needed a Slayer."

Parker rubbed the side of her face, eyebrows going up. "Still a good friend," she muttered, before moving on to the other subject, letting her voice rise back into a normal range. "Okay. Understandable for springing her from jail, however dubious the choice. But your place? Yours? She could have stayed with anyone else at all?"

"Where - with Joyce and Dawn? That'd have gone well. And Giles had a one-bedroom loft." Xander shook his head. "Anyway... she needed a second chance. I didn't use to be big on those, but it's hard to spend much time around this place and not see that people deserve one, if they really want to change."

Parker refrained from asking about His-Willow, since she had a pretty good idea from the e-mails they'd exchanged what Willow would have wanted to do to Faith. "I do get that. But still." She grumbled. "You're a better man than I, Gunga Dinn. I would've found her a nice safe storage shed to stay in."

"She did get the couch with the pokey spring?" Xander offered. "For, uh. A while."

Parker gave him an irritable look, feeling bad couch-sleep wasn't enough for an attempted strangling. "Great. Then what, an air-mattress? Pfttt."

Xander found what was left of his coffee fascinating suddenly. "Well, no, Sealy Posturepedic. But she did have to share?"

Parker stared at him. Then very slowly began to bang her head on the table.

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