Willow, sitting several feet away from him on the ground, looked up at him in surprise, almost as if she'd forgotten Xander was there. "I mean, people went to the trouble of having a funeral and burying--" he paused as he leaned forward and examined the freshly-carved name on the headstone, "Blake Simon. You'd think he would at least rise on time so we could stake him and get on with our Thursday night. We've been waiting nearly three hours." Xander tapped the stake against the name on the stone. "What kind of a name is Blake Simon anyway? Sounds like a soap name." He knocked more vigorously against the name with his stake. "Helloooo? We've already missed NBC's Thursday night line-up. Could you step on it a little?"

Willow allowed a half-smile to grace her features. "You'd think he'd be on time," she agreed quietly.

Xander studied Willow again. "I've moved past that, Will. Now I'm complaining about my lack of TV time. Try to keep up with me, will ya?"

She shook her head, slightly flustered that he'd noticed she wasn't altogether with it, and got to her feet. "Sorry. Um. Well, it's summer. There was only reruns," she tried helpfully.

Xander sighed and ruefully looked up at the full moon, causing the absence of the third member of their slaying team. "I'm sure he's fine, Will," he noted.

Willow's skin tone took on a slight red flush as she nervously shifted her stake from hand to hand. "Oz?" she said nonchalantly, trying to keep up the charade that she wasn't worried. "Of course he is. He has Giles to watch after him. And Giles has had a lot of practice watching… with Buffy and all. He'll make sure that Oz has blankets and that he gets some hamburger at two. Or else Oz'll get cranky. Cranky leads to mean, you know, but I already reminded Giles about that, right? So, he won't need to use that big tranquilizer gun. On Oz, I mean. Or anyone else. Not that anyone'd go to the library. During the summer. Especially at night. Unless it was vampires!" Her tone rose in alarm and Xander laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder before she got really worked up.

Xander watched with amusement as she seemed yet again surprised that her babbling had gotten the better of her. "We'll go check up on him after this, okay?"

Willow smiled at her oldest friend with a mixture of happiness and relief on her face. "Okay." She tapped her own stake against the headstone. "Buffy once said that Giles told her waiting was 90 per cent of the slaying game," she noted.

"Figures this guy would want to be an over-achiever. I think we've waited at least 95 per cent."

Willow sighed and looked out over the quiet graveyard. "Do you think she's okay?"

Xander allowed himself a small resigned sigh that he hoped Willow wouldn't notice. This had to be the ten thousandth time she'd asked him that question. "I'm sure she's okay. Buffy knows how to take care of herself."

Willow again met Xander's eyes in the darkness. "But, have you ever thought that maybe she doesn't want to come back?" She gestured widely at the cemetery, "When she has this to come back to?" She let out a low breath and stared at the headstone in front of her. "Would you come back?"

"Yes," Xander answered without hesitation.

Willow raised her face again and Xander's heart constricted as he noted the moonlit-reflected watery beginnings of tears in her eyes. He hated to see her unhappy. He always had. "Why?" she demanded.

"Because I know you'd be waiting for me," he answered honestly. "And I wouldn't want to disappoint you."

Willow smiled as the threatening tears retreated. She stood and wrapped her arms around her friend in a tight hug. "Thank you."

Xander awkwardly patted her hair and avoided the thought that she smelled wonderful. Although his heart had made a startling revelation about how much he valued her when she'd been injured a few weeks ago, he still wasn't ready to confront those feelings and all they would mean to their friendship. So, he determinedly shoved aside all romantic thoughts and feelings towards Willow and searched for a safe topic to take her mind off of Buffy. Which, admittedly, would be a very tricky thing since they were currently covering for the missing slayer. It was sometimes hard to keep the feelings of worry and abandonment at bay when they were filling in for their friend.

Willow stepped back from their embrace. "Do you miss Cordelia yet?" she asked unexpectedly, saving Xander from thinking up a new topic.

"Yeah," he admitted, lowering his eyes to the ground. "I didn't think I would, but I do. I really do."

Willow smiled impishly. "How long since she left?"

"Twenty nine hours, forty one minutes," Xander answered automatically, briefly checking his watch to verify the info.

Willow laughed. "Suddenly, I don't feel so bad about worrying over Oz."

Xander glared at her in mock anger before giving in to his own laughter. "I thought that I would feel better without her around, you know. No one to argue with me, no expectations to live up to, but I actually do miss her telling me what a dork I am."

"And you probably miss the closets," Willow teased.

Xander shrugged and tried to affect an uncaring expression against his best friend's watchful eye. "Oh, yeah. The smell of solvents and cleaning agents is a big part of the turn on for me. Couple that with some insults, and I'm set. Good to go." Xander paused, as a thought made its way to the forefront of his mind. "Do you think she's already found some dark, handsome, Latin guy to pull into closets?" he asked fearfully.

Willow giggled and noted with surprise how good she felt. Since Buffy left and they'd taken over her slaying duties, it had felt like all her laughter had been hollow and forced. Suddenly, she felt that despite everything, Buffy would come back and join in these insane conversations again. She grinned at Xander in the darkness. "She's probably found at least two by now, what with the twenty nine hours and forty two minutes she's had to look around."

Xander reached forward to give Willow a playful swat, but she dodged his hand and danced away from him, losing her balance in her haste to get away, and awkwardly landing just out of his reach onto the newly dug earth of the fresh grave.

Which seemed to be the equivalent of a wake up call for the occupant of the earthen tomb.

The ground below her erupted without warning.

Willow shrieked and backpedaled furiously as the mounds of dirt exploded upward, followed quickly by a ticked off and very vamped-out Blake Simon.

Xander sprang from his perch on the headstone and rushed to behind his panicking friend. He quickly reached under her armpits and hauled her to her feet. Willow, however, was still moving backwards in panic as he tried to pull her up, and caused them to crash back to the ground unceremoniously.

Xander lay there, disoriented, as he struggled to find the air that had been knocked from his lungs when Willow landed on top of him. He then noticed that he couldn't see anything. Well, anything except red hair.

"Will?" he wheezed uncertainly. He felt her squirming atop his chest. "Can't see," he breathed, pushing lightly on her back with his hand that was trapped between their bodies.

Willow watched in horror as the vampire formerly known as Blake Simon turned towards them. Her eyes darted to her stake, several feet away and just behind the newly-risen vampire on the dirt. 'I must have dropped it when I fell,' she thought in terror. Her mind worked overtime for a solution. 'Xander still has a stake!'

Xander weakly tried to brush some of Willow's hair away from his face with his free hand. He had, however, forgotten that he was still holding a stake so he accidentally hit his best friend in the head with the wooden object.

"Ow! Not me! Stake him!" he heard Willow cry from above him. She watched in horror as the vampire smiled and bared its fangs at her. "Now would be good." It moved to them and assumed a stance she could only assume directly precluded pouncing.

"Xander!" she hissed urgently.

"Can't see." He tried to intake a breath and inhaled a mound of soft red hair into his mouth. He started choking. "C-Can't breathe -" he began again, only to be cut off by Willow.

"Stakehimstakehimstakehim!"

Willow gasped as the vampire jumped towards them, wished she could kiss Oz one last time, and closed her eyes as she felt the vampire jump on her. She waited expectantly for sharp fangs to pierce the tender flesh of her neck for one pounding heartbeat.

Xander felt an unexpected weight again crush the air out of his lungs. 'Vampire on Willow!' every fiber of his being seemed to scream at once. He blindly reached forward and pointed the stake, in a direction he hoped was facing down, directly in front of where Willow's chest would be.

Willow felt Xander shift beneath her and prepared a silent goodbye to her friend. Then she noticed that Xander was positioning his arm above her and the vampire. 'He's going to-!!'

Xander brought the stake down with all the strength he had left in his body, and waited.

He heard the explosion of ash and dust before he felt the weight suddenly subside. "Move," he demanded weakly of the redhead, still perched atop him.

Willow, in shock, and covered with dust, remained where she was.

Xander lightly tapped her leg with the stake. "Can't see. Can't breathe. Getting mad," he wheezed.

He winced as Willow, instead of gracefully rolling off of him, tried to sit and lift herself up. Impatient, he pushed against her back with his hand. "Move!"

Willow scrambled away so that she was sitting near Xander, who had managed to sit up. He was breathing heavily, trying to get more oxygen back into his system. She waited, concerned, as he took a few breaths. "You okay?" she asked shakily when she thought he could speak.

Xander nodded. "I think so." He breathed heavily for a few more moments. "We got him, though."

Willow nodded proudly. "Three out of nine. Not bad, considering."

"Two. Two out of nine," Xander corrected her.

"Oh." She looked crestfallen. She stood and began brushing the vamp dust from her face and hair before she helped Xander to his feet. "We're going to check on Oz now?"

Xander nodded, and they began moving away from the mutilated grave. "Will?"

"Yes, Xander?"

"You need a hair cut."

Two weeks later….

Xander strolled along one of the well-manicured paths in Sunnydale's Eternal Rest Cemetery. Cross in pocket, stake in hand, he whistled the theme to a long-forgotten cartoon as he approached the newest graves in the cemetery. He was supposed to meet Willow and Oz at 7:03, two minutes before sunset. Giles hadn't liked the looks of an apparent car accident that had claimed two sisters a few days earlier. Even Xander had to agree that the news report of severe blood loss and holes in their necks before their car had been driven into a tree looked pretty vampy.

He sighed as he thought of Cordelia and how much he would rather be on some mindless mission to keep his hormones in check long enough to get to a safe make-out place. This would be more commonly known as a date to most people. To Xander, it was just something to be endured before smoochies. But, the sad fact was that Cordelia was several hundred miles away in Mexico, and, he feared, probably bestowing some mind-numbing kisses on some lucky guy there. He sincerely wished to the early stars in the sky that she got so sunburned that she had to stay indoors, swathed in cloth like a mummy for the rest of the summer.

He rounded a bend and stepped off the path to head for the appointed meeting place. He glanced around for his fellow temporary slayers - and came to a dead stop. Willow and Oz were sitting on the grass, in front of a very beautiful arrangement of flowers, necking wildly.

Xander grimaced and looked away. He stared at the sky and cleared his throat - loudly. He glanced back down, but his best friend and her boyfriend hadn't budged one inch. Xander cringed at the pang of jealousy he felt as Oz reached up and tangled his hands in Willow's hair. "Um, hello?" Xander said quietly. Surprising people in a graveyard was generally not a good idea he had learned from his tenure as friend to the Slayer. Tended to stakes and all sorts of nasty things thrown in his direction.

Willow murmured something against Oz's lips before letting out a low moan.

Xander made a small, strangled noise of disbelief. Willow, his Willow, did NOT make noises like that. "Hey!" he interrupted rudely, no longer caring about the repercussions of surprise. "Can't you find a closet? Like civilized people?"

Willow and Oz broke apart suddenly and turned to Xander. Xander could see Willow's pale skin change three shades of red before she spoke. She quickly scrambled to her feet. "Hi Xander! We were, just, um, waiting."

"Is that what it's called now?" Xander tossed sarcastically. "Where I come from it's known as 'Necking'." He made quote marks with his fingers as he said the last word, to further illustrate his point.

Oz stood up, seemingly completely unaffected by Xander's appearance. "Hey, man."

Xander nodded to him briefly.

"What time is it?" Willow asked absently, checking her watch. "Oh! We'd better get into position!"

"Where are they?" Oz asked.

Xander sighed. "It's this way. Come on."

"Isn't Giles coming?" Willow asked as she fell into step beside Xander.

"Nope. He got a call from some guy in Phoenix. He thinks it's a lead on Buffy. He's checking it out."

"Is he flying out tonight?" Oz asked. While they all wanted to find Buffy, Giles had taken the search to a whole new level. He'd flown out to Seattle and Kansas City in the previous two weeks.

"Yup. Made his reservations about an hour ago. He leaves nine-ish." Xander replied.

"I hope he finds her," Willow breathed wistfully. "It's been over a month…"

Oz loped his arm around Willow's shoulder and pulled her closer to him as they walked. "She's fine, baby. She just needs some space."

"It would be easier if we knew what happened," Willow continued. "I mean, I guess my spell didn't work and maybe she had to kill Angel, so I understand that she wants to hide for a while. But no letter? No phone call? Not even to her Mom?" Oz watched her get more and more upset through her speech. He halted their walking and pulled her closer to him in a hug. Xander sighed and waited patiently. Oz was good with Willow. He was good FOR Willow, he had to admit. But jealousy was an irrational thing. He watched as Oz murmured lightly against her hair and saw her nod in response. He tried to forget the fact that a year ago, it would have been him comforting his oldest friend. But he had Cordy now, and she had Oz, and it was good this way. There wasn't room for any other kind of feelings.

With a brief nod to Xander, Oz indicated that they should start walking again. And Xander knew from experience that the topic of Buffy and Giles looking for her was now officially off limits, if they didn't want to upset Willow again. After a few more long strides, Xander stepped off the path again. Willow and Oz followed his line of sight to two fresh graves, side by side, under a tree.

Oz checked his watch. "It's 7:06. It could happen at any time."

Willow, carefully avoiding the earth of the graves, knelt and looked at the joined headstone. "Look! They were twins." She ran her hand lightly over the names and the accompanying picture in the center. "Meredith and Melanie. How sad." She sat back on her heels and prepared to wait.

Xander took the opportunity to survey their surroundings. His experience in that strange soldier-mode had given him a definite edge now that he had to think about the tactics of slayage. He noted the escape routes through the shrubs and the other headstones where the vampires might be able to run. He went to Oz's side. "Look, they're going to be able to get out through there," he pointed to a break between some bushes, "And there," he noted pointing to an area just behind Willow. "We're going to need to get them before they get to either of those spots."

Oz nodded. "You got that, Will?" he checked.

She stood and walked to the small group. "Got it. Now we just have to wait."

The wait was unusually short. Within a second of her last word, the ground from the nearby graves began to spurt upward furiously. Simultaneously, two arms reached toward the dark sky from the ground.

"What? Were they synchronized swimmers, too?" Xander muttered, assuming the defensive posture he'd seen Buffy use dozens of times. He held his stake lightly in his hand, ready to grasp it tightly and use it as a weapon when the awakened vampires were finally free of their earthen crypt.

Willow took a few steps back and withdrew her cross from her jacket pocket. She sent a silent prayer heavenwards that everything would be all right and gripped her stake tightly.

Oz tried not to think about the way his body naturally eased into a hunting stance. The werewolf thing was intense enough on nights of the full moon without it carrying over into regular nights as well. He quickly pulled out the stake he had in his back pocket and felt for his cross in the other pocket. It would only be seconds before the vampires would be free.

The two vampires clawed their way to freedom quickly, and quietly surveyed the small group gathered around them. "Look, a welcome banquet," one of them said.

"Really?" Xander tossed back. "I didn't see a buffet table on my way in." He shifted his stake from hand to hand. "So, ladies, which one of you is Meredith, and which one is Melanie?"

The second vampire stretched leisurely as if she'd just woken up with a kink in her neck. She finally turned to examine Xander more carefully. "You can call me… Death."

"Thanks anyway, but I'm more partial to Death's little brother, the Sandman," he retorted. Everyone came to a complete stop and turned to stare at him. "What? I'm the only one who reads comics anymore?"

"He smells different," the other vampire said, indicating Oz with a nod of her head.

"No, he doesn't," Willow broke in. She knew he was sensitive about his wolfiness. She didn't need some hotshot newbie vampires to give him a complex about it.

The first vampire turned to stare at Willow. The redhead swallowed hard and held her stake up menacingly.

"You're both pretty small for vampires," Xander taunted, trying to get their attention away from Willow. "Why, you're no bigger than Willow over there, or Oz."

"Xander!" Willow chided. She didn't want Oz to have a height complex either.

"What?! You are about the same height."

The second vampire laughed and sprung at Xander gracefully. Using his distraction with Willow against him, she was able to get behind him and seize him by the neck quickly. "Size isn't everything," she replied, her voice almost a low purr.

The first vampire leaped at Willow, deciding the spritely redhead smelled more appetizing than Oz. Willow held her cross up in a defensive gesture as Oz sprinted to help Xander.

The vampire holding Xander chuckled and stroked his jugular with a clawed hand. "Wait!" Xander yelled as she pulled his neck closer to her mouth. "I have a question!" "What?" she asked, obviously amused that he had made the demand.

"Were you guys synchronized swimmers?"

The vampire facing Willow laughed. "No. What makes you think that?"

"Well, the way you both do stuff at the same time, like, synchronized, you know?" he struggled lightly in the vampire's grasp, testing her strength. No way out there. He could see Oz edging closer, stake lowered at his side.

"We were dancers," the vampire holding him revealed. "You learn how to move with other dancers."

"Interesting," Xander wheezed. "I've been told I can't dance very well. Maybe you could teach -!"

Oz sprang forward without warning, knocking both Xander and the vampire to the ground.

The vampire facing Willow noted her distraction in watching Oz and Xander. Smiling, the vamp chose to attack. Although held at bay with the cross in front of the girl, the vampire kicked blindly for her arm, and was delighted when the cross flew from the slight girl's hands and into a bush nearby. Willow winced and cradled the arm that had been kicked closely to her body while she raised the stake with her other hand.

The vampire chuckled lowly and reached for Willow. Willow dodged, but the creature was able to get a good grip on her jacket, which it began pulling over her head. Disoriented now that she couldn't see clearly, and just plain scared, Willow began stabbing at air with her stake. She began to shimmy and jerk frantically, trying to free herself from the jacket hindering her, all the while continuing to stab blindly into the air with a stake. The vampire laughed at her desperate movements.

The vampire facing Oz and Xander hissed at them. Oz scrambled up and grabbed Xander's arm, pulling him away from vampire. But the monster clawed at his clothing and was able to get a solid hold on the leg of his jeans. Tugging, the vamp was able to topple Xander and send him sprawling on the ground again. Oz, however, had sneaked behind the beast and deftly plunged his stake into the vampire's back. There was a second of absolute silence before the vampire exploded in a cloud of ash and dust.

"MY SISTER!" the vampire near Willow howled with rage. "Take one of mine, I'll take one of yours!" The vampire, sick of dodging Willow's blind jabs with the stake, grabbed the redhead and yanked the jacket from the hacker's body. Willow, finally free of the jacket, tried to see what was going on. The thick, tangled curtain of red hair in her face made it difficult to make out her surroundings. She continued to plunge her stake at her unseen foe, hoping she would at least keep it at bay long enough to regain her bearings.

Oz immediately sprung into action to help his girlfriend. He flipped his stake, tested the weight briefly, and threw it with all his strength at the vampire. He was somewhat dismayed when it sailed past the monster and solidly connected with Willow's skull, bouncing wildly off her head as she sank to the ground. "Good shot," the vampire snickered appreciatively, leaning down and grasping the dazed Willow by the shoulders.

Oz blinked in surprise and leapt for the vampire. Landing on its back, he quickly reached into his back pocket and withdrew his cross, pressing it tightly against the vampire's cheek. The vampire howled in pain and let go of Willow before turning to grasp Oz, flinging him over its head and to the ground roughly right in front of Willow. Xander approached quietly from behind, looking for an opening where he could get the opportunity to stake the thing.

Willow gingerly touched her throbbing head and noted that that was the second time in a month that she'd been hit in the head with a stake. Her head injury was never going to heal properly if this kept up. She yelped in surprise as a darkened form rolled into her. She tried to brush away enough hair to see her assailant, but a disgruntled snarl from the figure sent her into a panic. Blindly, she took her stake and stabbed at the body in front of her. Only to hear it say "Hey! Will! It's me!"

Oz was intensely grateful for two things. One, that Willow was awake and seemingly coherent enough to attack him. And two, that she was so blinded by her hair that she'd stabbed him with the blunt end of the stake.

Willow bit her lip, horrified that she'd staked her boyfriend, and blurted out a loud, "Oops! Sorry!"

The vampire, laughing at the battle between Willow and her rescuer, didn't even know Xander was behind her until it was too late.

The sound Willow heard next was a tremendous comfort to her jangled nerves. The sound of a vampire combusting into thousands of little harmless particles. She sighed with relief and began pawing at her hair, finally getting enough of the tangled mess out of her face to see Xander squatting nearby and Oz sitting right in front of her, tenderly holding one hand to his stomach.

"I'm sorry," she peeped at him, moving to help him. She was, however, struck with a strong dizzy spell and the sound of a hundred bells ringing in her ears the moment she tried to move. She flopped back to the ground, holding her head. "I think I need a minute."

Oz smiled at her. "Sorry about that. My aim was off."

Willow blinked at him and tried to smile through the chorus of bells serenading her. "It was a good idea. You just need a little practice."

"Will?" Xander interrupted. "Can I say something?"

"What?" she asked.

"You still need a hair cut."

Continues