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Date Posted: 08:50:47 04/09/04 Fri
Author: Kuzibah
Author Host/IP: 12.175.117.195
Subject: Re: New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (part 4)
In reply to: Kuzibah 's message, "New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (part 1)" on 08:47:36 04/09/04 Fri

Gracie was fourth in line, and she gave Xander a warm smile when he entered, then began her act. Xander had seen bits of it before, when she was rehearsing, but here, with the lights and the costume, everyday things like doing her makeup and hair seemed other-worldly.

Oz was in the final berth, and even knowing the werewolf as well as he did, Xander felt his heart climb into his throat as the transformation took place. He was relieved to step back into the evening air.

“To the big top, then?” Xander asked the children. Pali nodded excitedly, but Simza looked apprehensive, and glanced around as though looking for someone.

“You okay?” Xander said.

“I….” She hesitated. “Something’s not right.”

“What is it?” said Pali.

“I don’t know,” said Simza. “Something…”

Oz came up behind them, accompanied by Gracie. He had a baseball cap pulled low to conceal his hair, and Gracie wore an oversized denim jacket around her shoulders.

“Come on,” Oz said. “They’re starting.” And the group climbed into the section of the bleachers reserved for the circus staff.

Etienne and Enid were there, along with many of the performers’ family members and the show’s office clerks. In the bandstand the orchestra began the traditional “March of the Gladiators,” and the performers began to process around the ring.

- - - - -

After a few acts, Pali and Simza left to help their family with the horses, and Gracie moved down to lean against Xander. He slid an arm around her back, and felt her body relax against his. It was nice.

After about an hour, a group of four contortionists took the ring. They wore patterned body suits and face paint, and when the lights dimmed, their costumes were studded with tiny lights.

Oz leaned forward and said softly into Xander’s ear, “remind me to tell you a story about them.”

Suddenly the evocative music stopped, and the orchestra launched into “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“Did they miss a cue?” Xander asked as the performers hurried from the ring.

“No,” Oz said, getting to his feet. “That music is only played in emergencies. Come on.”

Miss Lili and her trained poodles took the ring as Xander, Oz, Gracie, and the rest of their section silently exited their seats and slipped out under the canvas.

They gathered at the ticket booth where an agitated group was milling. Brandon Carling, the circus owner’s son, ran up to Oz and grabbed his shoulder. “It’s Tivoli, Oz, he’s…”

He was interrupted by his father. “Brandon,” the ringmaster said, “take Oz, Xander, Luca, and the rest of the Gypsies. Show them what we’re up against.” He addressed the others more loudly. “We’re ending the show early. I’ll go in after Lili and announce we have technical difficulties. The audience will be disappointed, but we need to get them out and to their cars as quickly and safely as possible.”

“Come on,” Brandon said, leading the small group around to the sideshow.

They stepped inside. The fluorescent work-lights were on, harshly illuminating the first platform stage. There, carefully laid on a canvas tarp, were three bodies: Mike Tivoli, the owner of the sideshow, Helmut Meng, still in his clown pantaloons and face paint, and Balo, the oldest of Xander’s carpentry assistants.

With a sob, Gracie pressed her face to Xander’s shoulder, but Oz climbed onto the stage and tipped Mike’s head to the side. On his throat were two ragged fang marks.

“Vampires,” Oz said, his voice low and furious.

“Oh, God,” Xander said, and Luca muttered a curse in his own language.

“Xander, take Gracie to our van,” Oz said. “Tell Bema what happened. She’ll know what to do. Do you have a stake?”

Xander shook his head, and Oz muttered, “and you born in Sunnydale, too.” He reached around and pulled a stake from the back of his waistband and tossed it to Xander. “Take that and meet me back here. Luca, you and the rest of your men surround the perimeter…”

Xander put an arm around Gracie and half-led, half-pulled her towards Oz’s van. Bema met them at the door. She clutched a stake and a crucifix.

“I heard already,” she said. “I’ll keep Gracie here.” She passed the crucifix to Xander. “Take this,” she said. “I have many others.”

“Thank you,” Xander said, and he took off back to the sideshow.

The tent was deserted when he returned, and Xander brandished the cross a little as he stage-whispered, “Oz!”

Xander stifled a not-at-all-girly scream as he felt the furry body of Oz-wolf against his leg, then hissed, “do you know where they are?”

In response, the wolf sniffed the ground, padded in a circle, and started tentatively towards the horse paddock. A panicked whinny, cut off suddenly, set them both to running. They entered the cramped, dimly-lit enclosure of trucks and canvas that served as a stable. The horses moved about, clearly agitated. Xander stepped towards the light-switch and heard a shouted, “Look out!”

He saw only a blurred shape in his peripheral vision, simultaneous with the snarl from the wolf, and then there was a cloud of dust and the smell of wood smoke that came with a vampire’s demise.

Nearby, two horses reared and made a horrifying sound, and the space was suddenly filled with vampires. Xander swung his stake arm, stabbing two vamps in quick succession. The wolf leapt for the fiends’ throats, tearing two heads off with animalistic ferocity.

Then Xander whirled, scanning for his next adversary, and he saw her---

Simza, his little helper, spinning through the air, with the broken end of a broom handle in one hand and a length of chain in the other. Time seemed to slow down as she dispatched the three remaining vampires with a ruthlessness that was beautiful. Her hands and feet were a concert of deadly force as she swung the chain, looping it around each neck, pulling the creature off-balance, then plunging the stake home.

Xander felt the hair on his arms and neck rise, as though the air was shot through with electricity; he was transfixed by this incandescent brutality.

When the last vampire was dispatched, as the dust settled into the hay, Simza dropped her weapons and retrieved her brother from behind the saddle-rack.

“Are you all right, Pali?” she fussed, and Xander snapped his mouth shut.

“Oh, God,” he said. “You’re a Slayer.”

- - - - -

By the time the sun rose, most of the encampment sported Gypsy-made collars under their clothes, close-fitting bands of silver, embossed or etched with crosses. And more than a few had stakes and crosses shoved into pockets or tucked in waistbands.

Xander had woken Giles around 3 am, once he’d assured himself Simza was indeed one of the Chosen. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done the tests dozens of times already.

By 6 am arrangements had been made for Faith to meet Xander and Simza in Dover and take the Gypsy girl on to the new headquarters in London. Xander would continue on to Bath, and Giles’s home, where he would make his report. Oz would arrange to ship his tools. They would leave by train the next morning.

Further previews in Venice were cancelled, and Carling arranged to have the circus move 100 miles north and preview there. The sideshow, finding itself without a guiding hand, voted unanimously to have Oz take over Tivoli’s role. The werewolf humbly accepted.

With a heavy heart, Xander packed his bag. It wasn’t fair, he thought as he unpinned his flannel work-shirt from the clothesline stretched between Oz’s van and Enid’s trailer. This was supposed to be a break from his responsibilities, his service in the fight against evil. And here he was, once again taking a confused little girl away from her family.

“Xander.” Gracie’s voice broke into his reverie and he turned to see her standing among the drying sheets that billowed around her like sails. “Will you be coming back?” she asked.

Xander shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she turned her face against her shoulder to wipe them away. In three steps, Xander had his arms around her, brushing back her hair and whispering hushing sounds in her ear.

“It’s just, we were moving towards something special, you know?” she said. “And I wanted it to grow, and see where it went, and now…”

“Gracie, I…”

“Xander…” she whispered, and her eyes fluttered shut and she tilted her face to his.

Xander cupped her face with one hand, and brushed his thumb over her chin. He tilted her face back down and kissed her forehead. “I can’t,” he said. “Not yet.”

He hugged her tight and let her cry, protected by his arms and the swell of the wind through the sheets.

- - - - -

Xander watched Simza out of the corner of his eye as she stood at the ship’s rail, leaning into the channel winds. She had dressed traditionally, and looked like someone out of time in her long skirts, full blouse, and red kerchief. A few sooty curls had slipped out and been tangled by the sea breeze, and she kept trying to unknot them with one hand, the gesture her only concession to the nervousness she refused to show.

Each time Xander had looked at her during their journey, she had composed herself the same way: back straight, feet together, black eyes revealing nothing. It served to remind Xander that her people had spent centuries concealing themselves from those who would oppress them, and uncomfortably placed himself in the category of just another gadjó kidnapper.

She had barely spoken, only one-word answers to direct questions, and it so saddened Xander to see his little “apprentice” this way that he just stopped talking, too.

Off at the horizon, they saw the sun reflected off the beach at Dover. “We’ll be there soon,” Xander said, and Simza gave a curt nod.

They watched the water curl out from under the ferry for several minutes, then Simza gave a small sigh. Xander glanced over and caught her eye, and for a moment she looked like the vulnerable little girl she was.

Xander had seen that look many times in the previous ten months, and no matter how much he hoped it would get easier, it just got harder. And he was a carpenter, dammit, not a Watcher. He shouldn’t have to drag little girls halfway around the world.

“Will it hurt?” Simza asked suddenly.

“What..?” Xander couldn’t understand her meaning.

“Becoming a Slayer,” she said. “Does it hurt?”

“You’re already a Slayer,” Xander told her. “You have been since you were born. It’s just that until I saw you kill vampires, nobody knew.”

Simza looked a little puzzled at that. “Oh,” she said.

Xander reached across and took her hand. “But sometimes,” he said, “it does hurt to be a Slayer.”

- - - - -

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[> Re: New Fanfic- Blanket of Stars (Conclusion) -- Kuzibah, 08:52:02 04/09/04 Fri (12.175.117.195)

Faith was waiting for them at the end of the gangplank. Alongside her were two other Slayers Xander had helped recruit: Swati, from India, and Katarina, from Bellarusse. They smiled and waved when they saw Xander coming, and he felt a little better.

Faith made introductions all around, and the other girls asked Simza about her background and how her powers had manifested. When they climbed into Faith’s car, Simza caught Xander’s eye and gave a tiny, confident nod. Xander waved as they all drove off.

- - - - -

Xander returned to Giles’s home, his home now, really, and things fell back into a natural pattern. He researched, supported Buffy and Willow in their world save-age, played big brother to Dawn, and did a hundred odd repairs around the house.

His tools followed three days behind him, and Xander felt a rush of gratitude when he found Oz had carefully rolled and packed Etienne’s poster of him in the case’s top drawer. By the end of the day he’d built a frame and hung it in the bedroom.

- - - - -

After a week, a letter arrived, addressed in careful block printing and bearing an Italian postmark. Xander stood beside the mailbox staring at it for several long moments before stuffing the rest of the letters back in for Giles to deal with and retreating to the garden shed to read it in peace.

When he opened it there was the subtlest scent of the rosewater Gracie kept in her atomizer, and Xander felt his heart speed up. He unfolded the crinkly pages and began to read.

He could imagine her writing it, propped at the vanity, the pen between her toes.

She told him of the frantic move from Venice and the last-minute previews. She told him the show was going well, mentioning comments overheard, and how Oz was getting along as both manager and attraction.

Then she told him how much he was missed, how at the end of each day she felt his absence like a shortage of stars in the sky.

She asked him to write, including a schedule of performances, with the address in each town. He noticed the ones in England were underlined and starred.

He sat on the bench in the shed, in the quiet, dusty sunlight, and read it through three times. He felt a pang for Anya, but it was a shade, the ghost of guilt, and he knew it was time to try happiness again.

He folded the letter into his pocket and returned to the house, and went into Giles’s study. He pulled out a sheet of vellum and a good fountain pen.

“Dear Gracie,” he began.


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