DARK REFLECTION

by Nick Midian

(nick_midian@mixmail.com)

SPOILERS: For Buffy TVS: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow kissing and no Lover's Walk (Welcome to the wonderful State of Denial, Land of 'Shippiness.)

For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are only tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of the Highlander-style immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole 'immortals have no parents and are found in a little basket' is a... um, the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada', so let's just ignore it, ok?

KEYWORDS: Action-adventure, Violence, Romance (C/X, B/A, W/O, G/J, Other/Other. Yeah, I'm a groupie :) ), Angst, Alternate Universe, Crossover (Highlander).

SUMMARY: In year 2002, a very changed Xander comes back to Sunnydale, and he's not alone. How will his old friends react? Which are the secrets that he keeps?

This Chapter: Someone's coming back home, but not the way you expected...

RATING: I'd say a general PG-13 with some R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.

LEGALISTIC DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit, merely for the pleasure of writing and sharing it.

The concept and characters of Buffy TVS (Buffy, Angel, Xander, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, Joyce Summers, Spike and the rest) are intellectual and legal property of Joss Whedon, Warner Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc.

Also, the concept of Highlander and the characters here mentioned are the property of Rysher Entertaiment.

Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Henri Duprè, Robert Coltrane, Osborne and Elvis the Dog are of my own creation. Even when Gilles de Rais is not a fictional character, this view of him it is, so I guess it's also of my property... Or not... Or whatever.

All the lyrics used in the story are legal property of their respective rights owners.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: The concept of this story was born after the reading of Richard Ruth's wonderful 'Who want's to live forever?' and his fascinating vision of Xander. Nevertheless, this story is by no means a sequel of said, and magnificent, tale and has no more points in common with it than its starting point. If you're a Buffy and Highlander fan, as I am, I strongly recommend you to read his 'Immortal Dilemma' series.

I have to thanks also to AleXander's Transcrips, without them, the last Buffy episode I'd seen would had been 'Bad Eggs', can you believe it? It's a shame that WB had forced them to close the page. We're with you, buddy!

And, above all, endless thanks to Mash, for the French, all the laughs, all your wonderful comments and the new (and better) ending. To Aslan and Krac (Goddesses of fic) for all their advices and (enormous) work with my English grammar. Without you this wouldn't have been possible. This is your work as much as mine.

NOTE: Please, understand that English is not my native language, so any grammatical or spelling errors are only my fault, not of any one of my wonderful beta-readers. This is also my first serious attempt at fanfic, so, if you're thinking in sending any flames, please be kind with me. I'm a grown up man, but I still can cry like a child, believe me.

For all of you that like to put real faces to the characters there will be a short cast list at the end of every chapter. Tell me what
do you think of it! :)

And now, on with the show. Fasten your seat-belts ladies and gentlemen, because it's going to be a long, hard and jumpy ride...



DARK REFLECTION
by Nick Midian

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
"Atlantic City", Bruce Springsteen


I can still remember when I was just a kid
When friends were friends forever
And what you said was what you did

Oh, we were so young (so young)
One for all and all for one (all for one)
Just the sure as the river's gonna run

Blood on blood
One on one
And I'll be there for you
Till Kingdom come

"Blood on Blood", Bon Jovi


I was bruised and battered
And I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
I didn't know my own face

"Streets of Philadelphia", Bruce Springsteen



PROLOGUE: The future, like a dark road in the night...

November 13, 2002. 02:38 a.m.


When you dance with the Devil, you don't change the Devil, the Devil
changes you.

From the film "8mm"


I don't believe the devil,
I don't believe his book,
But the truth is not the same
Without the lies he made up...

"God Part II", U2

The sleek and shiny black 1978 Cadillac Coupe DeVille advanced through the dark Californian highway like the ghost from the past that it was. The man behind the steering wheel had his eyes fixed on the dark road that moved below the wheels of the heavy car, but his attention was almost completely captured by the man that was sat by his side. The man that in the last few years he had learnt to respect and love like a true friend and brother.

Both men looked young, the passenger not a day above their early twenties and the driver closer to his early thirties, but their eyes reflected their true dimension. They had old, sad eyes. The look of men that had seen too much, that had lived too many years.

The passenger was looking though the window pane of his side, so his partner was unable to see his face. In fact, the only part of his head that he had seen for the last hours was the back of his neck, and it was beginning to become an incredible boring sight. The driver let go a controlled cough and looked to his friend out of the corner of his eye. The passenger just stood where he was, looking through the window and taking a drag now and then from the cigarette that was slowly burning in his left hand. The driver coughed again, louder.

"Spit it," said harshly the passenger without turning his head around.

"Do I really need to put it into words?" the driver said with a faint of French accent in his voice. "I mean, this has to be the worst idea that I've ever heard from you."

"I thought that we had already talked about this."

"Yeah, I know what you said to the others," said the driver, becoming increasingly annoyed by the apparent lack of interest in his friend. "How this is supposed to be some kind of early inspection of the ground."

The passenger slowly turned his head and landed his dark eyes on the frame of the driver. "And you don't buy it." It was an affirmation, not a question.

"No, I don't buy it. But that is not what bothers me."

"What is then?"

"That, somehow, you have conceived the amazing idea that you can or need to hide the truth from me."

The passenger looked at his friend in silence for a few moments, took a drag from his cigarette and smiled slowly. "And I that thought of myself as the brightest guy in town," the passenger told his companion sarcastically.

"Don't give me that shit, mon frère," growled the driver without hiding his own smile. "We both know what's your real intention."

"I'm afraid I'm a little bit lost here. Enlighten me, please."

"You want to see them again. You want to see her again."

The passenger carefully considered his friend's words and nodded slowly with his head. "And what if I want?"

The driver shrugged and fixed his eyes again on the road. "Of course, you understand that things are not going to be the same. They are not going to be the same. It's been three years after all."

"Well, I sure hope so. Considering that the last time I saw them they tried to put a wooden stake through my fucking heart."

"And you still want to face them without the rest of the team backing you up?" The driver looked at him and frowned.

"Yeah."

"Mon frère, you have to be the bravest, the craziest or the stupidest man I've ever known."

The passenger flashed an enormous smile full of white teeth and looked again through the window, seemingly captivated by the night scenery. "Probably a little bit of everything," he said not enough loudly for his friend to hear.

They spend the next minutes in the same uncomfortable silence that had plagued the interior of the car during the last hours. They used that time like they had used the time before. To remember the past, to think about the present, to plan the future. Past and actual friends, acquired debts, lost opportunities and freely taken compromises.

"Michael," said finally the passenger. "Stop the car."

Michael Deveraux carefully guided the black Cadillac to side of the road and killed the engine. Without saying a word, his friend opened the passenger's door and got out the car. Michael followed him and stood beside the dark car, looking at his friend with a hint of concern in his dark blue eyes. He was standing in front of an old and torn sign that read 'Welcome to Sunnydale. Enjoy your visit.' with his hand hidden inside the pockets of his long and dark leather coat and his look lost into the sign.

"They say that you can't go back home," Michael said, supporting his frame on the long hood of the car.

His friend looked back at him. His face had morphed into the one of a demon, with red and gold eyes, edged brow and cheek-bones, and long and pointed fangs. He smiled an evil smile and licked his lips. Michael just smiled back.

"In the three hundred years that you have been spending around here you should have learned that they use to say a lot of nonsense, my friend."

"Maybe that's true," admitted Michael, caressing his own cheek, "but I have a bad feeling about all of this."

The vampire just smiled again and looked back at the tattered sign. "Whatever that'll be, will be," he said philosophically, and then, so low that only he could hear his own voice, added, "I'm home, at last I'm home."

And Alexander LaVelle Harris, rose his eyes to the moon and let go a long and loud shout of joy.

End of the Prologue


The Cast for this Chapter:
Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux


You liked it? :) You hated it? :( Anyway drop me a line, I'll love to hear everything you have to say.

Stay Tuned for the next chapter: 'Back alleys and frontal face-offs'