A/N: Originally I was going to update one of my other stories, but then I just had to get this out of my system first.

Nonlinear Hyperbole

Prologue: Home Sweet Hell

"-. .-"

Sunnydale, California. Dream coastal town by day, everlasting horror show by night. Or that was what she might have pretended it was like until two months prior, drama and all. Back then, before Halloween 1997, she would sometimes let her imagination run amok in her head, complete with a narrator saying "Stay tuned for the latest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No reruns or your money back!" Well, that last part was something that her Xander-shaped friend would have said, if he were still around.

But he wasn't, was he? That was the whole point of her nighttime walk.

She wasn't quite sure when it became a weekly ritual, to visit his grave at midnight on every Sunday, half-through her patrol. It was like she deliberately wanted to put herself down at the very start of each new week, for around an hour each time. It wouldn't be the first time she was accused of deliberately engineering the drama in her life. Then again, maybe the whole point was to remind herself of all the times Xander had lightened up her day with quick, perfect jokes or goofy smiles? If that was it, she must have been ignoring that part of her subconscious that always tried to steer her in the right direction.

Again.

A long time to keep missing the point really, considering that the New Year had already come and gone and she was only now experiencing this epiphany. And Giles had been trying to persuade her to start thinking that way too. It made her feel like she'd been enforcing the bleached blonde airhead stereotype, and there was no Xander around to dismiss the thought in his trademark fashion. Not that she'd ever admit it out loud, but still…

She shook her head and leaned back to avoid a fledgling's attempt to brain her from the side. Two minutes and three dust piles later, Buffy Anne Summers pursed her lips in annoyance and started to brush herself off. She was losing her edge if it took her that long to take out three newbies. And it wasn't like she'd been given the chance to slack off, what with Ford's attempt to feed her to Spike and the attempts on her life by the Order of Taraka, plus the whole Ted the Android story. Not to mention the demonic egg parasites that almost took over the school just that week.

She'd had to splatter the bezoar queen apart from within with a pickaxe in the end. That had not been fun. The idea alone was bad enough, and then the slime… she'd liked those shoes. And the jacket! And the slime got into her hair which meant that she'd be taking showers and scrubbing her scalp raw twice as often for a good damn while. Which would be murder on her hair color and probably force her hair to grow faster too, given her history. Everyone would be able to tell she wasn't a natural blonde just from a look. Her traitorous roots would ensure it!

She stopped mid-step and blinked repeatedly, realizing what sort of tangent her thoughts had strayed on. Dammit! And she was supposed to be Buffy Anne Summers, The Vampire Slayer. The Chosen One. Ha! They really should make a comedy horror reality show out of it.

The part of her subconscious not taken up by the Slayer instincts must have been trying to imitate her no-longer-here-and-there Xander-shaped friend. To make up for his no-longer-here-and-there-ness. Maybe. The Slayer let her head drop as she sighed. It was either that or bursting into sniffles, which would at least still be a few levels below the episodes Willow kept having on and off every other day. And when they happened, she was inconsolable for at least an hour. Thank God for Oz.

Buffy had gone on a self-imposed guilt trip for a while, beating herself up for letting her friend be killed. For a long time she'd been living with the fear that having involved her friends in the slaying would get them killed. But when the fatality finally happened, it turned out not to be because of that at all. On the other hand, it had been due to supernatural crap, which should have put paid to all other arguments, but it turned out it didn't. Giles, Angel and even freaking Willow – Willow, who had more reason to blame her than anyone else – ganged up on her, got on her case for how it really hadn't been her fault this time. They made her put aside her whole Slayer-ness, the entire Chosen one thing, they even told her to envision Halloween night as if she had never revealed anything, or even never made friends with Xander and Willow. That even if Willow and Xander had never been part of the Slaying, that troll Snyder would have been on their case anyway, and would have conscripted them to play tour guide for the kids regardless of her involvement.

Even now she sometimes felt the outrage bubble in the depth of her throat, like bile. Those moments were the ones she hated the most. The thought that she should have been able to do something, because she should be able to do anything. But even that phase never lasted long. Pride, that's all it was.

Buffy stopped at the gate of the cemetery and leaned back-first against the cement post to gather herself.

Maybe someday, she could finally accept that she would have been unable to do anything about that night, even if she'd bought a costume other than that of little lady useless. Even as a full Slayer she had no clue what she could possibly have done when the skies split apart, literally tore like a brutalized piece of canvas. The chaos spell had been designed to cause all Ethan's customers to be possessed by their costumes, and it worked just fine... for like five minutes. Enough for Lady Elizabeth to fall on her butt and scuttle away from the "demons" rushing up and down the street.

That was when the sky literally tore open. Buffy doubted she'd ever forget the sheer, gut-clenching horror of seeing the rift in reality, large enough to split the night sky in half. Even as herself, she would have probably stumbled and fallen at the sight alone, not to mention the noise of a billion death throes mixed with the cackle of rabid beasts. It was like an eye of terror had forced open its eyelids. An eye whose iris was actually a legion of devilish abominations clawing their way into this reality, shrieking, drooling…

Then a flash of white light exploded from behind them, from wherever the dimensional tear led. The mind-shattering effects of that mystical space-time warp were banished, replaced by a moment of serenity that lit up the night like a second sun. The abominations in the eye of terror were disintegrated, along with every vampire that happened to be out and about at the time, which unfortunately didn't include Spike but fortunately didn't include Angel either. Lady Elizabeth only had one moment longer to gaze at the bizarrely-terrifying-turned-magnificent vista, her perception stretched into a whole lifetime at the time. As the light calmed, she spotted a vaguely humanoid, white figure where the eye had been, his arms spread wide only so he could bring them together and wipe the dimensional tear behind him from existence with one, all-engulfing gesture.

The sky healed immediately afterwards and Sunnydale fell deathly quiet in the aftermath. Buffy's possession by the useless noblewoman faded once the last crack in reality closed over like it had never been.

Bedlam ruled the next hour as trick-or-treaters finally panicked, but Buffy and Willow were able to reunite the kids with their guides easily enough, since the possession had lasted such a short time. The first alarm blared in her mind when she found Willow and the two of them didn't immediately run into Xander. It wasn't until they finally came upon his unconscious, deathly pale form that they really freaked out. Willow more than her, but that was normal, and she'd still been banking on him being just passed out from the shock or maybe a hit to the head.

She should have known things wouldn't turn out so well on the Hellmouth, Sunnydale effect or not.

Xander was hospitalized and stayed locked in a coma for only a week before his bastard parents told the doctors to pull the plug. He was buried three days later, with almost zero attendance besides the Scoobies. Only his mother and Uncle Rory were in there on the family side. Buffy later learned that the perpetually-drinking Tony Harris had been too busy arranging the Harrises' departure from town to be bothered with his own son's funeral.

Buffy had been so livid that she'd almost gone after the bastard to give him a piece of her mind. Willow barely managed to talk her down, which was impressive considering that she looked like she was itching to do something even worse, whatever it was. Then she somehow started sobbing her eyes out and Buffy had to literally hold her up as she cried in her arms. The two of them eventually had a pity party no one managed to get them out of for a whole day, which led to a really weird situation where Cordelia, of all people, was the one who went over to the Harrises the morning of their departure and tore both of them a new one.

The three of them might have gone together if Buffy and Willow had bothered going through their depression even a few days prior. But during the week while Xander was still alive-ish they'd still been hoping to find some magical cure or something. Unfortunately, nothing they tried or researched worked, and they even got a witch from the London Coven to teleport over. The only thing that did was reveal that there was nothing to be done because Xander's soul was just gone. Well, that and the fact that, apparently, the astral plane was all wiggy now around the town. Even worse than the normal Helllmouthy wigginess.

The biggest irony was that the Hellmouth hadn't had much to do with the rift in the sky at all, as far as anyone could tell. At least not beyond Ethan using the normal energy bleed-off to fuel his chaos spell. The mage had been found dead in his shop next to a shattered bust of Janus. Guess Chaos really didn't play favorites. Fitting the creep should be one of the only three fatalities that resulted from that whole mess.

The third was the mayor, who was found headless in his office the morning after. Maybe he'd been dressed as the headless horseman or something.

Buffy Summers shook her head to clear it before finally stepping into the cemetery. Her thoughts were getting sidetracked again, which meant she damn well should get off her figurative butt and get on with what she'd come here to do.

The trail was one she was well used to by now. She kept her senses sharp but didn't go out of her way to hurry or scout the area too much. Willow had hacked the coroner's office records as usual, which let them know that no victims of gangs on PCP or barbecue fork accidents had been buried in this graveyard over the past three days. And she'd cleared the crypt recently, so she didn't expect any older company.

Ah, there it was, Xander's grave. Same old, soon to be grass-covered patch of dirt. It even had a headstone. Paid for by Giles from his own savings, since Xander's father would otherwise have gone for the cheapest wooden cross he could find. "Alexander Lavelle Harris, Beloved Son, Fearless Friend."

Buffy doubted the accuracy of the "beloved son" part, but she figured Giles must have been thinking of his own feelings on the matter instead of the biologicals'. Her Watcher had ordered the headstone behind everybody's backs because he felt guilty for being the only one to reap benefits from the entire Halloween mess, despite not having been directly targeted by the spell. Somehow, the Mark of Eyghon had disappeared - and hadn't that been a tense discussion, with him revealing the truth of his Ripper days. On the upside it prompted Jenny Calendar to come clean about her real name and purpose in Sunnydale.

It had almost been enough to tear the gang apart, but the grief and uncertainty of just what had happened on Halloween had managed to push people together instead. They hadn't recovered yet, and they probably wouldn't ever be as upbeat as before, but they were pulling through. Angel may have been putting a bit too much pressure on their computer science teacher for her to find out what the curse escape clause was, but Buffy herself also wanted to know. Seeing as they had decided to put their… whatever it was on hold until they got the answer, she was pretty anxious to learn it herself.

The Slayer stuffed her hands in her leather jacket pockets as she walked the trail between grave rows. Yet another thing to tell Xander about tonight, the latest on a long list, as usual. She was almost there. Just a couple more rows and she would only have to make a right turn and her friend's grave would be just ahead. Quiet and covered in little blue flowers – Willow's work every Thursday afternoon when she had the last period free – and with a man in a white coat standing there in the middle of the night –

Buffy Summers stopped mid-step when her brain finally caught up with her train of thought. Very slowly, she pulled back, past the lone tree she'd just passed. A willow tree, ironically enough. Yep, the guy was still there. Either she'd been spacing out enough to miss the guy right in her field of view, or he really had only blinked into place as the tree trunk briefly hid the grave from her eyes while she passed by.

Standing completely still, Buffy checked her slay-dar without taking her eyes off the white-dressed whoever. No ping, no nada. Somehow, that only made things wiggier. The biggest wiggy in the long line of wigginess that was her life. Someone was standing at the foot of Xander's grave with hands in their pant pockets and just staring at the headstone. Someone who hadn't been there a second ago.

Scowling, she resumed her walk. Not slower and not faster, just the same, vamp ambush-ready stride that she used when she wasn't playing the bleached blonde bait. Maybe they should give it a name, the BBB routine. Triple B. Bee in Your Bonnet Bonnie with Angel as the Clyde.

And there we go, just ten paces from… whoever he was. "Odd getup for the graveyard shift, isn't it?" Now relatively close she quickly catalogued what she could see of the person, even if it was just from the profile. Guy, around six feet in height, broad-shouldered. High-collared white ankle-length coat over an equally white suit. Even the shoes were white… huh. "Nice boots."

To her shock, he motioned for her to be quiet. "Shhh…" He pulled his hands out of his pockets and just whispered. "It's about to start."

"What?"

The answer came in the form of a white flash of light. It was a small thing really, but that didn't matter as much as where it happened. A flash of white and the hum of a musical note ended with a patch of dirt from the center of Xander's grave dumped ten inches away from its right-most edge. Then a second came, and a third, then another and another.

"What the hell?!" Buffy growled. She didn't get any response, but the flashes accelerated, until it was one constant glow of vertical beams digging Xander's grave wide open while the odd musical note went on and on. "Stop that right now!" But the guy didn't even look in her direction, so she did what any self-respecting slayer would do in that situation.

She pounced.

"Oooph!" Buffy hit the ground flailing and only barely managed to control her fall into an awkward but mostly undamaging roll. Ending in a wide crouch, she cautiously pulled back up to her feet. Her jump had been timed fine and the guy hadn't even twitched. "Tch!" She'd sailed right through him. "Lovely, it's little mister bodily challenged. Just my luck." Suddenly she lunged at him and threw a perfect side kick straight at his face, only for it to pass right through like the first time. "Damn! Not a one-time fluke then."

The man didn't flinch. He didn't even acknowledge her actually, which somehow pissed her off more than the lack of solid body to hit. "Don't you ignore me, buster! I said stop that right now!"

"Relax, Buffster." The voice made her freeze. It was a bit lower in pitch than she remembered, but she recognized it. Recognized it and couldn't believe it. "Everything will turn out alright." The eyes turned briefly in her direction. "Or you could say everything's already turned out alright, from a certain point of view."

The shock was so strong that she almost reached out to grab him by the shoulder and pull him around before she remembered he was just an illusion. Or a ghost.

A ghost.

Wide-eyed, Buffy stepped around the man as much as she could without crossing over to where the grave dirt piled up. The light beams and hum kept on sounding in the background, but she didn't pay any more attention to them. Not now that she was close enough to see details in the dark. She took a moment to look at what she could see of the person's facer above the collar. "No…" she breathed. "Xander…" It looked and sounded like her Xander-shaped friend. Or at least Xander if he had aged at least fifteen years since the last time she saw him standing.

As if in response to her realization, the remaining five feet of dirt in the grave suddenly flashed out and fell in one, big pile on the side of the resting place opposite from her. Then Buffy started when a final flash of light dumped the cover of the coffin on top of the newly risen mound. Then there was nothing. No more flashes, no movement, no words. Not taking her eyes off the white ghost, she edged towards the new hole in the ground. She made a mental note of the strange pendant around Ghost-Xander's neck – something to ask Giles about later – but she couldn't see it too clearly.

Once she was close enough to the pit edge she looked down at the body. Yep, still there.

Then back at the Ghost-Xander and again at the dead body of her friend, several times.

"Well damn!" Ghost-Xander quipped, looking down at dead-Xander. "I guess I really did always look this good!"

Buffy rolled her eyes. She couldn't help it. Of course, when she realized what she did she finally got around to thinking that this could all just be an elaborate illusion. Her Slay-dar was still giving her nada, but that didn't really mean anything good given the situation.

Unfortunately, she never got to say anything on the matter because a lightning bold suddenly struck down from the clear sky right into the maw of the freshly unearthed grave at her feet.

The thunder blast threw her to the ground on top of the grave adjacent to Xander's own, and it took a few good seconds for her ears to start doing anything other than ring dully in her skull. She almost hit her shoulder against the metal cross when she rolled away, and her sight was blurry even after she was back to her feet. But it eventually cleared enough to reveal that Ghost-Xander was still standing there.

Whatever he or it was, he had his arms crossed in front of his chest and a mildly bemused expression on his face. "Flashy. I've been waiting for ages to see this happening from this side of the grave." He looked at her then, his eyes taking in everything about her that could be seen. Then he dropped his arms and glanced at the open pit one last time. "Well, that's that!" After which he turned on his heel and walked off.

Buffy stayed there, unable to compute the unexpected change in the situation. When the… it was ten paces away, though, she finally got a grip and rushed over to Xander's grave-that-was and looked in.

Nothing. Just an empty coffin and the smell of burned wood and soil.

Snapping her head towards the white figure slowly strolling off, her lips came back in a snarl that expressed her sheer anger over what had just happened. Some… thing had taken her friend's face and now stolen his body. "Oh no you don't, buster!" She took off faster than she'd ever sprinted in the past. In seconds she was on him, charging forward in a tackle that any professional football player would have wept in admiration over.

The conclusion was the same as that of her earlier attempt. Fortunately, she didn't hit any tree or grave add-ons on her latest reacquaintance with mother earth. Nevertheless, it was hardly a graceful landing. Grunting, she pushed herself to her feet yet again. "What was the word? Oh right. Ow." Then she turned around and glared at the still Ghostly Xander. "Who or what are you? What did you do with my friend's body!?"

She expected him… it to laugh at her, but instead she got something else. "Slayerhood's inflicted some serious assault and battery on your optimism, huh?" She bristled at the sympathy on old-Xander's face. "I'd offer to give you a hug, but well…" He shrugged and waved a hand, turning it transparent. "I'm not actually here, obviously."

"Oh, and where are you then?"

"So you can finally take a shot at me in the flesh?" The goofy smile made her stomach flip and she didn't know if it was in hope or revulsion. Then Ghost-Xander just turned away and resumed his walk.

"What? Hey, hold on there, buster! We're not done here, whoever you are!" She hurried to catch up. It was times like these that she wished she had a mobile phone to call Giles on. "Tell me what you just did with Xander's body or so help me-"

"Oh for the love of God!" Ghost-guy burst, throwing his head back and pinching his nosebridge. "Buffy." He turned to look straight at her. The sight of what perfectly passed for a grown-up version of her friend took her breath away. So of course he had to open his mouth again and ruin the effect. "Stop acting like a natural blonde! I know you dye your hair."

The Slayer gaped in outrage. "What the hell's that supposed to mean!?"

Ghost-Xander rolled his eyes and resumed walking, muttering "teenagers!" under his breath.

She gaped and stayed put, tempted to just go back and check on the grave again in case it had all just been part of the illusion.

"Well?" Ghost-Xander's voice eventually made her decide to leave it for later. "Come along."

She bristled but strode after him until they were walking side-by-side. "So what's the sitch really?" She tried for casual. No acknowledgment. "If this is the masquerading as the dead boyfriend routine, you got your cupid arrows mixed up." Ghost-Xander just smiled and kept walking. "No wait, this where you take on the likeness of my loved ones and lead me off to a secluded ritual ground or maybe your secret lair where you can have your wicked way with me."

She didn't expect a response, but she got one. "We are going to Giles' apartment."

Buffy stopped in her tracks. "Oh. So that's what you're after!" She crossed her arms and glared at the nerve of the guy. "Uh-uh! No way in hell am I leading you right where you want to be."

Unexpectedly, Ghost- doppelganger-Xander laughed and stopped to look at her. He shook his head and his eyes danced with mirth enough to make her want to either hit him or hug him and hope he was real. "It's not like his address is a secret."

She scoffed. "If you knew where he was, you wouldn't need me."

"Oh Buffy," he said fondly, smiling down at her. Damn him for being taller than her, just like everyone else. "I'm already where we're going." Then he turned away and resumed his walk down the sidewalk.

Wait, what? She caught up with him and passed her hand through him just to check. Yep, still ghosty. "What? I swear, if you've harmed a hair on-"

"Relax," he drawled. "I'm not inside. I'm on the roof of the apartment building." Then he unexpectedly looked in the distance two alleys over. "Heard that Deadboy? Go over and check!"

"What?" She looked where he was gazing despite herself. "Angel's here?"

"Well, not anymore," maybe-Xander answered as he kept his eyes on the darkness in the same direction as before. "He always watches over you from afar while you're patrolling, even on these nights. Right now he's running off ahead to make sure I'm not at Giles place and, what was it you said?" His side-glance was clearly amused at her expense. "Ah yes. Having my wicked way with him."

Buffy wished she didn't, but that statement conjured some really disturbing images in her head before she could banish them to the deepest pit of her brain. "Ugh! I wasn't sure before but I sure as heck hate you now!"

She didn't expect the long, piercing gaze that followed her statement. She didn't expect his answer either. "No. You really don't." Then his face cleared and an all-too-Xander-like smile overtook it. "You will in a moment though."

"Oh really?" She tensed just in case he or something else could attack her.

He didn't give any signs of noticing. "Oh yeah!" He looked ahead again. "You know how Giles always stays up until you call in or visit after your patrols?"

"Get to the point!"

"Okay!" He grinned. "See, I may not be in his apartment and having my wicked ways with him at the moment," he laughed at her disgusted look. "But why would I need to, when Miss Calendar's been there for hours?"

"Ugh!" Buffy covered both eyes, a mistake she would beat herself up over later. "TMI! TMI! I do NOT want to imagine Giles in that position… any position with… anybody!"

"And yet you can't help but do it!" Ghost-Adult-Xander quipped sagely. "Kinda like watching a train wreck. I completely understand."

The slayer pulled her palms away from her eyes and finally realized what a mistake it had been to blind herself that way when she saw that ghost-guy was already pulling his hand out of his coat pocket. Shit! Her muscles coiled like springs and she sprung away on instinct just as not-Xander pulled out…

… a Twinkie.

For the second time in an hour, Buffy the Vampire Slayer gaped, regardless of how embarrassed she was on the inside, both for covering her eyes in such a situation and for what had ultimately been an unnecessary overreaction.

And if nothing before had been enough for her to actually trust a hope that she was really talking to Xander, the way he failed to or pretended not to notice her lapse almost did. The all too real sounds made by the Twinkie wrap coming undone almost did her in, but she still rallied the remnants of her skepticism.

Damn him for making such a good imitation of her friend!

Then Xander stopped walking and, having fully unwrapped the confectionary, stuffed it whole in his mouth with a whimper of absolute bliss.

That done, he crushed the package in his fist and tossed it away, sending it flying unerringly down the mouth of a trash can twenty feet away. Buffy watched with unexplainable anxiousness as it flew through the air, and her slayer hearing heard the air rushing around it, the crunch as it hit the metal.

"So Buffy," Xander turned around, still chewing on his snack cake. "What'll it be? Truth?" he held up a second Twinkie then tilted his head in the direction of the trash can that a ghost shouldn't have been able to touch. "Or dare?"