"I know I'm forgetting something," Xander said to himself before snapping his fingers. "I need the personal effects of the Tarakan assassins we killed and their rings. We need to stop by Giles' so I can see if he has the third ring."

"I'll call him while you retrieve their personal effects," Jamie said. "We really should catalog everything."

"We can do that this weekend," he replied. "Meet you at the truck."

Jamie nodded and pulled out a cellphone, dialing Giles' number.

Xander headed for the office where he'd stored the assassins' things taken from the motel rooms they'd rented for their cover identities and stripped off their bodies to make identification more difficult.

He noted how much cleaner the place was as he walked down the hall. It was obvious someone had vacuumed and dusted the place or created something to do it for them. For some reason his mind went to them creating a Snyder bot and making it dress in a french maid outfit which it continuously grumbled under its breath about while it cleaned.

"I'm flat as a pancake and I just don't have the legs for this outfit," android Snyder complained in Xander's head, making him burst out laughing at the image. Sure, Snyder had redeemed himself a bit in the end, yelling at the mayor and ending up his first victim, but it was still funny.

Xander opened up the door to the junior exec's office where he kept the assassins' personal effects along with everything from Marcie, a lonely looking cardboard box, and Ampata's trunk.

This room had also been cleaned and straightened up, so it took him a moment to locate the two Tarakan rings which had been put away in the center drawer of the black mahogany desk.

He grabbed the handle of the luggage cart he'd stolen from the motel which held two steamer trunks and half a dozen suitcases. He'd always thought assassins traveled light, but the three Tarakans certainly hadn't. The female assassin alone had been responsible for half the bags, which would have been ironic if not for the fact that they were mostly weapons and ammo.

"I really should return the cart," Xander muttered to himself as he wheeled the cart into the hall.

"I can do that for you," Ted volunteered.

"Hey Ted, surprised you're not already at work," Xander said.

"I am," Ted replied. "The majority of my work is over the phone, so even while I'm here I'm also hard at work. Work smarter, not harder."

"Wireless modems are a wonder," Xander said as they walked down the hall.

Ted winced. "Sorry, didn't mean to point out your handicap."

Xander laughed. "It's fine, I doubt there is room in my skull for one, without taking out something I need anyway."

"Maybe an external module," Ted suggested thoughtfully, "allowing your brain to access an external system..."

Xander nodded. "I could see where that would come in handy."

Ted opened the door so he could wheel out the cart and they quickly loaded the luggage onto the back of his work truck.

"See you when you get back," Ted said as Xander got behind the wheel, Jamie sliding over from behind the driver's seat where she'd been warming up the engine.

"I'll call if I need anything," Xander said and waved, before putting it in gear and pulling out.

"Giles has the ring at the magic shop," Jamie told him. "He was curious about why you wanted it, but I told him you'd explain it."

Xander nodded as he drove, glad it was still early enough that there was practically no traffic so it only took a couple of minutes to reach the shop.

"Hey G-Man, got the ring?" Xander asked as they entered.

Giles sighed from behind the counter, still finding the nickname annoying. "You are presumably an adult, would it kill you to address me by name?"

"No, but it's a habit by now," Xander admitted. "I call you Giles at least half the time, which is up at least a quarter from high school. Give it time, I'll get it eventually."

"I suppose that will have to do," Giles conceded. "Now, may I ask why you want a ring of Taraka?"

"I don't want it," Xander said, "they want them back."

Giles tensed up. "You've been in contact with them?"

"Yes," Xander agreed. "They said our business is done as long as we weren't looking to make it personal."

"Well, having the ring serves little purpose except as a trophy and I can see why they'd object to that," Giles admitted. "I hope they'll be satisfied with the one we possess." He took the Tarakan signet ring and set it on the counter.

"I have the other two," Xander told him, "along with all their luggage."

Giles just stared at him for a moment. "I really shouldn't be surprised, should I?"

"I don't see why you would," Xander replied, "I've been cleaning up after Buffy since she got here."

"Cleaning up... Of course you were," Giles said with a sigh. "I'd wondered why the police came by so infrequently and had attributed it to the Hellmouth's influence."

"Nope, just me removing inconvenient evidence," Xander said.

"I can't believe we didn't realize you were doing that," Giles said.

"The girls did," Xander said. "I've had to borrow Cordelia's car and have Buffy lift heavy things at times. Oz loaned me his van a time or two as well."

Giles took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I focused far too much on Buffy during your school years."

"You're a Watcher, it's your job," Xander said with a grin. "I'm pretty sure if you'd tried to keep a closer eye on the rest of us you'd have regretted it."

Giles winced and put his glasses back on. "Yes, the amount of teenage drama I was subjected to from Buffy alone was quite inhumane."

Xander laughed and picked up the ring. "And now you get to be exposed to young adult drama, which should be at least a little more entertaining and less frustrating."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you," Giles said dryly, trying and failing not to smile to himself.

"And just think, if we all live long enough you'll be subjected to your grandkids going through the same thing," Xander teased.

Giles groaned. "My head hurts just thinking about it."

"Then my job is done," Xander said proudly. "Catch you on the flip side."

Giles found himself grinning after the two had left, thinking about the headaches his 'grandkids' would cause the children... and the fact that they looked at him like he was their father.

"There are worse fates," he said to himself before going to make a pot of tea.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Hello, this is Xander Harris of Sunnydale," Xander said into his phone while Jamie drove. "I've acquired all three rings and the personal effects of the three assassins that were dispatched to Sunnydale."

"That was beyond the scope of what was expected," the voice on the phone replied.

"I had most of it on hand from covering up their disappearance and I figured they'd want their stuff back," Xander said.

"Most people don't expect dead assassins to return for their luggage," the voice said dryly but with a trace of amusement.

"Most people aren't from Sunnydale," Xander said. "The fact that all three have hand drawn pictures of them in old dusty books tells me that the odds of us permanently putting them down that easily is unlikely."

"That's most astute of you," the voice complimented. "Yes, while they can be killed, methods of ensuring they remain that way are a bit more involved than I believe your group had the foresight to go through."

"I'm sure you guys kill more big bads than we do every year," Xander said, "so even if we'd had the foresight, we'd probably have had the wisdom not to. Anyway I've collected all their things and their rings and will be staying at the Hyperion Hotel in LA for the next several days to a week depending on how my job goes, so if you have anyone available, they can stop by and pick things up or I can deliver them to somewhere in the area, whichever is easier."

"We'll be in touch," the voice replied and hung up.

"Good creepy line there," Xander said as he hit the disconnect button and pocketed his phone.

"The Tarakans hunt big bads?" Jamie asked.

"The Tarakans hunt anyone they are paid to hunt, which means a lot of rich, powerful, assholes would hire them to kill other rich, powerful, assholes," Xander explained, "not to mention all their money becomes worthless if this world goes poof."

"That makes a certain amount of sense," Jamie decided as she pulled into the construction yard where a number of construction workers were gathered, drinking coffee.

Xander climbed out of the truck and joined them. "Hey guys."

"Hey Boss man," John, a broad shouldered black man with premature gray hair said, "what's the complication in the new job?"

"Guy who runs a private detective agency out of the place doesn't like to tan," Xander replied, causing some winces. "However, he also pissed off a tribe of Romani way back when, so he only drinks from the bottle."

"He never read Stephen King?" John asked in disbelief.

"He pissed them off before the man was even born," Xander replied. "He spent a century or so moping around before deciding he needed to make up for all the evil he'd done."

"You trust him?" John asked.

Xander nodded. "He works with a couple of people from my old crew who he also worked with. I actually find him more tolerable now that he's got off his ass and isn't spending most of his time moping."

"So he's safe?"

"Safe enough," Xander said. "Now, I don't mean to sound racist, but..."

John snickered.

Xander grinned. "Yeah, I'd keep a cross tucked away and a vial of holy water handy just in case. Of course that's good advice no matter where you are."

"I hear ya," John agreed. "Standard precautions, but don't stake our employer or make a big deal about his lack of reflection."

"Bingo," Xander said. "We'll be staying on site, pizza and beer provided so we don't lose anyone to the LA nightlife."

"I think LA's safer than here," one of the other workers volunteered.

"Yeah, but we aren't familiar with what the local dangers are there," Xander said. "Here we know where not to go, there... no clue and I don't want to find out the hard way."

"You're the Boss," John said.

"Okay, everyone who needs to, use the can, we leave in ten minutes," Xander said.

"We got time to stop for breakfast?" someone asked.

"We'll hit a drive thru at McDonald's on the way," Xander said as the group scattered.

"How's the new guy working out?" Xander asked John.

"Thinks he's being hazed with the supernatural talk, but willing to go along with it for the paycheck," John replied. "I figure you'll need to get one of the few friendly night siders to come by before he'll believe it. He follows the rules well enough not to be at risk for now."

"Excellent," Xander said. "This should be an easy job, but I'll probably end up having to deal with local issues once or twice."

"About the same as usual then," John said with a grin, "with the exception of the Avengers."

"I only talked to them for about five minutes," Xander said.

"You yelled at the Hulk and he fled," John countered.

"Did it really look like that?" Xander asked in disbelief.

"Hah! I knew you pulled something like that," John said with a laugh. "Nah, we all just saw you helping Thor up."

Xander rolled his eyes.

"But seriously, I know you, you probably yelled something at the Hulk to distract him if nothing else and he did leave without doing anything, so what was it?"

"I told him I had a larger dick than he had," Xander said with a smirk, "then I proved it."

John just stared at him for a moment, not sure if Xander wasn't crazy enough to try something like that, considering he'd seen him attack things that scared the piss out of the rest of them.

Xander burst out laughing. "I can't believe you bought that for even a second. Listen, the Hulk always yells about being the strongest one there is and calling people puny weaklings, so I yelled that he was the strongest one there was and us puny weaklings weren't bothering him. It confused him for a second, but it's not like he could argue against it, so since no one was attacking him, he left."

"That... That makes a lot more sense than attacking him," John said, "I'll have to remember it." He grinned. "For a half second there I thought I could scare off the Hulk, cause if you could..."

Xander shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, big man. Get in your truck, we got about five minutes before we need to roll out."

John laughed and headed for his truck.

Xander climbed into his truck and found Alexis in the middle of the bench seat. "When did you get here?"

"Got a ride from Ted, since you forgot me," she pointed out.

"You have a date tonight and needed to recharge," he countered.

"Switched batteries," she replied, "I'm good for another twelve hours of heavy use and my spare battery is charging. I can at least ride out and shadow you for a couple of hours."

"I so envy you," Jamie said as she pulled out the truck's cigarette lighter and plugged an adapter cable into it before plugging the other end into her bellybutton. "Might as well keep myself topped off," she explained.

"You'll get it in the next upgrade," Alexis assured her, "testing is still ongoing, but I've had zero problems so far."

Jamie put the truck in gear and pulled out, the crew following in their own vehicles. "I know, I'm just a little impatient because of the added safety it provides. I hate being powered down."

"Do you guys even have a sleep mode?" Xander asked. "Low power, not off, where you can go over the day's events to sort the memories for storage? I think that's what humans basically do."

"No, though I can see the utility," Jamie said. "We're basically either on or off with no in-between."

"Memory storage is continual write-to-drive," Alexis added. "If we added a more extensive tagging feature it would increase the rate we gain and slot in new skills."

"But that increases the strain on our processors requiring more downtime to process it," Jamie pointed out.

"So... a sleep mode where we can relieve the strain by letting our bodies lay inactive like a human's?" Alexis asked.

"Sending the idea to Ted and April," Jamie replied. "We'll let them figure it out."

"Couldn't you just transfer files from Jamie instead of shadowing me?" Xander asked.

"We concentrate on different things since our base programming is different," Alexis explained.

"Watching a scene through another's eyes just doesn't feel the same," Jamie agreed.

"You'd know better than me," Xander conceded.

"Plus my job is to make your life easier and I can't exactly do that if I'm not around you," Alexis added. "Right now spending time with you takes precedence over any of the other things I could be doing."

"She has nothing better to do and we've already cleaned the entire building while Ted was doing the yard work," Jamie added.

"Yes, but when you put it like that it doesn't sound as impressive," Alexis said, rolling her eyes.

Xander snickered. "I see you have some of my sense of humor."

"Not too much," the android replied, "I need a stable personality module to function."

"Ouch, I have been zinged," Xander said with a grin.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"Project Matchbook reports no missing personnel, but I'm not sure how accurate their reports are considering how unstable their agents are," Clint said.

"Being invisible by its nature causes some mental instability," Natasha said.

"What? No, I mean the nuts who run the operation," Clint said. "The invisible agents are required to go to counseling and are generally more well adjusted than the visible agents."

"I hadn't heard that," Natasha said with a frown.

"Twenty percent of the invisible agents resume visibility with counseling so the agents in charge tried to cancel it, even though invisible agents going rogue dropped eighty percent," Clint explained. "Tell me that's not a sign of mental dysfunction."

"Or a serious lack of math skills," Faith offered. "Unless this is a case of the numbers not telling the whole picture, like how they can use statistics to lie."

"That is a good point," Clint agreed. "Still better to have the majority of your agents sane even if they are fewer in number."

"Depends on the number," Faith said with a frown. "If they end up with too few to operate..."

"Let me check," Clint said, typing away on his laptop. "Ninety five current agents."

"Okay, they're fucked in the head," Faith agreed.

"Now we just need to find the link between Alexander Harris and one of their invisible agents," Natasha said.

"Link?" Faith asked. "Xander and them ran into an invisible girl in high school. They captured her and turned her in. Should have told me you were looking for that."

Clint brought up the video clip of Xander at the Taco Bell drive thru. "Doesn't look like a girl to me."

"It's not, that's Angel," Faith said, rolling her eyes. "Do you guys really know that little about Xander?"

"Still looks like a dude to me," Clint said, "and no, we're trying to find out about him to see how trustworthy he is."

Faith laughed. "Angel is a dude and I'd trust Xander with my life... unless I was a threat to those he cares about, which I no longer am."

Natasha sighed and leaned back on the sofa they were sharing. "Who is Angel and why is he dressed like the invisible man?"

"Angel is a vampire who pissed off the gypsies, like, all of them, so they restored his soul," she explained. "He still burns in the sunlight like any other vampire, so he dresses up like that when he has to go out."

"Ouch," Clint said with a wince.

"A vampire with a soul?" Natasha asked, doubt in her tone.

"Curse breaks if he has a moment of perfect happiness," Faith said, "then you have to curse him again. If you want to know about Xander, it's best to just ask him. Boy can't lie to save his life. All bets are off if he's protecting someone he cares about and he really has a warped view of himself as the normal one of his group... Yeah, talking to him isn't as useful as I thought. Maybe ask Willow... No, she has tons of brains but no common sense and can't really see him for himself, just the lazy kid she grew up with. Buffy... worse than Willow. Dawn... Nah, she wants him bad and sees him as her white knight, which he has been before and no doubt will be again when she needs him to be."

Faith got up and began pacing. "Joyce died, or she could probably have told you at least part of the story."

Clint opened his mouth to say something, but Natasha laid a hand on his arm and he remained quiet.

"Giles... Maybe, but he's devoted to Buffy, so there'll be some tint there." Faith paused and tapped her chin before snapping her fingers. "Angel! For all they don't get along, Angel is the one who probably knows him best, which is really weird when you think about it."

"How's it weird?" Natasha asked. They hadn't pushed her on the events that had occurred in Sunnydale as she'd been reluctant to talk about it, so this was the most she'd opened up about the people she'd been in contact with if not the events that had occurred.

"Angel had a thing for Buffy, and so did Xander," Faith replied. "Naturally that did not lead to them getting along and when Angel lost his soul and turned evil, they had a couple of run ins that Angel won't talk about, but despite that Angel probably sees Xander for who he is and not for who he pretends to be... That's not right. Xander is Xander, but the goofy fucker has depths you just don't see day to day, ya know?"

"Frenemies," Clint offered. "Your friends and enemies see different parts of you, but one who is both sees more."

"Exactly," Faith said. "I've been there myself, but he wasn't my focus, so I missed a lot. Angel can give you a better idea of who he is."

"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless," Clint read, having quickly located an ad for Angel's business.

"That's the puppy," Faith said.

"What's the best approach?" Natasha asked, curious as to what Faith thought, considering she knew all the players involved.

"Hire him to investigate Xander," she replied. "Don't need to be subtle about it."

"I've been in the business too long, that never even occurred to me," Clint said with a sigh.

"Or not long enough, because it did to me," Natasha said. "I'll give him a call."

Typing By: Abyssal Angel

Beta By: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows

TN: Gotta admit, the mental image of a man like Snyder in a french maid outfit may be amusing in a schadenfreude kind of way, but it's also kind of horrifying to behold a man like him in such an outfit, so it's a bit of a mixed bag.

BN:Especially when you remember he played Quark…

AN: Yeah but the man has the acting chops to make you laugh while he did it.