Title: Enter The Cleavage
Author: Paradox761
Email: Paradox761@mail.com
Website: members.tripod.com/~Paradox761
Disclaimer: Joss owns Buffy, SFC owns Farscape, and I own nothing. No copyright infringement is intended, so please don’t sue. I don’t have any money anyway. Also, some dialogue has been taken directly from the episodes “Homecoming” and “Grave”. No plagiarism intended, they’re just flashbacks.
Summary: Intent on discovering the origins and ramifications of Chiana's visions, Xander and Chiana take the DeLorean through time and space to visit of all things, an Oracle. But when they're intercepted by Grayza's Command Carrier, Xander will find his first encounter with the Peace Keepers to be an unpleasant one. Will he be able to survive the Aurora Chair? What will Grayza discover in his mind? How will he and Chiana escape?
Author’s note: This story is a sequel to Back to the Uncharted Territories, which in turn is a sequel to A Sympathetic Ear. Special thanks to A. Grandt, Rob Clark, dragon_hulk, Jason Hill, Ghostrider, DaBear, greywizard, MagnusXXZ, and C.J. Whittaker for the feedback. It’s much appreciated.
Dedication: To Jordan and Jessica, my angels. May they rest in peace.
(BtVS/Farscape, Xander/Chiana, R)

(5/5)

Xander was sitting on the floor in Pilot’s den, trying to meditate. It had been a few hours since he and Chiana came back aboard. Moya had already starburst twice, just in case Grayza’s command carrier was still anywhere nearby. He told everyone everything that had happened, including the things that Chiana hadn’t been present for. Excluding the hallucinations he had had of his friends, he didn’t think they needed to know about that. But he told them everything from Grayza discovering his soldier memories, to what happened in her quarters. Jool seemed to think it was some kind of glandular implant that Grayza had which increased the pheromone production in her sweat glands. Though why it didn’t work on Xander she didn’t know.

He kept trying to clear his thoughts, but he just couldn’t. His mind was racing. All he could think about were the mistakes he had made, the risks he had taken on this quest of his for answers. And in the process, he almost got Chiana, and everyone else for that matter, killed. They may have escaped with their lives, but they lost any advantage they had over the Peace Keepers when it came to the element of surprise. They knew about him now, and they knew about the DeLorean. They didn’t know everything, but it was enough.

Xander closed his eyes and tried again to focus, but he just couldn’t do it. He finally gave up, opening his eyes in time to see Chiana walk in.

“I thought I might find you here,” she said to Xander. “Hi, Pilot.”

“Chiana,” Pilot returned.

“I was trying to meditate, but I’m not having any luck,” Xander said.

“Oh, I can leave you alone if you want.”

“No, I was just about to give up anyway. What’s up?”

“I just…are you mad at me?” Chiana asked.

Xander blinked in surprise. “What? No, of course not. Why would I be mad at you?”

“I don’t know, I just…” Chiana started nervously, pulling on her fingers. Whatever it was she was clearly bothered by it.

“Come here, sit with me,” Xander said. He opened his legs and let Chiana sit between them with her back to him. He put his arms around her waist and she leaned into his touch. “What is it? You can tell me.”

“When I kissed you, in your ship, you were surprised. And you seemed kind of distant, when you were telling us all everything that happened. I thought maybe you were upset with me. I know that I have a tendency to be…forward, and you’ve been so good to me since…well, you know. And I understand if you don’t see me that way. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t offend you or anything.” Her voice sounded so scared, like if she said the wrong thing it would be the end of everything.

Xander didn’t say anything at first. He just squeezed her a little tighter, letting his head rest on her back. He silently cursed himself. “God Chiana, I am so sorry. I’ve been a world class fool.”

Chiana turned in his embrace to face him, moving so that she was sitting on one of his legs. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been so afraid since I got here, for you and for me. You went through so much with that…monster. And I just…I don’t know how to make it better. So, I guess I have been a little overly cautious and gentle with you. But I never meant for it to make you feel like I don’t care for, or that I don’t want to touch you, because I do. I care for you more than I ever thought possible again. And I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like I didn’t. I do want to be with you, I just…I don’t want to hurt you.”

Chiana looked like she was about to cry. But she just blinked away her unshed tears and leaned in to wrap her arms around Xander. Xander hugged her back. “I’m not made of glass, you know,” she finally said against his chest.

“I know,” he said. “I should have trusted that, trusted you to set the pace that you were comfortable with. I won’t make that mistake again, I promise.”

Chiana just nodded against him, not trusting her voice. After a few minutes like that she pulled away slightly. She noticed a small holographic display device sitting on the deck next to Xander. “John showed you that transmission they intercepted I take it,” she said.

Xander picked up the device and activated it. A rotating, three-dimensional image of himself appeared. “You mean this glorified wanted poster? Yeah, he showed me. I feel all special now, Grayza added me to the list of thorns in her side. At least I’m in good company,” he said, flipping through the rest of the images in the device. It changed from himself, to John, to D’Argo, to Aeryn, to Rygel, and finally to Chiana. “Wow, look at that one. She’s cute!” Chiana giggled and gave Xander a playful shove. Xander laughed too.

“You’ve only been here not even a month and you’ve already had to rescue me twice. That’s got to be a new record, even for me,” Chiana said.

“Yeah, but this last one was my fault, so rescuing you was the least I could do.”

“Your fault? How do you figure that?”

“Come on, I’m the one who dragged you on this stupid quest to begin with, just so I could get some answers.”

“You did it for me, remember? To find out if I was strong enough for the visions.”

“I had selfish reasons too. I’m so afraid of making a mistake out here, of doing the wrong thing and screwing up. I just wanted someone to pat me on the head and tell me that I was doing the right thing. Maybe I convinced myself that I was just doing it for you, but I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Well I am sure,” Chiana disagreed. “When The Oracle asked you to chose your first question, knowing that you might not get another, you asked about me, without hesitating. Maybe you did want to know about this destiny thing of yours too, but that’s far from selfish. We’re talking about stopping a war and saving billions of lives. Unless selfish means the exact opposite of what I think it means, you’re way off the mark here.”

Xander couldn’t help but smile at her. “Maybe,” he conceded.

“No maybes about it.” She reached up and patted Xander on the top of the head. “You’re doing the right thing,” she said. “There, does that make you feel better?”

Xander smiled again and pulled her into a hug. “Yes, it does,” he said. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably brood and sulk a lot.”

“Probably,” Xander agreed.

Chiana settled into his embrace again, just enjoying being close to him. “So,” she said after a minute. “You really didn’t mind that I kissed you?”

“Mind? Are you kidding? It isn’t very often that I get kissed by a beautiful woman, but as kisses go, I’d have to say that it was pretty amazing.”

“Really?”

“Really. Would I lie to you?”

“So, what would you think if I wanted to do it again?”

“I wouldn’t be adverse to it,” he answered.

Chiana turned so that she was facing him completely, her legs straddling his. She put her arms around his neck and his settled around her waist. “Really?” she asked again in a whisper as her face got closer to his.

“Really,” Xander answered, just before their lips touched.

Behind them, forgotten by both, Pilot smiled.

*

The bell over the door at the Magic Box rang as Xander stepped inside. He looked around and noticed that it looked quite a bit different from the last time he had seen it, when Willow and Tara gave him advice about Chiana. It was still clean, and brightly lit, with full shelves and in tact display cases. But now there were also filing cabinets throughout the room. Lots of filing cabinets. Every spare bit of room in the store was filled with them, stacked on top of one another. He spotted Willow, standing on top of the table in the back, looking through one of the cabinet drawers with one hand and holding a stack of file folders in the other.

“Willow,” he called out to her.

She turned and smiled at him. Her hair looked mused, and she had bags under her eyes. She looked exhausted, but happy to see him. “Xander,” she said. She climbed down from the table and started making her way though the chaos toward him. Xander met her halfway.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “What is all this?”

“Well, this is your brain. And this is your brain on the Aurora chair,” Willow joked. “Any questions?”

“Plenty.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. Every time that damn chair scanned your brain, it was like a tornado ripping through here. And then, when it pushed your soldier memories to the surface, it got even worse. The four of us have been up almost this whole time trying to sort through it all.”

“The four of you?”

“Me, Tara, Buffy and Giles,” Willow answered.

Xander looked around the room, at the cabinets. He looked at the labels of some of the ones closest to him. ‘Birthdays, 10-15’ one of them read. ‘Erotic Dreams, High School Years, Vol. 9’ and ‘Willow Memories, Vol. 291’ two others said. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”

“Yes and no,” Willow answered. “We are inside your brain, and your subconscious is creating this environment to interpret all of the information that it’s receiving, the same way it creates dream images. But the four of us are real, we’re not figments of your imagination. We’re not hallucinations, at least not in the classic sense of the word.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember the bluff, when you saved the world?” Willow asked him.

A look of sadness crossed Xander’s face. It was something that he would never forget. It was the days his friends died. The day his life changed forever. “I remember.”

“I told you that we would always be with you, do you remember that?”

“You did something to the amulet,” he said, looking down at it hanging from his neck.

Willow nodded. “It already held aspects of me and Tara, from the magiks that we infused it with when we gave it to you. When I…when I killed Buffy and Giles, I drained their life force. I used it to charge the amulet, along with as much of my own energy as I could fill it with. It was my hope that it would protect you, and that you would be able to feel us with you, always.”

“So…the four of you are trapped inside the amulet?”

“No, no, it’s not like that. Willow, Buffy, Giles and Tara died, and their souls moved on to the next realm. What are contained in the amulet are aspects of them, a small piece of each of their life force. That’s what we are. And we’ve been with you always, since that day on the bluff. It’s kind of like the enjoining spell we did to defeat Adam, only not nearly as powerful. The four of us have latched on to different aspects of you. Mind, body, heart, and soul. Just like before, only Tara’s the heart now. But you’re still you, we’re just…kind of in the background.”

It was a lot to take in, and Xander was trying to process all of the information. “Why…why haven’t you told me any of this until now?”

“It took a while for us to be incorporated into your mind the way we are now. We thought it best to remain in the background, nudging you along in the right direction. But with everything that’s happened, especially after you were captured, we thought it was time to take a more active role. We needed to help you keep your mind organized, especially after the soldier memories were released, or you never would have been able to escape.”

“I would have gone insane,” Xander said.

Willow nodded. “Your mind was in chaos. Incorporating the soldier memories was our first priority, but even after we did that, even now, there’s still work to be done. Those pheromones Grayza released on you did a real number on your hormones, but we managed to purge them from your system and clear your head in time for you to escape.”

Xander leaned against one of the filing cabinets and slid down it to the floor. “Why?” he finally said after a moment. “Why did you do it?”

“To protect you, like I…”

“No,” he interrupted. “Why did you jump? Why did you leave me?”

Willow kneeled down next to him and put her hand on his arm. “I’m not going to make excuses,” she said after a moment, her voice choked with emotion. “It was a mistake, the last in a long list of many. I just…I didn’t know how to live anymore, with what I had done. I wasn’t strong enough.”

“You were strong,” Xander objected. “You gave me strength, from the day I met you.”

“And you gave it to me, too.”

“I guess it just wasn’t enough.”

“Please Xander, don’t think that. Don’t ever think that. You stopped me from destroying the world because of how much you love me, because of how strong you are. What I did was my fault, and no one else’s. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Willow said as she started to cry.

Xander sniffed and wiped a tear from his cheek. He pulled Willow into a fierce hug. “It’s okay, Wills,” he said after a minute of just holding her. “I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“I know,” Willow said. She pulled away from the hug and wiped her face. “I mean, hey, I live in your head, remember. I know everything you know.”

Xander smiled at her, then his expression changed to one of fright. “Everything?” he asked.

Willow laughed. “Don’t worry, I stay away from the really embarrassing stuff.”

“Good,” Xander said with relief. Willow laughed again, and pretty soon Xander joined her. It felt so good to laugh with her again. And for one brief moment, it was almost like things were back the way they were again.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Willow said after a while. “It has to do with those hormones Grayza woke up with her patent-pending, mind-altering breast sweat.”

“What is it?”

Willow stood up and motioned for Xander to follow. She led him through a maze of filing cabinets until they were in the back of the shop, at the door to the training room. She opened the door and pointed inside. “It woke something else up too.”

Inside the room, there was a large cage. And inside that cage, a hyena was pacing back and forth. It spotted Xander and threw itself at the bars of the cage, growling and frothing at the mouth. It’s howl echoed through the room like laughter.

“Oh, God,” Xander said, horrified. “Not again.”

The End