Xander Harris was surprised when the bar manager stuck his head back into the kitchen and yelled, “Alex, phone! Take it in the office, and keep it short.”

“Thanks Mike, I will.” The dark haired, dark eyed young man quickly wiped off his wet hands and hurried to the cramped office just off the kitchen. There was only one person he knew who knew to call him here – because she was the only person he’d given an emergency contact number to. He picked up the office phone knowing that she wouldn’t be calling him if it wasn’t an emergency. “Joyce?”

“Oh Xander, I’m so glad I caught you. There’s been an accident…Xander, it’s Rupert and it’s…it’s bad. I couldn’t get hold of Buffy, or Willow, and I…”

“It’s okay, Joyce,” Xander soothed. He felt like the bottom had just dropped out of his stomach, but he knew that him wigging out wasn’t what Buffy’s mother needed right now. “Tell me…wait, no, don’t tell me. You can tell me when I get there, I’m catching a ride on the first bus out, okay? I’ll be there tonight. Should I come to the hospital or the house?”

Joyce, being Joyce – the only person, Xander sometimes thought, who actually gave a damn what happened to him – protested that. “I’m at the hospital with him. But your job…you can’t…”

“Joyce,” he interrupted firmly. “My ‘job’ is washing dishes in a strip club, yes I can – it’s not like I’m a vital piece of their business here. Tell me where you’ll be and I’ll call you from the bus station, let you know when I’ll be getting in.”

A sniff. Oh god, she was crying. “But…”

“No buts, I’m coming.” Firm seemed to be working, calming her down; he knew it worked when one of the club’s dancers started getting hysterical, but they were a far cry from the Slayer’s strong-minded mother. “I’ll be there tonight, I’ll come straight to the hospital, okay? Will you still be at the hospital?”

Joyce sniffed again, and then he all but heard her pulling herself together. “No, I’ll…I’ll be at the bus station picking you up.” Xander started to protest, but she cut him off. “No, Xander. You know it’s too dangerous to walk from the bus station, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. Just tell me what time you’ll get in and I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll call you from the bus station – I’ll call your cell phone. You be careful until I get there, all right? You have the…necklace I gave you?”

The necklace, a pretty but powerful protective amulet that had taken a good chunk out of Xander’s road trip fund, had been his gift to Joyce before he’d left town. He heard her sniff again. “Yes, I have it. And I promise to be careful – you be careful too.”

“Will do, Joyce. It’ll all be okay, I promise. I’ll call you back in an hour or so.” He waited until he’d heard her disconnect, then said, “Mike, I know you’re there.”

“I’m comin’ back,” the bar manager told him, sounding pissed, and then hung up. Xander put his end of the phone down much more gently, and then stripped off his apron and folded it over the back of a battered chair. He was just standing there, arms folded across his chest, waiting, when the office door opened and his boss came in.

Mike, the bar manager, took one look at the kid’s face and bit back a sigh. Alex – or ‘Xander’, apparently, since that’s what the woman on the phone had called him – was obviously expecting to get reamed and thrown out. And Mike had to admit that under other circumstances he might have done it. Not after hearing that phone call, though. Alex was a good kid, a good hard worker, and he was good at handling the ‘talent’ that fluttered all over the club.

He was also pretty enough to be ‘talent’ himself, which was one of the reasons Mike had hired him on as a dishwasher. Yeah, he knew the kid was underage, no matter how good that fake ID was, and he knew the kid had never even considered getting out on the dance floor…but Mike had planned to work around those things. Give him a little self-confidence and Alex could be sensational. Except that now… “So, you’re just taking off?” Mike observed, looking the kid in the eye. “Leaving just like that?”

“I’m sorry, but yeah.” Alex didn’t look away, and Mike saw that he truly was sorry. “I…well, you heard. Giles is in the hospital, and Joyce is all alone. She needs me, I have to go.”

“Yeah, I got that.” Mike held his eyes for a moment more, then nodded and circled around to his desk. “I owe you for what, four days? Let me cash you out, then I’ll let you get going. You know for sure you can catch a bus out tonight? ‘Cause if you can’t, you could finish your shift, make a little extra for the road.”

The kid shook his head. “Thanks, Mike. But I know the bus that stops in Sunnydale leaves the station here around four. I just have to swing by the motel and grab my stuff, I’ll get there in plenty of time.”

Mike couldn’t argue with that, so he counted out the pay he owed the kid and handed it over. “You ever come back this way, I’d hire you again,” he said, and added, “Behind the bar or out on the floor, your choice.” He stood back up and held out his hand. “Good luck, Alex.”

The handshake he received in return was firm, honest, and the kid grinned at him even though he was blushing. “Thanks. I appreciate it. You take care.”

“You too, kid.” And then Alex was gone. Mike sat back down, picked up a pen and started tapping it on his desk. He needed to hire a new dishwasher…

This story has not been completed