The vineyard, round two;

They’re storming the vineyard again. So predictable. He’s been there for days now and every time he tries to think about how he got there, or why he’s there, everything goes all sideways. Caleb is repentant, and apologetic for having to hurt him to ‘show him the truth.’ No, that’s not right. He’s here hiding, spying on Caleb and his Bringers, so that he can bring back information to Buffy that might allow her to kill the bastard. That makes more sense, he’s got to keep it clear. This place is messing with his head. It’s yet another miracle of blind-navigation that Xander has been able to stay hidden, but hey, he’s hiding from a bunch of blind dudes and a nutjob who spends all his time talking to a ‘god’ nobody else can see, making it less impressive than it sounds.

So when Buffy comes pounding down the stairs, he finds out his hiding place is completely useless against someone with eyes, as the first words out of her mouth are, “Oh my God! Xander!” Great, so much for the covert ‘element of surprise’ plan.

He can hear one of those super-vampires right behind her, and she seems to be too distracted to have noticed. Typical. He jumps to knock her away from it’s attack, but things are a blur, and as he collides with her, the vampire seems to vanish, and suddenly Caleb is right there, pinning Buffy to the ground, taking advantage of Xander’s attack.

This is all wrong! He ‘sees’ Caleb gently trying to convince her that they aren’t here to fight, but he also ‘sees’ Caleb trying to throttle the life out of her calling her a dirty little whore. He grabs Caleb’s arm, ‘Wait…’ and the next thing he knows he’s across the room and his chest feels like it’s paralyzed. He can’t draw a breath and is flailing about when some sort of sheet or drop-cloth falls over him.

The sounds of fighting seem to stop, and he gets the sheet off to *see* the room, lit with a blinding radiance. He’s been thinking he can see for days now, but this is so sharp, so clear, so *real* that he can feel tears forming where he once had eyes. Some blinding source of light is coming from next to him, and he turns to see some kind of axe-blade embedded in a black stone. It’s too bright, it hurts to look at, and he turns away to see that Buffy has kicked free from Caleb’s grasp, and that an attack from Faith has put him on his back, but that combat has paused as everyone is looking at the axe. In this light, Buffy looks so different. She’s hurt, deep within, wounded like he’s never seen before, but still so beautiful, still fighting. Faith is like a goddess of fire, a tigress on the hunt, all righteous fury in motion. But Caleb, the light reveals him as a frightened child, and behind him he can see the First, a thousands faces churning, Buffy, Spike, Angel, Joyce, Tara, like paint mixing in a can, all recoiling away from this light.

“Buffy, the axe, they’re afraid of it! They’re *terrified* of it!”

And then everything goes dark, and he feels something push him from behind and then a sharp tearing sensation in his back. The sounds of fighting have renewed around him, but he can’t seem to focus on it, and he can’t ‘see’ anything. It’s all just noise and confusion, and then a body falls on top of him and all the voices get far away…