"We found another one! On Barry's left!"

With a groan, Xander pressed the button, leaned in to the intercom. "Okay. Everybody stop again on the Northwest quarter."

"Aw, Jesus! Not again!"

Xander shrugged, dragging his sleeve across his forehead, which didn't do a damn thing about that annoying trickle of sweat that kept creeping along the band of his patch. "What do you expect, Russ? It's the site of a natural disaster." And how long was it before Xander could say that without gritting his teeth and without sarcasm?

One week? Two?

Maybe around the time his crew uncovered its first demon and Xander had to convince the Forensics team they had a really weird zoo in Sunnydale before the earthquake. Good old Sunnydale mentality, cause the team seemed willing enough to believe him.

By the time Xander had been on the site four weeks and June was turning the corner into a hot July, the Forensics team just stopped asking about the weird remains and concentrated on the human.

And by the time July had melted into a sticky, scummy August, Xander was ready to kill the next man to pick up a skull and start up the "Alas! Poor Yorick!" routine. Black humor was to be expected leveling out what amounted to the biggest burial ground in California, but at least a guy could show some creativity.

When the work halted every time the big movers unearthed another body, Xander still sometimes thought of all those people who left town. All those cars clogging the roads trying to get out of Sunnydale like rats before a flood and there were still enough bodies in the crater to make the level and fill work slow, hot and cranky.

Not that anybody called it a crater. Crater wasn't good for future development and pre-sales of prime California real estate.

No, it was a valley now. The sides all leveled off into smooth slopes and the crater eased level with the beaches to the west. Or it would be when Xander's crew and the four others, were done with their work and the new construction around the edges of the valley could start spreading back down toward the center.

And the Hellmouth.

Which officially still didn't exist. Xander shook his head and dragged sweat-damp hair back from his face, watching his step over the uneven ground. His crew were used to the long routes Xander took to get across the site when the great light towers cast shadows that played tricks even on those of them with two eyes.

When he got to the Northwest quarter, the Forensics team were already there and Barry was slouched in a folding chair looking as hot, sweaty and grimy as Xander felt. "What've we got this time?"

"Couple of legs and a torso," Barry said, tucking his gloves into his belt and pulling off his bandanna.

Xander held up a hand. "Don't you dare make a joke about this guy losing his head over the craziness."

Barry lifted his hands defensively. "Wasn't gonna."

"Yeah, right." Xander snorted, crouching next to Barry's chair with a creak in his knees and a wince, accepting the water bottle from him with a nod of thanks.

"How many times have we stopped this week, Harris?" Barry fished a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket, pulling one out and lighting up. Out here on site, nobody was bothering to enforce workplace smoking rules and Xander wasn't about to start. Since the job included instructions to stop work, notify the crew leader and call in the forensics team every time another body turned up, Xander figured the guys deserved to smoke during breaks if they wanted to. "At this rate, we'd be better off building a dam at the far end and making a lake."

"It's not that bad. Greg's got his guys coming up from Pasadena next week and I'm taking a surveying crew out onto the next parcel tomorrow. Why? Are you looking to be out of a job soon?" Xander reached up, poking a finger into Barry's side, remembering when he could have watched the entire finger disappear in Barry's bulk two years ago when they first worked together. Like Xander and like most of the crew, Barry had come back to work diminished.

"Look around, Harris. Ain't none of us gonna be out of work any time soon. Once we've got the crater leveled how long do you think it'll take to rebuild?"

"We're not contracted for the entire rebuild."

"Enough of it to keep my kids in shoes and Twinkies for the next five years."

Xander laughed, patting Barry on the shoulder. "You're a good man, Bar. Look, the Forensics team is going to be at this for hours and first shift is coming in thirty minutes. Why don't you take off early?"

"Nah. Thanks. I'll hang around another half hour." At Xander's skeptical look, Barry took a deep, contented drag on his cigarette. "First shift brings the good doughnuts."

"And third shift eats all the jelly ones," Xander said, standing up and bracing his hands in the small of his back, stretching. "I've got to get back to the trailer before Carl comes in to let him know about the backhoe down."

"You gonna tell him what a mess his blast boys made of the east ridge?"

"With pictures."

"Good. Cause I ain't going up up there again until they've got it stabilized."

"I'll let him know." The walk back to the trailer was easier as the sky began to lighten through the early morning fog, lessening the shadows from the light towers and making everything glow a deep silvery blue. "Hey Carl." Xander smiled in relief, letting the cheap trailer door bang shut behind him. "I can always count on you to come in early, huh?"

"It's the only way to get a good doughnut before your crew eats them all."

Xander lifted and spread his hands, palms out. "I don't get between my guys and the doughnuts."

"Cause you're always too busy running off."

"I'm a man with a ritual," Xander said, dropping his hard hat on his desk and gathering up the time sheets he'd been meaning to go over and putting off. "Made a list and you'll want to have a talk with your blast crew. One of the guys on second shift had to be airlifted out because of a half-assed job. Mark's got the details."

Carl groaned, reaching for the coffee pot before it was even done filling, ignoring the hiss and spit of coffee dripping onto the hotplate as he refilled his cup. "Gonna be a long morning, Alex."

"It was a long night. You need anything else out of me?"

"Nah. Get out of here or you'll miss it." Carl waved him off, sipping gingerly at his coffee, already shuffling the papers on his desk with his free hand.

"See you tomorrow." Xander didn't wait for a reply before he left, walking just a little faster to his truck so that nobody would stop him before he could get away from the site.

Because he did have a ritual. One he'd only had to break twice the entire summer, because Carl was an understanding man and never minded coming in half an hour before sunrise so that Xander could make it to the beach before dawn, lie down in the sand and watch the sun come up over the crater's edge and through the fog.

It was a Sunnydale thing and when the sun came up, the world changed and it was time for Xander to go home to the sad little stucco tract house overlooking the smoothed out valley that had once been a crater that had once been his home.

This morning, Xander stayed on the beach until the fog began to dissipate, enjoying the cool ocean breeze that never seemed to quite reach his part of the site, letting it dry the last of the day's sweat to his skin until he started to itch and decided that was a sign it was time to go home to a long, hot shower.

As Xander drove, he let his mind wander tiredly. It was his personal rule that driving time was thinking time, getting all of the thoughts and memories that chased each other around in his head out of there before he walked in his front door. At least that was the idea. This morning, his thoughts turned to Africa. To long nights of sticky sweat and mosquito bites, when he'd sometimes go so long without a shower or a bath he couldn't even smell himself anymore. Mornings like this, Xander wished he still had that ability not to smell himself.

Because after a long, hot August night of work, he reeked. And that was putting it kindly. It made the single life almost attractive, since there was nobody waiting at home to gag over his boots and socks, or bitch when he was too tired to do more than drop them on the floor and drag his sorry grimy ass into the shower.

He definitely didn't think about how nice it might be to climb out of that shower and into bed with a nice cuddly body who wouldn't complain if Xander needed to gripe about his night. Which proved that fantasy man in Xander's head was alive and well, because he was pretty sure there wasn't a woman alive who'd put up with all of that, so Xander had installed the best shower he could afford, loved it, cared for it, lavished it with affection and came home to its welcoming bosom every morning.

Pulling into his shorted driveway, Xander looked at the garage remote with sad amusement before clicking it. "And the Xand-man gives in to become a true suburbanite." Killing the engine inside his garage, he left the door to close on its own and wandered into the house, feeling his body slow and his feet drag as if they too knew that sweet, sweet hot water and soft, cool sheets were but minutes away.

As he walked, he shed his clothes, vowing to pick them up that afternoon despite Monday through Wednesday's work clothes still littering the floor in a growing path from garage door to master bathroom. Once there, he went straight to the shower, tugging the water on full blast and leaving it to heat, downed two painkillers with a glass of water and closed the medicine cabinet door before looking at himself in the mirror.

He rubbed a hand over grimy stubble and considered a piratey "arr, matey!" before deciding that he really needed new material and pulling the patch off. He fingered the chafed line across his forehead with a wince and pulled ointment out of the medicine cabinet too, leaving it on the counter as a reminder to himself.

Then, last of all, Xander lifted the small pouch that he wore around his neck on a thong in defiance of all construction site safety rules and held it to his nose, breathing deep of the scent within. There wasn't room for much in there, sticks, stones, dirt, bones, but somehow, even under the musk of the leather and his own sweat, it still smelled of Africa and a tiny wild voice in Xander's hind-brain calmed to the scent of home.

Xander only took it off to shower, leaving it on the counter so that it wouldn't get wet before stepping into the nearly scalding spray and letting it pound away the dust, the grime, the sweat and the responsibilities.

Shower time was also time to think, but unlike thinking time in the truck, shower time involved only pleasant thoughts. If he wasn't ready to nap on the shower floor out of exhaustion, Xander might have let his soaped hand linger over cock and balls, but instead, he dug deep into the bunched up muscles of his shoulders and leaned on the wall with a blissful sigh, unrolling the happy fantasy of the Swedish Masseuse with size twelve hands and biceps like bricks.

One of these days, he'd treat himself to that massage. He'd need another one by the end of the next shift, but for a few blissful hours, or maybe a long weekend, cause hey, Labor Day coming up, right? He'd feel less like he'd been strung together with high-tensile rubber bands.

Once he was clean, Xander dropped his head, leaning into the spray and letting the water pound against the nape of his neck until he was light headed and the water was beginning to cool.

Big fluffy towels. They'd been another investment Xander had made to his ongoing contentment as a confirmed bachelor, because the guy who'd said it's the little things in life that make life worth living? Had to have known the joy of the Big Fluffy Towel after the Long Hot Shower. And maybe the smaller thrill of leaving the Big Wet Towel on the floor with Monday through Wednesday's Big Wet Towels because he didn't have to pick them up if he didn't want to.

And if his bathroom was smelling a little mildewy by Friday, that was nobody's business but his own.

After dabbing the ointment (which promised to "wipe off Baby's delicate skin easily") onto the redness left by his patch band, Xander slipped the little leather pouch back over his head and wandered into his bedroom, falling spread eagled and nude into the middle of the softest King bed his money had been able to buy, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

"What's it look like, Dave?" Xander crouched next to his lead surveyor, peering into the depths of yet another hole in the ground. After the Hellmouth had been destroyed, more than a few buildings had been buried whole. Again.

Dave consulted the map and his measurements, then squinted into the flashlight beam. "Looks like Our Lady of Salvation. Old church. You want me to go down?"

Xander shook his head. "I'll do it if you can get the guys over here."

"You sure you don't want backup?"

Xander shrugged, settling his goggles down into place before sliding the harness up over his hips and buckling it in place. "Yeah. I'm sure. No point in two of us getting magical Syphilis."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Just get the guys over here with a rope." Xander knelt at the edge, on what seemed to be a layer of dirt covering a reasonably stable roof and ducked his head into the dark below, squinting to see further than the vague outline of pews and the watery green-blue-gold glow at the far end where he remembered the stained glass windows, even though he'd only been there once as a child for someone's wedding. "And Dave? Have the guys be careful about a hundred feet over there. Windows on the surface."

On his way down into the murky interior, Xander spun lazily, letting his eyes adjust to the dimmer light of his flash as it swept over the ceiling, still amazingly intact after the cave in. What was it about churches being buried whole around the Hellmouth? Did The Powers That Be have a sense of humor or what?

When his feet touched ground, Xander released the clamp on his harness, giving the rope a tug and unhooking his walkie talkie. "All right up there, Dave?"

"Fine, Alex. What do you see?"

"It looks pretty stable. There's some rock in the pews, bit of brick. More junk in the back cause the floor's slanted now, but I can see the altar and it looks intact." Xander's footsteps echoed in the cool cavern and he shivered, wishing he'd thought to grab a light jacket for going under ground as he walked the aisle between the pews. "Aw, shit."

"What's wrong?"

"We've got another body."

"Priest?"

"I think so. He's all wrapped up, so it looks like he got trapped down here or something. Hang on." Xander tucked his walkie talkie back into his belt and made his way to the altar with its mess of wax and burned down candles that still smelt faintly of incense and tallow and the body laid out over its length like a sacrifice, head turned from the nave, one pale arm dangling toward the ground.

"He got a collar?"

"I don't know. Let me just roll him over and-"

"Alex? Hey, Alex. What's going on down there?"

Dave's voice seemed distant as the priest turned his head, slow, fitful as if locked in a fever dream and Xander stared down at the pale skin, stretched tight, but impossibly fresh, pliant over sharp bone.

Frighteningly familiar.

"Jesus" Xander said, the word coming out a whisper through a suddenly bone dry throat. "Spike?"