Chapter 3

Xander entered his house well after midnight. The flooding had been a pipe that had just "fallen". Yeah, right it just "fell". A bored Slayer swinging on it was more likely. Kayleigh, who at just turned fifteen was the youngest and most hyper, was a gymnast. She had been in gymnastics since she was three, even made it to the Nationals the year before and placed 27th in the US before she was Called. The other suspect was Cheyenne, who had had her sights on the Air Force Academy and flying fighter jets before she got inducted to the world of things that go bump in the night. Kayleigh swinging on the pipe or Cheyenne doing chin ups on the pipe--either was a far more likely explanation than the exposed pipe running across the ceiling of the second floor bath all of a sudden "just fell".

He'd had to shut off the water for the entire building. Try to find pipe that would work at Home Depot--fitting PVC to goddamn brass pipes. Can we say original pipes and plumbing fixtures in most of the buildings? It could be done. Just not well, at least not by him. And not without teaching eight teenage slayers several interesting words in Fyarl because they were listening and watching before Regina and Kelly, the resident Wiccas, arrived to take them Patrolling. All but Madison who glared when Xander said she was staying in. She'd thrown up at training that morning; she was off patrol until further notice. Right now, he had a very half-assed cross his fingers and hope it held, forbid the girls to use the second floor bathroom temporary fix. Frankly the "fix" was barely better than duct taping the pipes together in his opinion, but the leak could be contained to a five gallon bucket under each end of the "fix" as long as they used the first floor. At least until he could hopefully get to that bathroom next week. It had just become high on the priority list. Damnit though, he was a carpenter, not a plumber. And he couldn't pay for a plumber until he cracked Robin's damn computer.

He didn't care how much Giles chuckled and said, "Now you know what I put up with you lot". They hadn't kept Giles up past midnight with pipes that "just fell". None of them had ever turned up with morning sickness. He could come up with a nice long list of things they'd never dreamt of that he'd dealt with since Giles appointed him an official Watcher even before he ended up the head of the North American Branch.

The list of nevers expanded to include one Wizard sitting in the dark, reading by the glowing tip of his wand. "Is there a reason for sitting in the dark?" Xander asked reaching for the light switch by the door he'd just entered.

"I couldn't find any candles."

"Uhhh huhhh...did you eat?"

"No."

"Do you have any clue about anything Muggle at all?"

"I am a Wizard. A Pure Blood Wizard."

Boy, somebody's cranky, Xander thought. "I'll take that as a big fat no and the idiots over in the land of tea and tweed sent you without a crash course in Muggle 101."

Draco just glared at him.

"Hey, ain't your fault. And thank you, for not destroying the house trying to figure things out on your own like those Auror clowns who seem to have to hex everything that they don't know how to work rather than ask. Lesson One: electric lights. See this little panel with the switch? Switch up, lights on. Switch down, lights off. All the rooms have switches like this, right next to the doorway usually."

Xander showed Draco the fridge and freezer. He checked the milk. Oooh yeah. Down the garbage disposal while holding his nose. He could have sworn he'd just bought it.

Next were the microwave and its controls. And how to make thawed TV dinners in said microwave. His new roommate stared at the TV dinner until Xander dug into his own. Even then, he made faces as he ate.

"Uh do Wizards have plumbing?"

"Yes, it's basically the same."

"Hey just asking I have about as much a clue of Wizards as you do as Muggles." Xander said holding his hands up in surrender. "I wasn't making fun or anything."

"What would a job here entail? Could I really use my magic--?"

"Uh why couldn't you use your magic?"

"Muggles aren't to know about Wizards."

"Well, you can use magic in front of me, Regina, Kelly, Faith, RJ, Nikki and the Slayers. Probably the Twins too, doubt they'd even notice unless you scuffed up a book with it though. Actually, no magic in the library. Might be better, no telling how some of the books there would react. It's not as if the idiots the ACW sent think of that. Regina and Kelly have cast how many memory fogging spells because they goofed on that and refuse to do their own memory spells to cover up for themselves. You can abracadabra hocus pocus all ya want, as long as you don't hex any appliances to bits and keep it on the grounds."

"What would the job here entail?"

"Uhm, in general, I have no freakin' clue. On a daily basis--whatever crisis or apocalypse is going on depends. I could really use an assistant. You can be a Watcher--Deputy Director of North America."

"How could I remotely be qualified for that?"

"Hey no one else is beating down the door for the job and I'm the freaking Director of North America. Giles is really getting senile; he gave me a whole freaking continent to mess up with rather than just a House."

"What would I start with?"

"Know any spells to fix up the Admin building?"

Draco nodded.

"You can do that in the morning. After that, I don't know. We'll just play it by ear."

"So you want me to be your--"

"No! No I'm not--" Xander sighed. "Look if you seriously don't want to do this, or change your mind that's it, the end. We'll start sorting out what else you like to do. Even with all the weird and the demons and world endage--just no. I'm not all yay I've got my very own wizard for a minion type thing. I'm too damn tired to be coherent here. I'm not going to drag you around, point, and say mojo that up so it's like this. I don't have time for one. We've got a lot of funky cursed stuff that it's not really a good idea to use magic on any way. How about we officially make you Acting Deputy Director of North America. Acting makes it temporary you can do whatever; we make it up as we go. If you want to stay, we drop the acting. If you come across something you like, you just quit and we’ll concentrate on getting you qualified to do whatever it is. Giles did say I could hire someone. Housing, health, dental, eye, and 401k are all in the package. Of course the hours suck and the possibility of maiming death and or dismemberment are pretty much par for the course. So is saving the world and getting taken in by local law enforcement for rioting when you're actually demon slaying. Things like that."

"You certainly make it sound--dreadful."

Xander snorted. "I have no freaking clue what I'm supposed to do with you, okay. I really need some help around here. You're here. Might as well make the pitch. There are schoolbooks in plenty of the classrooms. The history and science books are only like forty years out of date. History books well, I don't think they've rewritten the dates of the Revolutionary War or Civil War or anything like that. You never know though. Science books are probably hilariously outdated and full of stuff that's been disprove or reclassified. I have no idea. I got a D in science."

"D?"

"As in two points above an F which is failing. But taking a look at them wouldn't hurt I suppose. Might get a basic clue of some of the stuff. Maybe." Xander shrugged. "We can tackle telephones, cell phones, TVs, stereos, copier, fax and computer tomorrow. Eh, you can at least see basic office equipment. You know how to drive?"

"A muggle what-ever-its-called?"

"I'll take that as a no." Xander snorted. "Remember that you need to know how to drive. We'll find sometime to teach ya somehow. Just don't let me forget. Did they happen to send any documentation like--passport, green card, birth certificate? All those little things you need to even get a freaking library card let alone a job?"

"No,"

"Oh joy," Xander snorted. "All right, so that's on the list of things to do tomorrow, too. With any luck it should only take a year or two to get your documentation."

"You haven't dealt with the British Ministry much have you?"

"Ah but I got a nice official like treaty that says they have to hold up their side of the bargain. And Willow did some of the spells on the Treaties. They really don't want to deal with the kind of curses Willow added on." Xander grinned. "Birds following them around crapping on their heads and their desks all over paper work. Flying monkeys in diagonal alley pulling hair and knocking things down--that one was my idea. Andrew thought up things like the replicators from Stargate chewing up anything metal in the Ministry building."

"That's insane!"

"Welcome to the Watcher's Council Version Scooby. Far wackier and more effective than the old Tweed Asshole Version."