Bridges

By Tassos

First Meeting


Jack scowled at the ringing phone. He was on leave. SG1 had finally gotten some downtime and the phone was not supposed to be ringing. The only people who called him were his teammates and he had just seen them out of his house. That only left the base, which was unfair on so many levels.

The phone rang again, and he contemplated not answering. Unfortunately, a niggling little voice in his head wouldn’t let him turn his back on what could be the end of the world. Stupid conscience.

“O’Neill,” he said just sharply enough to let whoever was calling that he was not happy.

“Jonathon O’Neill?” a cautious female voice queried.

“Is this a solicitation?” Jack asked suspiciously at the use of his first name.

“No!” said the woman quickly. “Sorry. I’m Elena Acosta with the Sunnydale County Clerk’s Office.”

“Sunnydale?” Where had he heard that name before?

“Yes,” the woman sighed heavily, tiredly. And then it clicked – the earthquake. Sinkholes underground had leveled a town in California last spring, about six months ago.

“What can I do for you?” asked Jack, softly now. The poor woman didn’t need anymore crap after her hometown had sunk into the Earth.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,” said Elena. “Jessica Harris died not long after the earthquake. You’re in her Will.”

“Wait,” Jack interrupted, his mind running over the unfamiliar name in his head. Who was Jessica Harris? He didn’t know any Jessicas, did he?

“I’m sorry. I’m so bad at this,” Elena apologized, which made Jack wonder how many people before him she had called to tell that their loved ones were dead and that there was a will with their name in it. He felt both guilty and puzzled that he didn’t know this Jessica Harris, and he was about to tell Elena that when it clicked.

The beach house, LA. A two week leave before he headed out on maneuvers in South America. He’d met Sarah after he got back home, but lanky, dark Jessica was before all that. He’d known her barely two weeks. Why was he in her last Will?

“What?” asked Elena, and Jack realized he had mumbled that last allowed.

“Nothing, sorry, go on,” he said.

“In order to claim your inheritance, you need to come to our offices in Los Angeles with two government proofs of identity,” Elena explained. “Mrs. Harris managed to leave Sunnydale before the earthquake with her husband. I’m afraid I can’t disclose more than that until I have proof you are Jonathan O’Neill.”

“How did she die?” asked Jack.

“There was a riot in the neighborhood they were staying in. Neither she nor her husband made it.” Again, Elena sounded apologetic and tired.

Jack was silent for a moment, taking it all in. He wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, or how to cope with suddenly hearing about Jessica again, especially at her death. Guess he was going on vacation after all. “I’ll be there Friday.”

Elena gave him the address and a complete list of all the documentation he would need to satisfy the government that yes, he had been born. Just when he thought he had everything, Elena added a startled, “oh!” as if she had forgotten something. “Do you know where your son is, Mr. O’Neill?”

Jack suddenly sat up straight. “You mean Jessica’s son?” Sure she had made a mistake. She had had a son? Well, it only stood to reason since she had had a husband, he mentally berated himself.

“Yes,” he heard Elena smile. “Mrs. Harris’s and yours.”

“What?” That couldn’t be possible. How could he have a son and not know about him? She must have read it wrong. “We don’t have a son.”

“Oh,” Elena was clearly surprised. “You didn’t know?” she ventured, her tone telling him not to be mad at her about it.

Jack sighed. “No,” he said. He paused, thinking about this new possibility. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Elena. “I’m looking at the birth certificate now. Well, once you get here, I’ll give you his information so you can look him up if you want. I doubt we would find him any faster.”

“Yeah.” Jack felt stunned, shocked, whammied. How could he have a son and not know about him? Because Special Ops didn’t leave a forwarding address. And it had never crossed his youthful brain that a couple of nights on leave would leave him with a son he didn’t know. “Thanks,” he said absently. He barely registered Elena say good-bye and hang up.

He had a son. Maybe alive, somewhere. Out in the world. He looked at his hands counting the years. He would be twenty-two or twenty-three by now, a couple years older than Charlie. Grown up. He probably had a job somewhere, maybe a girlfriend. Jack wondered what he was like.

********************************************************

The next day Jack called Daniel and trusted that word would get to Teal’c and Sam when they returned from their respective worlds of Chulak and the lab. The day after that, he was in the temporary clerk’s office in LA waiting in line with hundreds of other people. The place was small for the masses and it smelled of smoke and too many bodies. Four hours later he had a shoebox of memorabilia from that long ago leave, a small check for a couple thousand dollars, and a name: Alexander Lavell Harris.

When he got back to Colorado he gave Carter what he knew and let her work her magic while life settled back into its normal routine of missions and near death experiences. In her spare time, what little of it there was, Carter searched every file she could get her hands on, but with hard records destroyed and internet ones secure and often out of date, it was very slow going.

Jack spent the time he wasn’t yelling at Daniel wondering what Alexander, or Alex as he’d nicknamed him in his head, was like.

Six months later, Carter found an address.

*******************************************************

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Daniel asked for the thousandth time as he watched Jack pack for his trip to Cleveland.

And for the thousandth time, Jack shook his head. “I’m sure,” he said with finality, hoping Danny would get the point this time. But he didn’t.

“Jack, it’s no problem. And you might want to have a friend around for this.” Daniel’s eyes caught his and held them. “It’s not going to be easy.”

“I know, Daniel,” Jack sighed and scrubbed his face. “But the General needs you here for the . . .” he floundered his hand around searching for the name of their latest diplomatic crises.

“Yibbites. Jack, just be careful, okay?” said Daniel. “Don’t be all . . .” This time Daniel searched for words.

“Be what?”

Daniel sighed. “Just remember your going to be telling Alex that his mother and the man he thought was his father are dead. And that you are his biological father from a one night stand with his mom.”

Jack focused on packing. “It wasn’t one night,” he grumbled, not liking what his friend was telling him, but knowing Daniel was right. He couldn’t just waltz in and expect Alex to welcome him with open arms. And that’s what he was afraid of, being rejected and cast away. That’s why Daniel wanted to come and why Jack didn’t want him there. If that happened, he wanted time to mourn. He looked back at Daniel. “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

Daniel nodded and followed him out the door to the car.

**********************************************************

Jack was nervous. He stared at the house in front of him wondering just what the hell he was doing there. It was an old house that was tucked away in a nice quiet older neighborhood of Cleveland. But it looked how a nice house should. Was Alex married? Did he have kids? Oh God, did he have kids? Jack didn’t think he could cope with grandkids on top of everything.

No. He didn’t know anything. That’s why he was here, to find out about his son. Six months and he still wasn’t completely used to the idea. Shaking off whatever paralysis had come over him, Jack got out of his rental and made his way up the drive. Noise came from the backyard but it sounded harmless enough that he ignored it for the moment and just went up the steps to the ring the bell, listening as it echoed inside. A dozen sets of footsteps followed with overlapping cries of “I’ll get it,” and suddenly the door was pulled open and Jack found himself faced with three teenage girls.

Surprised, he took a light step back. This was not what he had been expecting. All three had brown hair and were waiting for him to speak, clearly as surprised as he was to see him standing there. “Hi,” Jack kind of waved, off balance. He had double-checked the address twice.

“No pizza?” the girl in the middle asked with a slight lift of her eyebrows that quickly settled into a disappointed frown when Jack shook his head.

“Ah, no. Actually I’m here to see Mr. Harris,” he told them.

“What for?” demanded the one on the right. Jack looked from her to the others and saw that they all had narrowed their eyes at him. Over their shoulders Jack saw two more girls poke their heads around a doorjamb. What was going on here?

“Uh, I’m actually here with news about his parents,” he focused back on the rightside girl. She gave him a quick once over then stepped back, the other girls also moving aside for him to enter.

“XANDER!!!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, making Jack startle back at the noise.

“What?” a voice floated down from the second floor. His son’s voice he realized. Alex – wait, the girl had called him Xander. His name was Xander. The girl yelled again before he could process that thought further.

“SOMEONE’S HERE TO SEE YOU!!!”

“Coming!” Xander called down. Jack watched the upper rail of the second floor that showed the upper hallway above him, barely noticing as the girls drifted back to whatever it was girls did here. He didn’t have to wait long. He recognized him from the picture Carter had found as the tall young man slowly descended the stairs. Except he had an eyepatch over his left eye. And his hair was longer. Why did he have an eyepatch over his left eye?

“Hey,” said Xander as he reached the last step. He was wearing blue jeans and a green t-shirt under a workman’s vest. His son was a construction worker, a foreman, he remembered. Jack clasped the offered hand with a smile, suddenly feeling like he’d been given too much air to breathe. “I’m Xander Harris. What can I do for you?”

It was only then that Jack noticed the wary look in his single eye, the way he stepped back slightly after their handshake ended. It was disappointing that he was a stranger to his own son, but Jack knew better than to have hoped otherwise.

“Jack O’Neill,” he introduced himself. “I’ve got news about your parents.”

“My parents, huh?” Xander blinked. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” He was not surprised. It was as if Jack had only confirmed what he’d known all along. Jack noticed a blond head this time listening at the doorjamb.

“Can we talk somewhere?” he asked, motioning toward their eavesdropper. Xander turned his whole head so he could see where Jack meant, then nodded and turned to an open sitting room on the right. He closed the doors and motioned for Jack to sit, settling on the beat up couch opposite him. Jack just watched him for a moment, taking him in, trying to readjust his image to fit this calm young man with one eye in working clothes. He didn’t know what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. “You knew about your parents?” he heard himself ask cautiously.

Xander looked away, to the right, to the floor. “I was in LA during the riots. They were in my uncle’s neighborhood. I didn’t know for sure . . .”

“You were there?” Jack asked surprised.

But Xander shook his head. “I was staying with some friends downtown. So do you work for the city or something? You could have just called.”

“No,” said Jack looking down at his hands. Oh, God, how was he going to do this? “The, uh, Clerk’s Office called me. I knew your mother a long time ago, and I was mentioned in the Will.”

“Huh?” His son’s calm face broke in surprise, but he waited for Jack to go on.

“I knew her before you were born,” Jack repeated. “The Clerk’s Office couldn’t find you so they gave me your name when I said I could track you down.”

“They did?” Xander still looked confused, but then his mouth clicked shut and his eyes single eye bore into Jack’s. “Why? They don’t usually release that kind if information to strangers. Who are you?” This last was said with suspicion. He had tensed up, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation, and though Jack knew the kid wouldn’t be able to touch him, it still hurt.

He reached into his pocket and offered his son his birth certificate. Xander glanced at it, back at Jack, then really read it. His hands started to shake and Jack wondered what would happen next. Wondered if he was going to get thrown out.

When Xander looked up at him again there was only anger. “What is this?” he demanded, low and dangerous.

“I just found out about it, too,” said Jack, looking away from that one terrible eye.

“These can be forged, you know.”

“It was in her Will for you to know.” He reached into his pocket again for the pictures. There were only two, both of him and Jessica standing together in front of the beach house. Xander looked at them closely, his index finger brushing over the young faces as if her could reach out and bring them back. He sniffed and stood, and when he glanced at Jack on his way to the door, his eye was brighter than it should have been.

“DAWN!” he shouted and not two seconds later the brunette who had challenged Jack at the door stuck her head in the door.

“Yeah?” she chirped, eyes slipping past him to land on Jack.

“Go check if these are real,” Xander handed her the birth certificate and the pictures.

“What?” Dawn looked at them then his son in confusion before reading the birth certificate. “Xander!”

“Dawn, just do it. Please,” his son asked tiredly. The girl looked at Jack again before nodding and leaving them to an uncomfortable silence.

Jack wondered how she would know if they were real or not and was suddenly angered by the whole situation. Angry at Jessica for not telling him about Xander, angry at Xander for not trusting him or even his evidence. How the hell was a fifteen-year-old going to verify that they were real anyway?

“She’s seventeen,” said Xander sharply, turning to glare at him. Had he said that out loud?

“Sorry, seventeen,” said Jack sarcastically. As if it made a difference. “You’re just going to take the word of a seventeen-year-old that that birth certificate is real?”

“Or forged,” said Xander coldly.

“It’s not forged.”

“We’ll see.”

“How? Is she going to wave her little magic wand?”

“Something like that.”

They stared at each other, neither one willing to back down for several minutes. His son’s arms were crossed across his chest almost like Daniel’s protective stance but somehow more dangerous. Maybe it was the eyepatch, or the shaggy head of hair.

“You look a little like my uncle when he was young,” Jack surprised them both by saying. Xander blinked and the hard expression melted to something like curiosity. Maybe if he could accept it, they could be friends. “I’m sorry for . . .” Jack paused looking for what he was sorry for. Not being there, not loving him, not playing ball, or meeting his girl, and for all of a sudden dropping this on his shoulders after he found out his parents were dead. Daniel was right; this was far from easy. “For, you know, everything,” he finished lamely.

“Xander?” Dawn’s quiet voice interrupted the tense silence. They both turned and she looked from one to the other, eyes slightly wide. “They’re real.” She held out the pictures and birth certificate. After a stunned moment, Xander took them.

“Thanks, Dawnie,” he said staring at them, processing. Dawn looked at Jack again before ducking out and closing the door.

Jack waited for Xander to acknowledge him, and when he finally looked up there were tears in his eye. He smiled weakly. “Sorry. I guess it’s just hitting me that I’m never going to see Mom again.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said again.

Xander smiled tightly. “Thanks.” They stared at each other again but this time his son was studying him. “So I guess we should do the bonding thing,” Xander finally broke the silence.

Jack smiled in relief. He wasn’t going to be kicked out of the house after all. He had a chance here to make it work with this child he didn’t know. Once they resettled into chairs and the sofa, Xander began.

“So you married?”

He didn’t waste any time with the easy stuff. “Divorced,” said Jack. “I got married about a year after I left your mom,” he went on. It felt weird to explain something that he normally kept close to his heart. But if anyone deserved to know it was the young man before him.

“Any kids?”

Jack closed his eyes and nodded. “Charlie.” He opened them and gazed at Xander’s work boots. “He accidentally shot himself with my gun when he was ten. Sarah and I couldn’t make it through his death.” He could still remember that day as if it were yesterday. He’d never forgive himself.

“I’m sorry,” Xander almost whispered. There was no anger, no judgement, only pain when Jack met his eye, though he had a feeling that Xander wasn’t seeing him.

“What about you?” asked Jack. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No, no girlfriend,” Xander came back from wherever he had gone. “She . . .she’s gone.”

“And all these girls around here?” Jack felt the need to lighten the mood. How had they managed to pick the one subject that left them both depressed?

“Are unfortunately not my personal harem,” Xander grinned suddenly. “They’d all kick my ass from here to England.”

Jack smiled at the thought. “So what do you do here?”

“Me and a couple of friends are running a self-defense program for girls for the summer,” Xander waved his hand at the house in general. “After Sunnydale, we needed to get out of California. So we ended up here, with no money, and one hair-brained idea.” He shrugged. “My friends do the teaching. I’m more of the fix-whatever-gets-broken-guy.”

The doorbell rang and a stampede of footsteps rushed to the door followed soon after by the smell of pizza, which made Xander grin hesitantly, his hands rubbing against his legs with nervous energy. “Food’s here. You want?”

Jack followed his son to the kitchen where thirty girls were attacking as many pizza boxes on the counter. Most of them were dressed in workout clothes and all of them were talking. As Jack watched his son melt into the rush of youth he couldn’t help but notice that he was more than Mr. Fix-it.

“Xander! Allison took two pieces of cheese and I didn’t get any!”

“Allison, give one to Vi!”

“’S not fair!” the girl in question grumbled as Xander fixed his eye on her.

“Hey, who took my drink?”

“Xander, where are the napkins?”

“Ask Ellie and Veronica, they’re on kitchen duty for lunch.”

“No we’re not!” two girls protested with matching looks of innocence. Jack watched as Xander simply raised his eyebrow.

“Do I have to check the list?”

“Fine, we’ll find them,” one of the girls grumbled stomping off to the cabinets.

“Hey, Xander, is this your dad?” Jack suddenly found thirty pairs of eyes fixed on him. He felt like he was facing a squad of piranhas that would tear him to pieces at any second.

“I thought your dad died.”

“That was his mom’s husband who he grew up with. This is his biological dad.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Dawn said so.”

“Hey, all I said was the papers were for real.”

“Hey!” Xander's voice cut through all the speculation. He didn’t seem too surprised or bothered that word had gotten out in the span of ten minutes, though Jack had a feeling he himself looked shell-shocked. Who wouldn’t? He was used to handling only one teenage girl at a time, not thirty, for cryin’ out loud.

“Everyone, this is Jack O’Neill. Jack, this is almost everyone.” He leaned in close and whispered, “Don’t let them scare you,” in his ear and handed him a paper plate with two slices of pepperoni. Xander shouldered room for them at the counter and then the interrogation began.

“So where you from?” Dawn was the first to ask, squeezing in next to him at the counter.

“Colorado,” said Jack, feeling a little bit better once he took a bite of pizza.

“Colorado? Isn’t Terry from Colorado?” someone asked, but since Terry wasn’t there to confirm this, Dawn moved on.

“What do you do?”

“I’m in the Air Force.”

“Really?” several girls asked. “Do you fly planes?”

Jack turned to the waiting crowd. “Sometimes. Not as much anymore.”

“Air Force, huh?” Dawn poked his arm to get his attention. “Name, rank, and serial number.”

Jack grinned at the narrow look she was giving him and rattled off the information. There was an impressed collected gasp when he said ‘Colonel,’ but when he glanced at Xander, his son had that wary look back in his eye. Jack sighed internally, frustrated that whatever ground he had gained seemed to have been lost.

“You don’t happen to work on any top secret projects, do you?” asked Xander. And from the way he said it, Jack knew he was only half-joking. And that scared him.

“Deep space radar telemetry,” the practiced lie rolled off his lips. What did Xander know about top secret projects? He was just a kid! His kid. Oh God, his kid! Jack wanted to grab his shoulder and demand answers, but he couldn’t, not here in front of all these little girls. Not with a son he wanted a chance with.

Feeling dazed he turned back to the questions the girls kept asking. Do you have a gun? Have you been in a war? Have any of your friends died? Vaguely he recognized something strange in the questions, but preoccupied by what had prompted Xander’s question, he couldn’t tell what. It took him five minutes to notice that Dawn had disappeared.

Finally, Xander shooed the girls away and they went back to the sitting room and the dilapidated couch. His son regarded him strangely before speaking. “I didn’t mean to wig you out,” he said. “It’s just . . .this guy one of my friends dated was in the Army. It was a bad break up.”

He didn’t say anymore, but Jack got the feeling that bad was an understatement. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Xander shrugged again. “So deep space radar telemetry? That sounds . . .fun.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if you’re asleep. And you’re a construction worker?” he asked to change the subject away from issues of national security.

“Used to be. Now I’m an out of work, one-eyed carpenter.” Jack could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

“What about this?” he asked, gesturing to the house.

“It’s more my friends’ stuff than mine,” Xander smiled sadly. “Being a carpenter was all mine, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jack found himself smiling too, understanding the need to have something that you alone were good at. “So . . . can I ask what happened? To your eye?” Jack almost held his breath, waiting to see if Xander would let him in.

“You know how they say ‘never run with scissors’?” Xander finally said. “It’s good advice.”

“Oh,” Jack looked away. Something was missing. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew a recent wound when he saw one. Xander just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. At least he hoped that was the case, and that one day his son would feel comfortable talking about it with him.

“How long are you staying?”

“Till Saturday.” It was Thursday today, so two more days. He wondered if he would be seeing more of Xander. “Id like to get to know you though. See you again,” he added, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate. “If I had known, I would have come.”

“Really?” Xander sounded like he didn’t believe him. “You barely knew my mother.”

“Wouldn’t matter.” Jack held his gaze, willing the words to sink in. Xander sat there, still skeptical. “Will you give me a chance?”

“I’ve got to go check on the girls.” Xander didn’t answer the question. “Do you have a place to stay?”

Jack nodded. “Hampton Inn.” They both stood up no longer sure what to say to each other. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?” asked Jack hopefully.

“Yeah,” Xander nodded. “I’ve got to pick up Buffy and Giles from the airport. They’ll want to meet you. If you can come around four? That way they’ll have time to interrogate you before dinner.”

“Four then,” said Jack. He didn’t like the sound of interrogation. There would probably be questions about his intentions toward Xander, death threats, that sort of thing. And Jack realized as Xander awkwardly shook his hand at the door that in an odd way he was looking forward to it.


Second Time Through

Xander stared at the closed door, listening as Jack’s car started up and drove off. It all felt so surreal, like he was watching someone else’s life. Because how could this be happening?

With a sigh, Xander turned and headed out back to check on the girls in the yard. They were talking and laughing as Vi led them through their stretches, the novelty of their calling not yet worn away. Xander let them be and went inside, back upstairs to his room. His unfinished email to Willow was still on the screen where he had left it. He’d have to rewrite it now, he thought. Add that his parents were dead.

Turning away from the computer, he sat instead on his bed, elbows on knees as he gazed at the pictures Jack had given him. He had lost all his pictures when they closed the Hellmouth, not that he’d had many of his parents.

Dead. His parents were dead. He felt his eye prick and a tear slide down his cheek. They were gone. It was one thing to look at the carnage from the riots and guess, another to hear the words that cemented it into reality. His mom had been so beautiful. Young, free. She couldn’t have been much older in the picture than Xander was now, but he had never felt as young as she looked. At least not in a long, long time. And she was gone now. Like Anya. And as much as he had sometimes hated his parents, he wanted nothing more than to see them one last time. But he couldn’t. Xander’s head fell into his hands and silent sobs accompanied the pictures falling to the floor.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but after a while he felt someone sit on the bed next to him and an arm snake around his waist. Sighing he sat up and hugged Dawn back, glad of the simple comfort she offered. Neither of them said anything; they didn’t have to.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Dawn said softly after a while.

Xander let out a soft, sad huff of air and wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Yeah. I never would have thought I’d be crying over them.”

“They were still your parents,” Dawn replied. Xander caught the note of longing in her voice. Their dad still hadn’t contacted them. Not like Jack.

“And now there’s this guy who says he’s my real dad.” Xander still didn’t know if he believed it or not.

“I googled him,” said Dawn. “He’s who he says he is. We’ll have to get Willow to do the deep dark secret search. And a paternity test if you want.”

“Yeah,” he absently agreed, thinking back over the man who had flown from Colorado just to see him.

For an old guy, Jack was in shape and actually looked pretty good over all. Also not horribly out of fashion, he noted remembering the casual khakis, shirt, and leather jacket he had worn. Xander couldn’t decide if that bothered him or not. Then he wondered why he was focusing on something so entirely irrelevant.

“He’s coming back tomorrow,” he told Dawn. “He says he wants to get to know me.”

“Is that good?” asked Dawn hesitantly. “I mean, do you really think he’s your dad?”

Xander shrugged not wanting to think about it but unable not to. He’d lost his original birth certificate with everything else in Sunnydale. Regardless, having someone else call him son wasn’t really going to change anything. Dad hadn’t really been his dad since high school anyway. “He thinks so. Said I looked like his uncle.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing really. I asked about his family, he asked if I had a girlfriend.” But she was gone too. “He asked about my eye.” Dawn nodded and silence settled over them again.

Xander wondered where this was going to go. He wondered why he had told Jack he could come back. With his current luck he would probably turn out to be another demon trying to get to them through him. His eye found the pictures on the floor. Mom and Jack. Jack and Mom. “Are they really real?” he half-whispered.

“Willow’s all-purpose truth spell came up positive.”

So maybe not a demon. He hadn’t even gotten to the Colonel thing yet. Those were scabs best left alone for now.

“Can I come with you to pick up Buffy and Giles?” asked Dawn, breaking the quiet.

“Yeah,” he turned and smiled at her, for real this time. “Thanks. I could use the company.”

“Anytime.” And they both knew it was about more than a ride to the airport. Dawn gave him a final squeeze then left to get back to whatever translation she was working on for Giles. Xander stared after her for a minute before going back to the email to Willow who was somewhere on the East Coast. He deleted the last few lines then started a new paragraph.

************************************************

The next day after overseeing the usual chaos that was cooking for and feeding over thirty slayers and making sure the veterans had the newbies under control, Xander and Dawn headed for the airport with Dawn in the driver’s seat. They hadn’t told Buffy yet that she’d gotten her license, deciding that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. She’d become better about letting Dawn grow up but still had the tendency to be overprotective. So when she was gone, Xander let Dawn drive. And if she found out he had his lack of depth perception as an excuse.

The airport was noisy but not too crowded. They waited in the baggage claim area passing the time by filling in the words to other peoples conversations as they greeted each other. It was nice to just sit and people-watch with Dawn, see how the other side lived. Xander hadn’t done this since working construction.

They had been waiting for about twenty minutes when two familiar figures finally came down the escalator. Beside him, Dawn shrieked and bounded over to tackle her sister and Giles, Xander trailing in her wake. Having just come from London, they both looked tired and unkempt, but happy to be back. Giles smiled at him and gave him a hug when he reached them. Dawn was already chattering a mile a minute at Buffy with no sign of stopping, so Xander took his life into his own hands and commandeered the slayer for a hug, which she laughingly returned. Dawn’s commentary on life at the house never stopped.

By the time they got their bags and were on the way home Dawn had caught them up since their last phone call four days ago. While the news about Xander’s parents didn’t surprised them, the news about his possible father did. But Dawn, bless her, wouldn’t let them ask questions, saying they could get the details after they got home. She wanted to hear about London while she had them to herself. So they pushed aside talk of Jack in favor of making fun of the Land of Tweed. Even Giles had a thing or two to say about British drivers.

As far as work went, the rebuilding of the Council was progressing slowly, but progressing nonetheless. Though Xander got the impression that Buffy had spent most of their time dragging Giles to see the sights. She looked good. She looked like she’d finally had some badly needed rest.

Xander smiled as he watched the girls go on in the back seat about all the crazy things Buffy had tried in order to get the guards at Buckingham Palace to quit their statue routine. Beside him, Giles shook his head, silently denying any part in the escapade. Just like normal. It was good to have everyone home.

******************************************

At precisely four o’clock, Jack rang the doorbell to the nice, old house where Xander lived with a bunch of girls. It was simply too odd to contemplate at the moment, so Jack wisely chose not to as he listened to the stampede heading for the door. This time two brunettes, a blond, and one faded blue met him cheerfully at the door.

“Hi,” Jack smiled more sure of himself today.

The girls giggled and said, “Hi, Jack,” as they let him in.

“XANDER!!!” two of them shouted together, this time toward the back of the house, and once again Jack winced at the noise. He figured it wasn’t often quiet around here.

Xander emerged from the back hallway followed by another, much older man. He had gray hair and glasses and wore a blue pullover, managing to look both casual and distinguished at the same time. Jack wondered who he was, maybe a parent dropping off his daughter?

“Hey!” another girl shouted from the kitchen. “Buffy says break’s over,” she called to the teenagers who had let him in. With a chorus of disappointed ‘awe’s, the four reluctantly retreated casting wishful looks over their shoulders.

“They never give up,” said Xander by way of greeting, watching the girls leave. “Of course I don’t blame ‘em for wanting to avoid Buffy.” He turned back to Jack and the parent who hadn’t left yet. “So Jack, this is Rupert Giles. He’s helping us out for the summer. Giles, Jack O’Neill.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” said Mr. Giles in a soft British accent.

To say Jack was surprised would have been a gross understatement. This was Giles? Xander’s friend that he was running this place with? He had expected Giles to be some dumb kid, another refugee from Sunnydale with no money and a stupid idea. One old man, one young one and thirty teenage girls did not paint a pretty picture. And he was British! Just what had this guy gotten his son wrapped up in?

Hiding his surprise and suspicion with a neutral smile, Jack shook the offered hand. Mr. Giles had a firm handshake that almost hurt, but his mild expression suggested he wasn’t aware of it. “Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”

“Uh, coffee would be great,” said Jack, the civil custom bringing him up short and reminding him of his manners. This was Xander’s ‘friend’ after all, good or not, and for once he didn’t want to pick a fight.

Xander disappeared into the kitchen to get the drinks while Mr. Giles led Jack into the sitting room. Mr. Giles didn’t say anything to him, instead seeming to prefer to let Jack make the first move. It was all very uncomfortable. Jack wasn’t quite sure what was going on but he wanted to find out. Now.

“So how do you know Xander?” he asked as innocuously as possible.

Mr. Giles didn’t flinch. “I’ve known him since he was in high school. Yourself?”

“I, uh.” Suddenly thrown on the defensive when he knew Mr. Giles was aware of who he was made Jack take a strong dislike to the man. He was being tested and he really didn’t like it. “I’m his father. His biological father anyway. But you knew that.”

“I know that’s what you claim,” Mr. Giles met his challenging gaze. “A birth certificate and a picture are hardly concluding evidence.”

“Xander seems to think so.”

“Does he?” Mr. Giles lifted a skeptical eyebrow. And suddenly Jack wasn’t sure. Yesterday, after Dawn had confirmed the birth certificate they had talked . . . it hadn’t been the most stellar conversation he’d ever had, but he thought they had made progress.

“It was in his mother’s will,” said Jack, needing something solid to hold onto. He remembered reading it. “I didn’t find out until they called me about it.”

“Again, all we have is your word on that,” Mr. Giles replied. “But I suppose that is neither here nor there at the moment since it can easily be cleared up at the hospital.”

“What?”

“You know, your DNA, my DNA. Seeing if it’s all happy little DNA,” said Xander joining them with the drinks. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that, well . . . we don’t.” He handed Jack a Snoopy mug. “Milk or sugar?”

Jack shook his head, sighed and pushed the hurt away. To be honest he had anticipated doing a paternity test sometime. He just didn’t know if he could handle it if it came out negative. He watched as Xander handed Mr. Giles a Kiss the Librarian mug and settled beside him on the couch with his own that said ‘We heart Snow’.

His son, because he knew he was, looked better today, more relaxed than yesterday to be sure. And he looked comfortable sitting next to Mr. Giles, which rankled Jack a bit because it wasn’t him. Who was this guy anyway? And what was he doing here? How did he know Xander? Yesterday’s challenge of impressing the friends wasn’t so fun anymore when confronted with this man.

“So when do you want to do the test?” he asked. “I’ve got to get back tomorrow.”

“I already set up an appointment at the clinic in town in the morning,” said Xander. “And it wasn’t easy getting a spot on such short notice.”

“Oh.” Jack wasn’t sure what to say to that. “That’s good.” And awfully fast. Jack tried not to think about what would happen if it came back negative. He’d been dreaming of this meeting for six months. Of course the reality of it was far from anything he had expected, but at least there was still hope.

“So,” said Mr. Giles. “You work at NORAD, Colonel?”

Jack glanced up sharply at the man, wondering just why he asked that. He’d never said anything about where he worked yesterday. And he didn’t like that look of mild curiosity either. “And you teach teenaged girls . . . self defense?” he shot back, letting him know exactly what he thought of the situation.

To his surprise, Mr. Giles actually blushed. “Yes, actually,” he sputtered. “It’s not what you’re implying.”

“I wasn’t implying anything,” Jack denied, happy he’d finally scored a hit. “Just wondering what you’ve got my son doing here.”

“Hey! Why should you care?” Xander snapped. “You don’t live here. And even if you are my biological father, so what? You haven’t been a part of my life. You don’t know the first thing about us.”

“I wasn’t there because I didn’t know about you. I’m here now,” said Jack a little too desperately. This wasn’t happening, was it? “I want to get to know you. Why do you think I came here?”

“I don’t know!” Xander suddenly shouted back. “You just showed up, all ‘Luke I am your father’ and you’re not like him and I don’t even know you.”

“Xander,” Mr. Giles put a calming hand on the young man’s shoulder while Jack looked on in shock. Did that even make sense? “Xander, why don’t you go check on Andrew in the kitchen,” said Mr. Giles.

Xander ignored him. “What, you tell me my parents are dead and expect to take their place protecting me? I’m not a kid.”

“I’m not expecting anything!” Jack yelled back, feeling like he’d been kicked in the teeth. He’s was going to lose him! The thought seared through his mind like fire, burning so deep it was all he could think of.

“Xander,” Mr. Giles repeated sharply.

“Yeah. Fine, whatever.” Without sparing a glance for Jack, his son stormed out of the room leaving Jack with the older man. Mildness replaced by ruthless hostility.

Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. Shit. This wasn’t going right. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said not quite sure what had just happened. “Whatever I said – ”

“I daresay you called me a pervert,” Mr. Giles interrupted coldly.

Jack bristled. “I – ”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mr. Giles cut him off again. “You want to make sure he’s all right, I can see that. You can say anything you want to about me; I honestly don’t care, but I highly doubt that insulting his friends will garner you his good will, however well intentioned.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack repeated with a sigh. “I’ll admit I’m probably jumping to conclusions, but frankly I don’t like you,” he bit out. “Whatever you’re doing here doesn’t look good from where I’m sitting. I know it’s a little late, but I just want what’s best for him.”

“As do I Colonel O’Neill,” said Mr. Giles. “Even if that means getting rid of you.”

Jack caught his breath. He must have heard wrong. “Did you just threaten me?” he asked, eyebrows lifted at the audacity. Mr. Giles continued to calmly stare him down.

“I’ll leave the threats to the girls. They have a much more colorful way of putting things,” said Mr. Giles, and Jack knew he wasn’t talking about the girls he’d met yesterday. “But let me make one thing perfectly clear: neither your rank nor your government will be able to protect you from me if you have one ill thought toward Xander.” Now Jack was used to being threatened, in fact he often felt that in his old age he was getting rather immune to it. But at the moment he got the feeling that he was treading on very thin ice. Mr. Giles’s tone was clear, crisp, and deadly, his accent only chilling Jack more as eyes full of mortal promise bored into him.

Whatever he had thought before about Mr. Giles being mild mannered when right out the window. “You have my word,” Jack murmured seriously.

“Good.” And like that, the spell was broken so quickly Jack wondered if it had really happened. “Then you can stay for supper.” Mr. Giles smiled at him with only a hint of his earlier menace and took a sip of his tea. “So, Colonel, how do you like Cleveland?”

Jack tried to smile back and hoped he would make it out of this conversation intact.

*************************************************

The constant sound of knife against cutting board pounded like the blood through Xander’s head. He could feel Andrew watching him from across the island counter and wished he could say something reassuring but he didn’t know what. Hell, he couldn’t even sort out why he was mad. Yesterday Jack had been okay and today he and Giles were at each other’s throats.

Xander cleared the chopped carrots into the waiting pot and grabbed another handful. Something about Jack scared him. He was so . . . certain about being his dad. And he cared. And Xander didn’t know how to handle that, not from some stranger he met yesterday who was fifty years old and in the damn army.

But there was a niggling voice in the back of mind whispering “what if . . .” What if Mom had told Jack? What if he stuck around like he said he would have? As a kid in middle school, when things had really started to go downhill in the Harris household, Xander had sometimes imagined having different parents. Parents who didn’t drink, didn’t yell at him, and didn’t make him want to sleep outside on Christmas Eve.

Xander dumped the carrots in with the others, grabbing the last handful, but his hands were shaking so badly now, he cut his finger, red blood spilling over and clashing with the orange to make a nice vampire rabbit snack. His blood, Jack’s blood. They’d find out tomorrow. They still didn’t know for sure. Would Jack still care even if he wasn’t his father?

Taking the carrots with him to the sink, Xander ran cold water over the wound and ignored Andrew’s fussing as the blood washed away. It didn’t matter. Blood didn’t make you family, it only gave you a place to start. And Xander had a family. He didn’t need someone who didn’t know the first thing about him or Giles or anyone to come in making assumptions. Tomorrow they’d know for sure, then Jack would go back to his army and life would get back to normal on the Cleveland Hellmouth. Maybe he’d get a Christmas card like Buffy used to get from her dad. Whatever. It didn’t matter.

***************************************************

Jack was impressed that he and Mr. Giles had managed to find safe ground in seventies music. Granted it had taken Cleveland’s weather, England’s weather, Colorado’s weather, and an aborted attempt at sports to get there, but they did manage to have a civilized conversation without mentioning Xander or what anyone actually did for a living. Nevertheless, Jack was relieved when the sitting room door opened and put an end to the conversation.

Unsurprisingly, it was a girl, a blonde this time and fairly short. She was wearing a tank top and sweat pants, obviously just having come in from a workout session.

“Hey, Giles,” she practically bubbled though her eyes never left Jack as both he and Mr. Giles stood. “This him?” she asked, giving him a professional once over.

“Uh, yes. Colonel, may I introduce Buffy Summers, one of our instructors here. Buffy, Jack O’Neill.”

“Ms. Summers,” Jack used his best smile for Xander’s other friend. By the way she was eyeing him this must be one of the girls Mr. Giles had mentioned. She took his offered hand with a firm grasp, leaving a sheen of sweat behind.

“So you’re the dad, huh?” She didn’t seem too impressed.

“That would be me,” Jack affirmed.

“So if this pans out, you planning on becoming a fixture or is this a nice-to-meet-ya-I’m-going-off-to-Spain-with-my-secretary kinda deal?”

“Uh . . .” Unsure just what she had asked, Jack suddenly wished Daniel were there to translate.

“Well?” Her sharp gaze just sharpened even more while he stood there like an idiot.

“What Buffy is asking is if you plan on being a part of Xander’s life if you are indeed his father,” Mr. Giles helped him out, though Jack swore that the two questions didn’t share a word.

“What he said,” reiterated Buffy impatiently.

Feeling like he was caught between a rock and a hard place with one in front of him and one behind, Jack nodded. “Yeah. If he’ll let me.”

“Good,” said Buffy taking a step closer and staring into his eyes. “Because if you back out I’ll rip off your arms, shove one down your throat and the other up your ass so you can twiddle you thumbs in your stomach. Do I make myself clear?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Jack fighting the urge to laugh in her face. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. Only the crazy intensity in her eyes kept his lips from twitching. She meant what she said, and even if she couldn’t hurt him physically, he respected that she wanted to keep her friend from getting hurt.

“Good. I’ll see you at dinner then.” She looked past him at Mr. Giles then left as quickly as she had come.

Jack turned to Mr. Giles and grinned. “That was one of the girls?” he asked. “I see what you mean about colorful.”

“Yes, quite,” said Mr. Giles offering a short, polite smile in return. “I’m surprised she went easy on you.”

“Threatening to rip my arms off was easy?” Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise. Not that he felt very threatened. What more could she do?

“Well, with Dawn’s boyfriends, she brings a knife and threatens to make them eunuchs.” The evil glint was back in Mr. Giles’s eye, which made Jack shift uncomfortably from foot to foot, just to make sure everything was all there.

“So what’s for dinner?” asked Jack to change the subject to healthier matters.

“You if you’re not careful,” Mr. Giles replied, picking up the mugs. “I don’t think Buffy was done with you.”

“Great, just what I need. Another hostile woman drooling over me.” Jack stopped short at the look Mr. Giles leveled at him. He winced. “I did it again, didn’t I?” When would he learn to keep all those random thoughts in is head. Must be the stress.

*************************************************

Xander was waiting for him by the back door. Jack looked a little surprised to see him there offering him a beer, but he took it nonetheless with a gentle smile and followed him outside to the back steps.

“I figured you could use one after being cooped up with Giles,” said Xander, putting his plate on his knees. It was sunset and the evening was cool. It would be dark soon. He looked up and saw Jack watching him with an unreadable expression on his face. He didn’t know what he wanted to talk about, but he felt like the poor guy needed a break from the third degree.

“Thanks,” Jack said without looking away. “Listen, about earlier, I’m sorry for what I said. It was uncalled for.”

The unexpected apology made Xander grin. “Giles scared the living shit out you, didn’t he?”

Jack smiled and let out a chuckle. “Maybe a little. I don’t think he likes me too much.”

“Probably not,” Xander agreed. You could be the First for all we know, he added in his head. But they had shaken hands so Xander knew he wasn’t. He was putting his money on his being a demon though. It would make everything easier if he was.

“So,” Jack said into the silence that followed, as at a loss as Xander for conversation. “Are we just going to sit here and be awkward?” he finally asked.

The question made Xander smile again. “You could go sit with Buffy. I know she’s just dying to meet you.” A grimace etched its way onto Jack’s face.

“We’ve actually already met,” he said. “She seems like a pleasant person – threatened to rip my arms off and everything.” Jack smiled and shook his head. “It was kind of touching actually.”

“Dismemberment?” asked Xander surprised by the comment.

“She loves you enough to threaten me. Mr. Giles too.”

Xander didn’t know what to say to that stark observation. He knew it was true, but usually he was one of the ones dealing out the threats and not on the receiving side, or however it worked.

“Well, tomorrow we’ll find out if you need to make funeral arrangement,” he joked, but Jack only cracked a small smile. Okay, so it wasn’t a great joke but damn it, he was nervous about all this too.

“Xander,” hearing his name for the first time made him look up sharply at the older man, “I meant what I said. I want to get to know you.” Jack looked away searching for words in the darkening sky. “I know I can’t replace your parents,” he finally said. “But I’d like to be your friend.” He turned back and Xander saw the pleading in his eyes that he would never say. “Even if tomorrow doesn’t work out . . . Jessica would have wanted it that way.” And he meant it, Xander saw. He really meant it. Xander didn’t know what to say. “Xander?” Jack was waiting for an answer, hoping, dreading.

“Jack,” he started then stopped. “You’re leaving tomorrow,” Xander continued. “Whether you’re my father or not. You’ll live your life, I’ll live mine.”

“I can visit you,” said Jack looking hurt. He really wanted to do this father-son thing, Xander realized. “You can come visit me.” And he wasn’t going to give it up easily.

“Can we get a dog, too?” asked Xander.

“Yeah, we can get a dog,” said Jack enthusiastically. “Any kind you want.”

“So now it’s bribery,” Xander raised his eyebrows. Jack grinned.

“If that’s what it takes to get me a chance with you.”

“You know, I could use a new car,” suggested Xander, beginning to enjoy this a little.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, junior. I’m not that rich.” Nonetheless, he seemed pleased by the suggestion. They settled into a light conversation about cars until dark fell and Xander insisted that Jack get back to his hotel. He’d ask whoever was on patrol to make sure he got there safely.

As he watched Jack’s rental car pull away down the street he smiled quietly to himself. The dad thing still weirded him out, but maybe being friends would work.


Three Minutes Late

Saturday morning Xander was late to the clinic. Jack had of course arrived early and then spent twenty minutes not reading some article in *People* and glancing at his watch. He wasn’t worried. Really. After all his son was the one who had set up the appointment, but nonetheless he let out a sigh of relief when Xander banged through the door.

“Sorry, I’m late,” he flashed a quick yet harried smile. “Small crisis in Girlville.”

Jack stood, his earlier irritation quenched now that he was here. “What happened?” he asked as they went to the desk to check in. Xander greeted the nurse by name as she handed him the forms they needed to fill out with a coy smile. Looked like someone had a crush, mused Jack, though Xander merely thanked her politely and went to sit down, oblivious.

“Oh, you know, the usual ‘she looked at me funny’ thing,” said Xander, frowning at his pen that refused to write. “Does yours work?” he asked.

Jack tried it and nodded, wondering instead what Xander was talking about while his son asked the shy nurse for another pen. “So what thing is that?” he asked when the young man rejoined him.

“Huh?” Xander looked up, the confusion on his face quickly dissipating as he caught up. “Oh, there’s this whole . . . thing. You know, where one girl looks at another and makes her cry.” He must not have look convinced because Xander added, “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” before turning back to his form.

The paperwork didn’t take long to complete, and before Jack knew it, they were being led into an examination room where another nurse Xander knew named Cathy scraped the insides of their cheeks with a half dozen Q-tips.

“Is that it?” he asked in surprise as she took off her gloves.

“That’s it,” Cathy smiled. “Now we just send it off to the lab on Monday and we’ll mail you the results by Friday.” It seemed too simple for it to be legit. Janet was always shining lights and poking and prodding, and now the inside of his cheek would tell them what they need to know? He and the Doc were going to have a serious conversation when he got back.

“Xander, how’s Lydia doing?” asked Cathy over her shoulder as she led them back to the waiting room.

“She’s good now,” Xander told her. “Not much keeps them down. Like Energizers. The batteries, I mean,” he tripped over this last, making Jack smile.

“That’s good to hear,” Cathy held the door for them as they left. “And I hope everything works out for you guys.”

“Thanks.”

The door closed, leaving the two of them alone in the sunshine, another awkward pause filling the space between them. “So you come here often?” Jack’s curiosity finally got the better of him.

Xander shrugged, his face devoid of anything readable. “The girls sometimes get hurt. And being in the very scary position of responsibility, guess who gets to drive.” Jack didn’t have anything he cared to say aloud to that. “So when’s your plane leaving?”

“One-seventeen,” said Jack, looking at his watch. It was almost eleven now. He’d have to leave soon to make it through security. When he looked back up, Xander was watching him closely out of his single eye. Jack wondered suddenly what he looked like without the eyepatch.

“So I guess this is it, huh?” said Xander.

“Oh, I hope not,” said Jack with a grin trying to dispel the sudden seriousness of the conversation. He knew it was a defense mechanism, but hey, it worked. “Now that you got me, I don’t intend on leaving you alone. Besides, your little Buffy will rip my arms off if I don’t come back.”

That startled a laugh out of Xander. “You really shouldn’t underestimate Buffy,” he said, shaking his head and grinning wryly. “And you really, really shouldn’t call her little.”

“Touchy?”

“Very.”

“Sounds like other short people I know.”

“But this one can rip your arms off.”

“Well, we can’t have that now, can we? So I guess I better keep in touch?” Jack turned this last into a hopeful question, slightly rocking on his heels. Xander didn’t respond for a moment.

“You’re that sure?” he asked softly, doubt coloring his voice. “About me? I mean, I could be an axe murderer for all you know.” And underneath the sarcasm Jack heard a scared young man wondering why he cared.

Jack smiled and shook his head, a little taken aback by the emotion in the gaze that bored into his soul. “You’re not an axe murderer,” said Jack solemnly, for once not hiding behind humor. “You’re my son. And I know you don’t really trust me right now,” he let out a breath of cynical laughter, glancing at his shoes, “especially since I messed up this whole meeting you thing.” He looked up. “But all I’m asking for is a chance.”

“Yeah, well,” Xander didn’t seem to know what to say. “To save your arms, I guess you can call me. And if you’ll, you know, still buy me a dog.” A teasing smile snuck its way into the conversation and Jack’s heart.

“It’s a deal.” And when Jack offered his hand and Xander took it, he felt like he’d been given the world.

************************************************

Xander closed the door with a heartfelt sigh when he got home. Around him the bubbly sounds of teenagers on their free day bounced off the walls around him. Over to the right of the entranceway, the sitting room door wide open with one of the newbie cliques giggling over the rustle of magazines and newspapers. They paused when they heard him come in, several arching their necks to see who it was.

“Xander!” called Melissa, a tall ganlgy brunette that reminded him of a stork with freckles. “How’d it go?”

He smiled for them as he ambled over to the doorframe. “Fine,” he shrugged, though he still didn’t know how he felt about it. “Cathy says hi.”

“Cool, she was there?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, we’re going to see a movie today,” spoke up Ashley. “You wanna come?”

“What movie?”

A half a dozen titles cluttered the air as soon as he asked. Xander recognized a few of them and knew he definitely wasn’t in the mood for the chick flicks. He needed something brainless and full of hitting people over the head with big guns. And a good chase scene. He’d probably end up watching *Wrath of Khan* again with Andrew and a few of the girls. Man, he really needed to get some guy friends to watch real guy movies with that didn’t involve men in jumpsuits, he thought as the girls continued to squabble. “Let me know when you decide,” he interrupted the movie debate, turning toward the kitchen. “And don’t forget to put it on the board so we can get you a ride.”

With a chorus of, “we won’t s” with regard to the activity board, also affectionately known as the Where-the-Hell-is-she? board, Xander left them for the kitchen where he found Andrew complaining loudly to pair of hungry slayers. “Xander!” Andrew whined as soon as he saw him. “Tell them they can’t just come in here when I’m trying to get lunch together and pick at the Cardassian egg salad!”

“It’s good salad!” Veronica tried appeasing Andrew looking for the world like a regretful eight-year-old, which wasn’t hard considering she was barely over five feet tall.

“Well, eat something else,” said Xander shaking his head and wondering as he always did how he had ended up as the peacemaker around here. It still surprised him more than Andrews Star Trek dishes. He wondered if the egg salad would get voted onto the make-it-again-and-die list that was stuck to the pantry door with a dagger. “Andrew,” he got back to his original purpose for being in the kitchen at all, “do you have your shopping list ready?”

“No, because *some* people keep coming in and just eating the lunch I’ve spent the last two hours slaving over without a . . . a can-I-please?” The house chef glared at the two girls who didn’t look the least bit ashamed, which of course only made Andrew pout harder. Damn. Xander was going to have to get him another Hallmark card. He so did not need a rebellious cook on his hands again.

“After lunch then?” he asked.

“Fine,” said Andrew sullenly.

“All right, come on,” Xander shooed the two girls out of the kitchen. “Let’s let his Cardassianness work.” They left with Andrew muttering something gargly about proper titles. While the two girls headed out back to do girl things, Xander passed into the dining room and plopped down at the table. Dawn, Giles, and their piles of books looked up and smiled. Well, the books would have if books smiled, but then they were books. And Xander didn’t like books. They were one of the sure signs of the apocalypse. “So what’s all this?” he waved a vague hand at the ill-omened tomes.

“One of the patrols last night ran into an unknown demon,” said Giles who had just returned his nose to the page. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and a pencil twitched between his fingers as he read whatever it was he was reading. “Redish brown, five horns, and a rather large . . . ‘squick’ factor.”

“Nope, not ringing any bells,” said Xander. “So what happened to the research-your-own-stupid-demons policy?” It was, hands down, his favorite policy.

“It’s Saturday,” said Dawn who hadn’t yet gone back to her work. “Most of this stuff is my bastardized Sumerian.” Her face crinkled at the evil books that were tying up *her* Saturday. Or at least her morning. Last night’s entertainment had been watching her and Giles go head to head over what constituted a day off. Unfortunately prophesies were time-critical, and they had ended in this compromise with the argument that she got to sleep in during the rest of the week anyway.

Absently Xander grabbed Argyle’s Compendium off the top of the much smaller stack of demon books before remembering he hated these books with a passion and for once didn’t have to do the research. So there, he tossed the book back with a light thud as it slid to a stop. He grinned at Dawn who brightly returned the smile while Giles appeared not to have noticed at all. “So who’s the lucky group?” he asked.

“We-Love-Orlando-Bloom,” Dawn told him. “I think they’re holed up with *Pirates* right now.”

“Ahh,” Xander nodded, not surprised in the least.

“So how did it go?” she asked.

“Fine,” Xander shrugged as he had before. “He went straight to the airport after. And Cathy’s gonna send a couple samples to Fred.”

“And how are you with all this?” Giles spoke up, his attention now focused on Xander who shrugged again.

“What’s there to feel? Everything’s back to normal.” He stared at the tabletop, the emotions that had subsided with his return home bubbling back to the surface. Confusion, hope, dread, and a little anger at Jack for doing this to him. His life was crazy enough without some stranger trying to be a part of it. One he couldn’t share. And yet, Xander found himself wondering what it would be like to have a parent that cared all to himself.

“Xander?” Giles prompted softly.

He looked up at the older man and suddenly wondered if Jack would ever measure up to him. “I don’t know,” said Xander, the indifferent façade slipping. “It’s all just so . . .”

“Hellmouthy?” Dawn finished as he struggled for words.

“Yeah, but also in a big kinda not way.”

“You mean it is so un-hellmouth-like that it must be hellmouthy?” asked Giles who then frowned to himself, both trying to understand his own sentence and appalled that he had said ‘hellmouthy.’

“Something like that,” Xander agreed. Honestly, he could do without all this emotional stuff right now. The last couple of days had been exhausting, and he was tired of feeling all mixed up. He’d just lost his real parents for good and now Jack was there being the parent he had always wanted. It was a like a parent market, one for two deal. “I told him he could call me.”

“Do you think he will?” asked Dawn.

“Yeah, actually,” Xander let out a huff of laughter. “I think he might.”

“I guess that’s cool.”

“Yeah.” Their eyes met and Xander slowly grinned. It would be cool. As long as he wasn’t a slimy creature of the dark or an asshole, that is, the cynical voice in his head chirped. But he just mentally shrugged it away. After all, there were good demons like Clem around.

For a few moments the three of them sat silently, sharing the quiet. In the background, Xander heard gaggles of girls talking and laughing. Giles was the first to turn back to his work with Dawn following soon after, her light smile remaining. Xander watched them, so different and so alike in their work.

“Honestly!” Giles suddenly broke the silence with an exasperated sigh, whipping off his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. “ ‘And he shall smite him down with pink sandals,’ Dawn?”

“It says ‘pink’!” Dawn protested with an angry jab at the original text before her.

As the two of them broke into an argument over their Sumerian bastard, Xander chuckled to himself before slipping quietly away.

***************************************************

Jack stifled a yawn as he made his way through the crowded terminal to the baggage claim. He hated flying commercial; there were too many people and not enough space for half of them. And it was noisy and so incredibly, mind numbingly boring, and right now he just wanted to get out of the airport. The doors were nearby but unfortunately so were about a million other people jostling for their bags. As he was pushing and shoving his way through the masses, he heard someone call his name.

The someone turned out to be Daniel who was there to pick him up. Jack grinned, happy to finally see a friendly face after his long trip. “How was your flight?” asked Daniel when Jack finally reached his side.

“Very long and dull,” said Jack, adjusting his grip up his single bag that he had thankfully carried-on with him. “Next time I’m gonna claim there’s a dangerous pot or something in Cleveland so I can fly myself.”

Daniel smiled and shook his head at him. “Car’s this way,” he said turning toward the sign that said East Parking Deck. “So your trip was good?” he asked.

Jack shrugged. “I met him. Can’t say it went like I planned.” Daniel gave him an inquisitive look asking for an explanation. “He goes by Xander. And yes, you were right,” Jack cut his eyes at his friend, hating to admit it and feeling petty for it at the same time. “He didn’t believe me at first. Had one of the girls at the house check if the birth certificate was real though I don’t know how.” It had been awfully quick too, now that he thought about it.

“Girl?” Daniel interrupted his thoughts. Jack shook himself back to the present. He’d get Carter to look into it later, along with that Giles character and the camp.

“Yeah. He and a couple of friends run a summer self defense camp for teenage girls.”

“And?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He felt sticky and gross all over. “I mean, it didn’t look like anything was really going on; the kids all liked him. It’s just set up in a house in the suburbs.”

“Well, they did just lose their town a year ago,” Daniel reasoned as they reached the car. He unlocked it, and Jack threw his bag in the back before clambering into the front passenger seat. “It’s not a cult is it?” he asked suddenly.

“No,” Jack shook his head. Definitely not a cult from how talkative the girls were, but it just seemed so odd. But then the whole experience had been odd, even for him. “You know, I was expecting a carpenter. A man with a nine to five job, maybe a girlfriend. Definitely not kids. And definitely not a denmother for a bunch of girls.”

“A bit of a shock?” Daniel smiled.

“Like a hurricane. But maybe that was just seeing him.” His son. The idea still gave him chills. Things had gone so wrong with Charlie. He hadn’t been there enough, hadn’t been there when Charlie had found his gun. Now, Xander was giving him a chance to be there for him.

“Jack?”

“Yeah, sorry. What was that?” He realized Daniel had just asked him a question.

“I asked what he’s like?”

Jack thought back, trying to capture what he had seen on that first meeting. “He lost his left eye recently,” he said quietly after a moment. “I asked about it, probably shouldn’t have.” He could still remember his son’s good eye challenging him to push harder and see how far it got him. “The kids like him,” he went on. He didn’t know what else to say. How do you describe someone you had barely met? They hadn’t talked much, just that first stilted conversation, then the one over dinner. “He’s got a sense of humor,” he added with a smile. “And he rescued me from his friends that threatened to kill me.”

“What?” That brought Daniel up short, and Jack pointed to the road his friend was suddenly ignoring. “They threatened you?” Daniel returned his eyes to the front.

“This girl, Buffy, threatened to rip my arms off if I dropped out of Xander’s life, and his good buddy Mr. Giles outright told me he’d kill me if I hurt him.”

“That speaks highly of him,” said Daniel. “Xander, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Jack couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. “And he said he’d give me a chance.”

“Just like that?”

“Well,” Jack didn’t meet his friend’s eyes. “There may have been some shouting and apologizing and a paternity test. He was wondering why I would even care about him. Makes me wonder . . .” he trailed off. Daniel didn’t say anything, but the glance they shared said it all. The thought of a not so happy home had only occurred to Jack on the flight back. “So what have you been up to while I was away feeling awkward?”

Daniel gave him another look, but decided not to protest the change in subject. “Negotiations,” he replied sourly. “The Yibbites are almost as stubborn as you.”

“Hey! I’m not the only stubborn one on the team.”

“Yeah, but Sam’s at least nice about it,” Daniel shot back with a quick grin. Jack mock glared at the neat derailment of his teasing.

“Our next mission’s on Monday?”

Daniel grinned even wider at his ungraceful attempt to change the subject, but again, he went with it, nodding. “Though I’m still behind on my paperwork from our last mission because of the Yibbite negotiations.”

“Yeah, me too,” Jack sighed. His unexpected trip had foiled his procrastination technique. Now he would be writing reports all day tomorrow. God, he hated paperwork.

“So when do you find out?” asked Daniel.

“Find out what?”

“The results of the paternity test.” Oh. That.

“Friday or thereabouts.” But he had already decided that it didn’t matter. Jessica said Xander was his, so Xander was his as far as he was concerned, and he wasn’t going to back out of it. “It was more for their peace of mind.”

“I know,” said Daniel quietly, a million reassurances in those soft words. The little doubts that had popped up their ugly heads every so often shuffled away. “So pizza?” Daniel asked as they arrived in Jack’s neighborhood.

“Pizza sounds great,” Jack agreed. They rode in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to Jack’s house. The conversation wasn’t over, just paused for later. Jack found himself wondering what Xander would think of his house and his friends. Maybe one day he’d get the chance to find out.

Four Phone Calls

The first thing Jack did when he got home after Friday’s mission was make a bee line for the kitchen and the first beer he could lay his hands on. It had been one hell of a week. Three days of boredom listening to Daniel sweet talk the semi-civilized locals of some tree-infested planet followed by two days of sheer adrenaline when the non-Goa’uld priesthood decided to roast them for a barbecue. He hadn’t slept since before the attack and was now under Janet’s strict orders to get some rest. But he needed to unwind first, do something meaningless and mundane like watch TV.

So grabbing the mail that had accumulated over the past week, Jack stretched out on the couch with the remote and surfed through the channels till *Trading Spaces* caught his eye. Calm and domestic, it resonated in counterpoint to the noise, violence, and uncertainty of the mission and allowed his thoughts drift away.

Only when the ads came on did he look at his mail, separating the bills from the outright junk and finding one letter from the Munroe Health Clinic, Cleveland that brought him up short. The test results. Jack stared at the envelope for a second. He hadn’t even thought about Xander for the past two days, life-threatening events taking precedent. Being reminded of it now made him smile. Quickly, he opened the letter and read the confirmation that he was Xander’s father. He hadn’t doubted it . . . well, maybe a little, but here it was. Father and son. It sent both chills and a wave of joy through him.

*Trading Spaces* came back on, but Jack muted it, instead glancing at the phone. He suddenly wanted to call everybody. But first . . . what the hell. He’d said he could call. Jack grabbed the phone and after rooting around for it, dialed Xander’s number. It rang twice before unsurprisingly a girl answered.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. It’s Jack O’Neill. Can I speak to Xander?”

“Jack? Yeah, just a minute.” She pulled away from the mouthpiece, but Jack still heard her shout for Xander. Noisy kids, he smiled, not bothered by it this time. At the moment, he didn’t think anything could bother him.

“Hello? Jack?” Xander came on the line.

“Hey. How you doin’?” said Jack.

“Fine. You?”

“Good, good.” There was a pause. The superficial nature of the conversation suddenly made Jack nervous. “I hope you don’t mind me calling,” he began. “But I got the letter from the clinic today.”

“Yeah, mine came yesterday.”

“So I just thought I’d call,” Jack repeated, feeling kind of silly now that he had nothing to say.

“Yeah, no it’s cool!” Xander pulled himself out of whatever funk he’d been in. “I guess you weren’t really surprised.”

“Were you?” Jack asked.

“Well, no. Yeah. I don’t know.” Xander paused. “I guess yeah. Because, hey, how could this be happening? Suddenly I’ve got a parent out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, well, I’m – ”

“Hey.” Xander cut him off. “It’s no big. I mean, you called, right?”

“Right,” Jack agreed though he wasn’t sure what Xander meant. Just that it was good he had called. Right? God, he hoped so.

“So how’s life out in Whoville?”

“Whoville?” Jack wasn’t sure, but wasn’t that Dr. Seuss? He grinned, the comment pleasing him for some reason, but maybe it was because Xander had asked.

“You know, Colorado,” Xander clarified.

Well as far as he knew, Colorado was fine, it was the rest of the galaxy that was giving him a hard time. “It’s good,” he sighed.

“That bad, huh?’” commented Xander, again both surprising and pleasing Jack that he had noticed.

“Yeah, well. The last couple of days have just reminded me why I hate organized religion,” he said. “It’s useless, manipulative, and annoying.” Not to mention dangerous.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Xander easily. “It’s got some pretty good uses.”

“Like what?” Jack challenged. He bet he could shoot down anything his son said, but what Xander did say surprised him.

“Crosses, holy water. I mean, come on, how can you not love a blessed refreshment?”

Jack chuckled. “Cool yes; useful no.”

“It all in how you look at it,” said Xander. “If you’re dying of thirst . . .”

“So I take it you’re not very religious?” asked Jack at this humorous sign of disrespect. He was even a little relieved in light of his own atheism.

“You mean, do I believe in the Christian God? Don’t know, haven’t met him.” Jack could practically hear him shrug. “I don’t believe there is anyone as powerful as they say he is.”

“It’s called faith, Xander,” he smiled.

“Well there’s faith and there’s faith, and the kind I got in my friends is the only faith I need.”

“That’s . . .” Jack didn’t know quite what to say to that, though he knew exactly what his son meant. Jack’s own faith in his team and the SGC was all he needed to keep fighting. No all-powerful beings to help out or give them easy answers, just humans against the Goa’uld.

“Pretty lame? “ Xander ventured, an unsure note in his voice.

“No,” said Jack immediately. “Not lame.” He paused searching for words. “As a soldier . . . well, what little faith I had when I started out, it became like you said. Your friends, your team, they’re everything.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence, neither one of them sure how to continue. Jack tried to think of another question to ask but couldn’t think of anything that didn’t feel like prying too deep, so instead he retreated back to more mundane things. “So how was your week?”

“Fine. Normal for around here,” said Xander. “Mostly I’ve just been looking out for people.”

“That’s good.”

Another an awkward pause.

“Listen,” Xander broke the silence. “I’ve got to go. Dinner’s soon. But thanks for calling.” And he did seem glad which just made Jack grin again. His cheeks were starting to get sore.

“I’ll call again, sometime?”

“Okay, talk to you then. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Jack hung up and turned back to the television. All in all, he thought, that went well. And he grinned wider.

**********************************************************

*One month later*

“Willow!” Xander cheerfully snatched the phone from Dawn’s fingers, grinning at the young woman’s knowing smirk. “It’s been ages. How are you? Where are you?”

On the other end, his best friend laughed at the string of questions, and Xander grinned. It felt so good to hear that familiar sound. “We’re in Florida at the beach. Got in yesterday morning,” said Willow. “Except not the beach beach right now because I’m talking to you.”

“Ah. So are there really demons there or are you a Kennedy just snuggling under the covers?” he asked. He would bet even money that Florida’s biggest crisis was a rainy day.

But Willow protested, “There’s demons! Really. We saw some the last night!”

“Uh huh.”

“Okay, so they were just hanging out at a club,” Willow caved. “And there might be more snuggling than working going on. But don’t tell Giles.”

“I knew it!” Xander crowed. “And I think Giles already knows.” At the Scooby meeting after Willow had called to suggest that she and Kennedy check out Florida, they had all just looked at each other, knowing.

“Really? Is he mad?” Willow asked, all of a sudden anxious and nervous that she was in trouble.

“Nah,” Xander waved a hand she couldn’t see. “I think he’s enjoying the vicarious smoochies with the rest of us.”

“Ewe, Xander!”

“What?”

“It’s Giles!”

“I know, but he’s still significant other-less like the rest of us. And hey, who wouldn’t want the think about two girls making out at the beach?”

“Xander!” Willow screeched again like he knew she would, but he could also tell that she wasn’t really upset, but rather flattered. “Ooh, hey, guess what?” She bubbled happily.

“What?”

“I got to intimidate these guys who were hitting on Kennedy!”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We were at the beach lying on our towels near their volleyball game when their ball rolled over cause someone hit it out, so this guy came over to get it. Kennedy was next to the ball and I didn’t even notice he was there until he started talking. He said something like ‘Hey, how’s it going.’ And then he took his ball and they kept playing. Then after the game, he and a couple of his friends came over to say hi and invited us to a party tonight. So then one guy started asking Kennedy where she was from and stuff and then if she had a boyfriend all the while being Mr. Obvious-I-Want-To-Jump-You. So then I started to get a little annoyed and when Kennedy said no boyfriend I told him that if he didn’t stop hitting on *my girlfriend* I’d make him a boy soprano in my totally scary way – but not bad scary, just to him scary.”

“And what did he do?”

“I think we weirded him out, and his friends were laughing at him. But he was cool in the end, and we’re still going to the party.”

Xander chuckled. He could just imagine Willow’s resolve face squaring off against a six foot nothing beach boy. “So you’re enjoying yourselves?”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “You know, I just love doing the normal thing every once in a while.”

“Yeah,” Xander agreed. Normal was always a nice change from the bustle of their lives. On the other hand, too much normal would drive him crazy, he knew. Though it would help if he had another guy to hang out with.

“So how’s life at Scooby Central?” asked Willow. “Everything’s okay?”

“Just the usual. Vampire’s roam. Slayers slay. I feel like all I ever do anymore is fix schedules, go over grocery lists, and keep everyone from tearing each other’s hair out. Were girls always like this in high school?”

“Yep. Welcome to Hormoneland. Cat fights and snarking every hour on the hour,” Willow quipped.

“It’s like Cordelia concentrate here. Except all of them are stronger than He-Man. If this is what parents go through, I’m never having kids.”

Willow laughed. “That’s why they invented summer camp, Xander,” she said. “And speaking of parents, I finally finished the search.”

“On Jack?” Xander perked up curiously. He still couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘dad,’ even since the test results came back, both Cathy’s and Fred’s, the latter having come up one hundred percent human. Xander had in fact been greatly relieved and surprised by the feeling. But it was true. He liked Jack. The guy was just as new and unsure about how to do the whole father-son thing as he was, but he was trying, and that impressed Xander. His own dad had stopped trying by the time he was ten, and Giles, as much as Xander loved him, was more dad by default than effort to all of them.

“Yes.” In the background, Xander heard Willow shuffling some papers around. “It took me a while to get to the Air Force database, especially since work and demon stuff kept interrupting. The military really have some tight systems . . .” she trailed off and Xander waited patiently. The research had been an unspoken unanimous decision by all of them. The Initiative had made them all gun-shy where the military was involved, and father or not, there was too much at risk.

“Here it is,” Willow announced. “So he works at NORAD like we found out earlier on the Deep Space Telemetry project code name Project Blue Book, though where they got that name from I don’t know.”

“Riley was Lilac,” Xander offered.

“Anyway,” she went on, “he’s got a really good service record with some impressive medals from the Persian Gulf War, though almost everything he’s done has been erased. I think because it’s top secret we’re-gonna-destroy-terrorism-by-being-terrorists government stuff. Wherever the files for this stuff are, I don’t know. I doubt they’re on the same server, if they’re in a computer at all.”

“So he’s Special Forces?” That was like the best of the best, especially if all his missions were so secret.

“Yeah. If you want I can do some . . . more refined searches for the top secret stuff, but I’d kinda rather not,” Willow offered.

Magic. Xander knew she would do it for him in a second if he asked, but he also knew how much it would cost her. It had been a little over two years since Tara, one since she had activated all the slayers, and the magic still made her nervous. And rightly so – she was just too powerful to use it lightly. “No it’s okay,” Xander told her. “It’s probably all stuff we don’t want to know anyway.”

“Yeah.” Willow sounded relieved. “So has he called again?”

“Not yet.” And that was not disappointment in his voice. Really. “We’ll see what happens.”

“I hope it works out,” said Willow a little hesitantly. “I mean, if you want it to,” she added hastily. “Cause if you don’t, I’m all for the hating.”

“Thanks,” Xander grinned. There was no changing Willow. “I kinda hope it works out too.” He paused. “How are your parents doing?”

“Fine, I guess.”

“They’re still in DC?” They had moved there before the collapse of Sunnydale. He remembered when Willow had gone to tell them to get out of town, and they had wanted her to come with them, the overwhelming evil of the First registering on some level that had remained untouched by all the other demonic activity of the hellmouth. When she had refused, they finally seemed to understand that the shy girl they had raised, and even the one who had brought a girl home to meet them, was long gone, replaced by a woman who was staying because she knew what was coming.

“Yep. We stopped by on our way south and went out to dinner. It was nice in a polite way. Dad still wants me to finish college since I’ve only got a year and a half left. He thinks I’ve been doing the ‘backpacker’ thing too long. And he wonders why the heck we decided on Cleveland.”

“Who would have thought that you would be a college drop out?” Xander shook his head at the upheaval of the universe.

“Hey! Extenuating circumstances!” Willow said, indignant. “Besides,” she continued in a normal voice, “I already talked to Giles. I might finish at Oxford. Since we’re still trying to pull stuff together in England, I’d be like our liaison.”

“Oxford?” Xander was surprised. She wasn’t coming home? She couldn’t do that!

“I’m not going now or anything,” she reassured him. “And it would only be for two years when I did. And I’d visit every holiday.”

“And you’re gonna come home drinking tea, talking like Giles, and swearing soccer is a million times better than any pansy sport we’ve got here,” Xander groused, not liking the idea. England was so far away.

“Xander,” Willow giggled. “You said ‘pansy.’”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

Wait, he had, hadn’t he. Damn. He really needed to get some guy friends that were not British, wimps, or vampires. “Just rescue me from all the junior slayers first,” he begged.

“Promise,” said Willow. “Kennedy and I will be home in a month, so just hang on until then.”

“All right.” Just a month to go.

“Xander,” Buffy knocked on the doorframe. “Am I ever gonna get the phone?” the Slayer whined with her best pitiful look.

Grinning, he said, “Wills, I think Buffy’s gonna kill me if I don’t give you to her.”

“All right, put her on,” Willow laughed.

“All right, love you,” he said to his best friend

“Love you, too.”

Xander passed the phone on to Buffy who grinned in thanks before squealing, “Willow!” and disappearing into her room. He doubted she’d emerge anytime soon.

***********************************************

The ringing phone woke Jack from his doze on the couch. A little disoriented at first, he fumbled in the dim light for the cursed contraption. He was on stand-down, for crying out loud. “O’Neill,” he answered.

“Sir, it’s me,” his second in command’s voice greeted him.

Jack rubbed his forehead. Of course. “Carter, are you still on base?” he asked reprovingly.

There was a moment of incriminating silence before she answered, “Yes, sir,” with a sigh that said I-know-but-tell-me-later.

“Carter,” Jack ignored the unspoken words. “This is our first real break in almost a month.”

“I should be at home sleeping, yes, I know,” Carter finished for him. “I just had a few things to finish up here and one of the labs needed a consultation. I’ll be out of here in an hour.”

“I’ll be calling your house,” he told her. And he would. His eyes flickered to the clock noting the time. One hour. That reminded him to check up on Daniel and make sure he wasn’t doing anything stupid like not sleeping either.

Carter sighed again, but Jack thought it sounded like a smile too. “All right,” she said.

“So what’s up?” Jack asked now that that was taken care of.

“Well, I had some free time while I was waiting for some results so I did that background check you asked me for about a month ago on Rupert Giles.”

“Oh?” Jack only vaguely remembered asking. At the time he’d still been rattled by his visit to Cleveland. Thinking about it now, he felt a little like a . . . well, an overprotective parent. “So what did you find out?”

“Rupert Giles a British citizen who’s been living in the US for the last eight years, though according to immigration he went back to England for a year in 2002. He worked as a high school librarian in the ‘90s and then owned a shop, both in Sunnydale. His green card currently lists him as self-employed. His American record’s clean: no arrests, no complaints.”

“But?”

“I got into his British record,” Carter went on. “Two arrests when he was in his early twenties, once for assault and once for petty theft, but all the charges were dropped.”

“Sounds like a case of stupid youth,” Jack commented, feeling a little stupid himself at suspecting the man. The whole situation must have skewed his sense of danger about Mr. Giles, ‘cause, really, a librarian? “Anything else?”

“No,” Carter sighed. “That was all I had time to get into. Non-government records are harder to track down. I can still do it if you want,” she offered.

“No, it’s okay,” Jack said. “I think I was just being paranoid. He doesn’t sound like he’s in any secret cults or anything.”

“Well, I only have the federal database to work with but since he’s an alien everything gets reported to them,” said Carter. “And since he’s not in the California system, I doubt he’s done anything more serious than forget about a parking ticket.”

“So you don’t think it’s weird that he runs a self-defense camp for girls with people half his age?” Jack asked. It still was a little funny to him.

“A little,” said Carter. “But you did say that your son’s other friends running it were young women. Maybe it was their project.”

“And Mr. Giles?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him and stop guessing.”

“Carter.”

“I’m just saying, sir. You only met them once, and you said yourself that it didn’t look like anything illegal.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” Jack ran a hand through his short hair. She was right, he was being paranoid. “So you’re going home now, Carter?”

He swore he could hear her roll her eyes. “Yes, sir. I’ll be home in half an hour.”

Jack glanced at the clock. That still put her home under her promised hour. “Good. I’ll call you then.”

“Good night, sir,” she said forcefully, telling him she didn’t need a babysitter.

“Night.”

He hung up. Parking tickets, he shook his head. But now he knew where Xander had met Mr. Giles – the high school library. Xander who was a carpenter that had never gone to college was still friends with him. Once again Jack wondered just what had his son’s home life been like.

************************************************

“So we saw vamps here and here under the bridge,” Rebecca pointed on the blown up map of a neighborhood in South Cleveland that was spread out over the dining room table. She and the other four members of Team Toesocks had run into a group of twenty eight-foot demons with a crew of vampires who were setting up shop in an abandoned building. The fight had been rough leaving them all with deep bruises and Amy, the youngest of the group, with a broken arm. Dawn had taken her to the ER to get it set, but the rest of the battered team sat around the table with Buffy, Xander, and Giles.

Xander’s eye roamed over them while Rebecca told them what had happened. They were shaken up. This was their first big defeat and he could tell that it had shaken their confidence in their newfound skills. He knew that it was hitting them for the first time what a slayer’s short life span really meant. Rachel and Leslie sat quietly with their hands in their laps, neither one quite looking at Rebecca. Beside Giles, Joanna fidgeted, her hands busy with a pencil and her eyes never leaving the table. She had a bright red scratch along her jaw. Xander hoped Buffy would talk to them later about it and let them know that getting beat was part of getting stronger.

For the moment though, they needed to figure out what was going on. This was the Toesocks’s first big case so to speak and given the numbers and sheer size of the demons, they would need help with it.

Once Rebecca had finished, Buffy and Giles laid out the three R’s of the Scooby standard operating procedure: Research, Reconnaissance, and more Research. There wasn’t much to it really. Giles showed them how to find the most relevant books in the library then got them started flipping through the pages. Xander was on the computer with Leslie, showing her the demon sites and the database Willow had been compiling for the last year. They wouldn’t do much tonight, just get a start. Tomorrow they’d check out the lair again with Buffy, do more research and then figure out where to go from there. And Rebecca and the Toesocks would ultimately be making the decisions because when they went home in the fall, they’d be on their own.

The phone rang somewhere in the background after they had been working for a while and a moment later someone was calling Xander’s name. “You good?” he asked Leslie, standing when she nodded and making his way to the kitchen.

“It’s Jack,” Vi told him, handing him the phone.

Surprised and pleased, Xander said, “Jack? Hi.”

“Hey,” Jack replied. “How you doing?”

“Good,” said Xander. “Tired. But good.”

“All those kids running you ragged?”

Running him ragged by getting ragged was more like it, Xander thought of Amy. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s been pretty crazy here. So what’s up?”

“Nothing,” said Jack lightly. “I just thought I’d call, see how you were doing.”

Xander felt warm suddenly and a little surprised. “I’m good,” he repeated, not sure what to add. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Jack. “Stuff’s been kinda hectic around here too. It’s why I haven’t called.”

“That and a complete lack of anything else to say?” Xander asked wryly. To hell with this awkwardness. It was really starting to get annoying.

Jack left out a huff of a laugh. “Yeah, that too. Unless you like hockey?”

“Sorry,” Xander grinned. “Not much of a sports person.”

“You’re kidding!” Jack sounded offended. “How can you not like sports? Didn’t you play anything when you were younger?”

Did running for your life count? Xander wondered but didn’t say. “Only videogames.”

“Oh, well, I guess that’s something,” said Jack. “How do you like Super Mario?”

“Super Mario’s cool,” Xander responded really surprised that Jack the Colonel was asking about videogames. Wasn’t he supposed to be like videogames-rot-your-mind? “You play?”

“Only on my GameBoy,” Jack sounded a little defensive. “I get bored easily.”

Xander laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just . . . I guess I’m having a hard time imagining you playing a GameBoy.”

“Because I’m a colonel in the Air Force? You should hear what my CO says about me,” said Jack, making Xander chuckle again.

“So how long have you been in the Air Force?” asked Xander.

“I did ROTC in college,” said Jack. “Ended up deciding I wanted to fly planes and go career.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.” There was a pause as the conversation lost momentum. “So listen,” said Jack. “I was wondering if you wanted to come for a visit sometime?”

“With you in Colorado?” asked Xander, surprised.

“For like a weekend or something,” Jack added. “I understand if you don’t – ”

“No,” Xander interrupted before he could finish. “I’d like that.” It would be neat to see Jack in his own place. See what he was really like when he wasn’t coping with a son from out of nowhere. It’d be really . . . neat. “I’ve got to be here for the rest of the summer, but maybe in September when things calm down?” he offered.

“September,” Jack repeated, clearly pleased. “I’ll get some leave.”

“Okay.” Xander smiled, pleased himself, and a little excited.

“I’ll let you get back to your . . .stuff then,” said Jack.

“Yeah. I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye.” The phone clicked off. When Xander rejoined the others in the dining room, he was still smiling.


Five Days Under The Sun

*September*

Xander glared at the fasten-seatbelt sign that refused to shut off. The plane had stopped, they were on the ground, so what was the hold up? It couldn’t be that hard to park a Boeing 387. Really. Xander fidgeted in his seat. Okay, so he was nervous about this whole visiting thing. Sure it sounds great on the phone, but then it’s like your wedding come back to haunt you. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Five days. He could do this.

Around him his fellow passengers were shuffling for their things and finally the seatbelt light went off. Like a living mass, everyone surged into the center, compressing and undulating like a stuttering snake as people jostled to get off the plane. Xander joined them, nearly tumbling his duffel on top of a woman’s head when he yanked it from the overhead compartment. He only had the one bag with a couple changes of clothes, a Coke bottle of holy water, and his trusty dusty stake. The green and pink water gun had gotten him stripped searched, and for a while he had been worried that he would miss his flight, but in the end, everything had gotten through. Let it not be said that he was unprepared. Though he did wish he could have brought along his axe.

Xander followed the crowd off the plane and up through the tunnel to the gate. From there he followed the signs to the baggage claim where Jack was meeting him. And there he was leaning against a bank of TV monitors with his hands in his pockets. He wore the same leather jacket he had had in Cleveland over a button-down shirt and a pair of worn jeans. He straightened up when he saw Xander, a big grin splitting his face. Xander felt the corners of his mouth tug reflexively in response. Oh god, was his last thought before he reached the older man.

“Hey!” said Jack cheerfully. His hands came out of his pockets and he rocked back on his feet.

“Hey,” said Xander. Neither one of them made a move to touch each other, and he didn’t know if he felt happy or sad about that. Maybe it was just the break in ritual throwing him off.

“Do you have any bags?” asked Jack.

“Nah, just this,” Xander replied, hefting the duffel a little.

“All right. Car’s this way,” Jack smiled again and led the way to the parking deck. “So how was your flight?” Oh, yeah, this was going to be a long trip.

“I felt like I was in a sardine can,” said Xander with a half smile and was rewarded when Jack chuckled. Sense of humor still intact, he thought with relief.

“Yeah, I hate flying commercial,” Jack said. “There’s no leg room, no elbow room, and I always get stuck next to the noisy kids.”

“Always?” Xander asked, feeling heartened by the start of an actual conversation.

“Always,” Jack gave him a serious look that was belied by the humorous glint in his eye. “But I guess you know what that’s like.”

“Actually that’s only my third flight ever.”

“I meant about the kids,” said Jack. “But it’s only your third flight?”

“Yeah, after Sunnydale we went to Europe for while. See the sights, you know?” said Xander. And find slayers and restart a secret international organization, but it had still been fun. Except for Rome. Rome would never, ever be mentioned again. Ever. “I’d never been out of the country before.”

“That’s not surprising. I’d never left the country before I joined the Air Force,” said Jack with a shrug. “And I wouldn’t recommend most of the places I’ve been,” he grinned.

“Bad service?” quipped Xander. Given that most of Jack’s file was blacked out he figured he really wanted to steer clear of the heavy military stuff.

“The worst. Can’t find clean towels anywhere.” The colonel said with a completely straight face that all of a sudden made Xander feel like a weight had been lifted from his chest. This wasn’t going to be a disaster. With Jack’s sense of humor definitely not going anywhere, Xander could deal with this. He’d been so worried after the last phone call that had promised nothing but uncomfortableness, but here they were, chatting about the worst hotel service money could buy as they walked to the car. And when silence fell as they pulled onto the highway, it wasn’t a dead weight. Jack fiddled with the radio until he found a good station.

Xander snuck looks at him every few minutes, really taking him in for the first time. Gray hair cut close, wrinkles around his eyes from too much laughing or squinting, a slight sunglasses tan, the hint of a grin. He seemed like the kind of guy who would laugh a lot at life.

“What?” Jack asked after twenty minutes of this.

“What what?” Xander played innocent.

“You keep looking at me. I don’t have something hanging out of my nose, do I?”

“What? No. Sorry.” Xander smiled at that, looking instead at his hands then back at the road. “Just you know . . . really seeing what you look like,” he practically mumbled.

“Oh,” Jack shifted uncomfortably, obviously self-conscious now.

“I’ll stop,” said Xander with another smile. “I didn’t mean to stare or anything.”

“So do I pass?”

Xander looked at him then out the window, confused. “Pass what?”

“Inspection,” Jack gave him an amused smile that made him feel silly for misunderstanding. Xander hated that feeling.

He also didn’t like where this conversation was going. When he’d agreed to come for the visit, he’d thought he was used to the fact that Jack was his father. But sitting here, right now in the car, going to his house was another whole can of worms. And why can worms anyway? See – nervous! Getting sidetracked in his head was never a good sign. He knew he liked Jack, he knew Jack wanted to be in his life but for some reason something was bothering him about that. Trying to explain it was like trying to explain why he didn’t like squash but did like zucchini.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’m still all with the weirdness.” And how lame was that, he wondered. He really should just go ahead and have his mouth sewn up

But Jack smiled at him. “Yeah. Well, if it bothers you, don’t think about It like that.” Xander could here the capitals around what they were decidedly not mentioning. Maybe Jack was repressing too. “Just think of me like an old friend of your mom’s inviting you for the weekend.”

“A friend who just happened to have sex with her and whoops! Here I am,” said Xander a bit more harshly than he intended. Beside him, Jack winced, the smile slipping a bit, making Xander feel bad. He hadn’t meant to hurt him, but really . . .

“Are you saying you don’t want to be here?” Jack asked quietly, his earlier levity gone.

“No, sorry,” Xander shook his head. Okay, now he felt rotten, like he’d just stolen a kitten from a slayer. “I didn’t mean anything like that. It’s just still weird. And I think the not thinking about it thing would work much better if I wasn’t you know, thinking. Or not not talking and thinking. Not thinking would be good right now. You know?” When Jack didn’t reply, Xander turned more so he could see him around his blind spot. Jack had a curious look on his face, his brow slightly crinkled in thought as he glanced between Xander and the road. “What?”

“Could you repeat that in English?”

Xander couldn’t help but smile, the nervousness once again lifting from the debacle of the conversation. “I said, let’s just talk about something else.”

“Oh.” Jack still seemed a little puzzled.

“Sorry,” Xander apologized again for being incomprehensible. Jack still looked a little unsure, and Xander desperately racked his brains for something, anything to talk about now that the silence had gone sour. “So,” he looked back out the windshield, “tell me what’s so great about hockey.”

And Jack did. And listening and making snarky comments that Jack returned as good as he got kept Xander’s mind away from uncomfortable thoughts. As long as they kept talking, he’d get through this.

***********************************************************

“So this is it,” said Jack as he unlocked the front door of his house. Xander looked about him taking it all in. It was a small, dark brown with a log-house kind of look too it, nestled in a quiet neighborhood in suburbia. Bushy plants lined the path to the door looking like they’d been there forever. Inside it was calm. The builder in Xander recognized a good design and nice work. Light walls contrasted with dark, but tasteful furniture.

“Your room’s down here,” Jack led the way to the guest room, opening it for Xander to enter first. Nice bed, pretty comforter, chest of drawers, mirror – all the amenities of home. “Bathroom’s to the left,” Jack pointed in the appropriate direction as Xander set his bag down on the bed.

“It’s nice,” said Xander. Way better than the room he shared with Andrew at home, in fact. It was much more . . . adult.

“Come on, I’ll give you the nickel tour,” Jack bobbed his head toward the rest of the house. “My room’s that way,” he began by pointing to the next room down the hall. “Another bathroom here. Kitchen. Dining room. Living room.” They went through in the opposite direction. The living room was nice with windows looking over the back yard across one wall and plump armchairs and a couch with plenty of pillows. There was a stone fireplace on an adjacent wall and above it . . . Holy bejesus! Xander felt his jaw drop open a bit. A whole buttload of medals were framed above the fireplace. Unconsciously, Xander stepped forward to take a closer look at the dozen or so decorations. Willow had said he was decorated but it hadn’t really sunk in until he saw the stars and ribbons of a few very top honors. Xander was impressed. And a little jealous. After all, what had they ever gotten, besides Buffy’s sparkly umbrella from their graduating class?

Behind him, Xander could hear Jack shifting from foot to foot as his eyes roamed over the medals and flags and caught on the photos on the ends of the mantle piece. There were two. One was of Jack in full military gear with a bunch of other soldiers grinning at the camera. They were all young, like in the picture of Jack and his mother. The other was of Jack and a little boy about seven or eight years old in a soccer uniform. Grass stains covered his knees as he grinned proudly at the camera. “Is this your son?” he asked, turning his head over his shoulder to Jack.

The older man nodded and came to stand beside him. “Yeah, that’s Charlie,” he said with a fond, sad smile. “He had just started playing soccer then.”

“My brother,” said Xander quietly, his own soft words surprising him. He’d had a brother. He remembered growing up wondering what it would be like. Jack glanced at him sharply at this tacit acknowledgement of his paternity after they had agreed not to talk about it in the car.

“He’d be eighteen now,” he said.

But he wasn’t because he had died. The thought was too much for Xander at the moment. He didn’t want to think about dead brothers. There was just too much death everywhere in his life, even in this new normal part with Jack, death still left its mark.

“How did you get all these?” Xander turned his attention back to the medals. “Did you save the world or something?”

Jack gave him a funny, unreadable look before smiling slightly and saying, “something like that.” He shifted again, then stepped back from the mantle a bit. “So we have two choices for dinner,” he changed the subject brightly, the seriousness of the last two minutes dispelling. “I can cook us up some grub, though I’ll warn you that I didn’t have a chance to finish the grocery shopping. Or, my choice, we can go out to eat.”

“You paying?” asked Xander.

“Of course,” said Jack, looking a little hurt that he’d asked. “Consider it part of the bribery.”

Xander grinned. “Then let’s eat out.”

****************************************************

Half an hour later, Jack and Xander were safely ensconced in a booth at Patrick’s Grill, a local steak house from which Jack wasn’t banned. It was a good place with pretty good service. One look at Xander’s face told him that it had been a good choice. The young man flipped through the menu with glee.

“Now that’s what I call food,” he murmured happily.

Jack couldn’t help but grin. “What do they feed you at that camp of yours? Worms?” he asked.

“You have no idea,” Xander sighed wearily. “Did you meet Andrew?”

“No.” Jack sensed a story coming, a glimpse into his son’s life.

“Well Andrew’s our cook and I’m not saying he’s a bad cook, or anything, because compared to other options, he’s a culinary god.”

“Your other options being?”

“Me or other people who don’t know how to cook. I mean we have like fifty people at each meal and given that the . . . girls eat like hyenas, that’s a lot of food. Andrew does a good job in spite of that. But we also have a limited budget, you know?”

Jack nodded for him to go on.

“Anyway, Andrew tends to get creative with things like Klingon Blood Pudding.”

“Klingon?” Jack had watched enough Star Trek with Teal’c to get the reference.

“Yeah,” Xander said knowing what he was really getting at. “Andrew’s a little . . . well I guess the nicest thing I can say about him is he’s a nerd.”

“And the worst?” Jack couldn’t help but ask. Xander looked up from the menu and answered without missing a beat.

“He’s the most annoying little creep ever. He’s whiny and never shuts up, always complains and everything he says is related to comics or bad scifi. And I do mean everything.”

Everything? Jack wondered with a grin. “He’s one of the friends you set up the camp with?”

“Friend is stretching it, but yeah, he came with us from Sunnydale. He didn’t have anywhere else to go either.” Now the distant look was back as thoughts of his hometown undoubtedly fluttered through Xander’s mind. It must have been hard for him, all of them, to suddenly have nothing because of one random earthquake. Everything gone in a few short minutes.

“So Andrew cooks food that keeps him in touch with his inner dork?” Jack tried to get the conversation back on track.

“Pretty much,” Xander agreed, shaking off his mood. “He actually kinda reminds me of me when I was in middle school. Except I don’t think I was ever that . . . obsessed.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen or twenty. Trust me, he doesn’t act it.”

Jack shrugged. “He’ll grow up. He just needs a healthy dose of reality.” He knew many a recruit who just needed a kick in the pants to straighten them out.

But the distant look was back in Xander’s eye as he shook his head. “He’s grown up a lot actually. He used to be ten times worse than he is now. He’s just the way he is, you know?”

And Jack did see. He saw that despite what he said, Andrew was important to Xander. “Sounds like a kid brother,” he commented.

Xander dropped his head slightly and blinked slowly. “You’re kidding right?” his voice was colored in disbelief. “Because there is no way Andrew is anything like a brother to me. No way in Hell. That’s like saying twinkies are a good replacement for broccoli. Which they are, just not in a vitamin kind of way.”

“Broccoli?” Jack asked. How the hell did broccoli come into this? And what the hell was he talking about now? Xander needed a road map to understand.

“You didn’t have an affair with Andrew’s mom too, did you? Because I could so not handle that right now.” Xander visibly shuddered at the thought.

“No!” said Jack, latching on to what he understood of the conversation. “There are no other lost kids, I promise.”

“There better not be,” Xander grumbled. “’Cause, Andrew? That’s just *wrong*.”

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle at the vehemence of the protest. “I’m just saying that it sounds like you like the guy,” he defended his observation only to earn another look from his son.

“I’m not gay if that’s what you’re asking,” he said.

Gay? What? Where had that come from? Definitely needed a roadmap for this kid. “That’s not what I meant,” said Jack.

“Oh,” said Xander. “Well, I’m still not.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Good.”

“Right.”

“What were we talking about?”

“Your friend Andrew.”

“Oh.” Xander looked back down at his menu, seemingly not interested in talking anymore about it. So Jack, still a little confused about the inner workings of his son’s mind, also went back to his internal debate over a classic steak or spare ribs. Neither one of them said anything until the waitress came and took their orders. Jack decided on the spare ribs while Xander asked for a steak well done. After she left, Xander started fiddling with his straw. Jack watched, unsure what to say to break the silence, but in the end, he didn’t have to.

“Andrew’s like,” Xander paused, searching for words in the crushed ice of his Sprite. “He’s not like a brother or a good friend, though I think I’m past hating him. He’s more like a pain in the ass all the time,” his eye flicked up to meet Jack’s. “He’s just *our* pain in the ass.”

“And because of that you’d protect him with your life,” Jack finished. Internally, he shook his head. Sounded a lot like brotherhood or at least comradery to him.

“More than you know,” Xander half smiled. “So what about you?” he asked, his tone shifting away from contemplation as his eye fixed on Jack. “Do you have annoying friend-like people too?”

Jack smiled at the turn of phrase. “Yeah,” he said. “I have friends. And yeah, they can be annoying,” he added thinking fondly of Daniel. “But I wouldn’t trade them for the world. They’re actually interested in meeting you.”

“Me?” Xander sounded surprised.

“Yes, you,” said Jack impatiently. “What, your friends get to threaten me and my friends don’t get to do the same to you?”

“Betchya my friends are scarier,” Xander suddenly grinned.

“So it’s okay if I invite them for dinner tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Xander said a little too brightly. But Jack knew it would go well. He was just nervous. So was Jack a little, but his team were all dying to meet the kid they’d been hearing about for months.

“Great,” he let out a breath of relief. “’Cause I already invited them.”

“Oh, thanks for the warning,” said Xander sarcastically.

“Sorry,” Jack apologized, worried now that he’d messed up again, but after a moment, Xander relaxed.

“No, it’s no big deal,” he said. “I guess this is revenge for me setting Giles and Buffy on you.”

“You set them on me?” Jack lifted his eyebrows, not sure he liked what he was hearing. Had he scared Xander that much at first?

“Well, ‘set on’ as in ‘couldn’t prevent,’” Xander corrected. “You should see Buffy with Dawn’s boyfriends.”

“Your friend Giles said something about a knife being present?”

Xander nodded with an evil grin. “It’s so much fun to watch. I get to glare convincingly.”

The image of a poor teenage boy surrounded by overprotective young adults made Jack chuckle. “Poor kids,” he said. Then another thought struck him, but he didn’t know if he could ask. “I take it Buffy’s parents aren’t in the picture either?” he went ahead and asked delicately.

Xander shook his head. “Their dad’s around somewhere,” he shrugged. “Willow’s are still alive but they’re not what you’d call ideal.”

Willow must be his other friend, Jack mused. “And Mr. Giles?” he asked. “Where did he come from?”

“England,” said Xander dryly. Jack fought the urge to role his eyes, but Xander went on after a moment. “He was our high school librarian. Willow being the big nerd she was was always in the library, and me and Buffy being the big slackers we were were always in the library while Willow got us through the classes we slept through. Giles was there too,” he shrugged this last.

“So you kept in touch with him after you graduated?”

Another shrug. “He was still there for us.” Xander took a long sip of his drink. “So you said you went to college, where did you go?”

“University of Illinois,” Jack sat back in his seat. There was a lot Xander wasn’t saying about Giles. And hanging out in the library all the time studying? For some reason, Jack didn’t think that was the whole truth either. It just didn’t sit well with him. But whatever it was Xander didn’t want to share, Jack wasn’t going to push him on it. Hopefully Xander would tell him eventually and trust him enough with the truth. The potential scenarios running through his head were not pleasant, revolving mostly around Xander avoiding going home. But without confirmation, Jack didn’t want to jump to wrong conclusions that could lose him this burgeoning rapport they had going. So for now, he let it go and talked about college and ROTC with the Air Force. Xander listened, throwing out the occasional sarcastic comment. His son certainly had a cynical streak a mile wide, there was no denying that.

Their meal came, and as they wolfed down their respective haunches of meat, they kept talking. Xander asked him some logistical questions about the army, which was hardly surprising since he had just spent the summer running a camp for thirty kids, before they moved on to lighter topics of crazy natives from his son’s trip to Europe. But it was odd that he never once asked where Jack had fought or what he’d done as a soldier. That was the one question that almost always got asked by civilians. Hell, it was what had ended up splintering his marriage, but it was like the question never crossed his son’s mind.

But whatever his reason for not asking, Jack wasn’t going to question it. Dinner was going well and he wasn’t going to spoil it by telling Xander to stop being weird. So instead he listened to stories about getting lost in Paris and scamming a scam artist in Prague and told a few of his own from when he was stationed in England. And they laughed and joked and ate desert. It was definitely a good start.

**************************************************************

The next morning Xander slept in late, only getting up when enticing smells from the kitchen wafted in around eleven. The first thing he noticed after that was the quiet and he couldn’t help but grin at the utter lack of responsibility he had here. Jack had even bought him dinner last night. It had been practically a lifetime since anyone had done that for him.

Feeling like it was a brand new day Xander rolled himself out of the comfortable bed and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Forgoing shoes for the moment, he groggily made his way to the kitchen where Jack was cooking bacon and eggs. The older man looked up when he came in and smiled.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he greeted him.

“Morning,” Xander replied. “Smells good. How long have you been up?”

“Since six. It’s when I always get up,” Jack shrugged. “How did you sleep?”

“Good. Great. It’s really quiet here,” Xander smiled. “You need any help?”

“No, I’m good. You want orange juice?” Jack moved to the fridge and pulled out a new carton when Xander nodded. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and set both on the table. He went back to the stove and fished out the bacon, keeping an eye on the scrambled eggs. A few minutes later the toast popped up and Jack served up the food and joined Xander at the table.

“So what are we doing today?” Xander asked after a few minutes of mouth-watering goodness. Jack really could cook. Normal food too. Xander could do toast and sometimes bacon, but eggs had been a mystery. His were either too runny or too rubbery; no matter how closely he watched them they never came out like this.

“Well, I was thinking we could go out to see some of the sights. I didn’t know what you wanted to do so I don’t have any fixed plans or anything,” said Jack.

They spent the remainder of their late breakfast hashing out a plan for the day, finally deciding on going downtown to look around and maybe pick up a matinee at the movie theater. After helping Jack clean up the kitchen, Xander went back to his room to get shoes and socks on before they headed out.

It was a nice sunny day outside with not a cloud in the sky. It was so bright out that Xander ended up borrowing a pair of Jack’s sunglasses after duly mocking their clunkyness. Jack gave him a sharp glare for that, saying Xander wouldn’t know style if it bit him in the ass. “Style for fifty,” was Xander’s quick reply.

They stuck to the walkable portions of the business sector, browsing shops and generally commenting on the coolness or stupidity of various trinkets. Xander was surprised by how much they both agreed and how much they disagreed over stuff, mostly along generational lines. Really, when was a singing duck ashtray ever cool? He had tried explaining this to Jack, but he just got this funny look on his face like he couldn’t understand what Xander was saying. It happened a couple of more times before Xander connected the beffudled look to the Giles of old and realized that Jack really didn’t understand southern California speak. Jack muttered something about roadmaps and connecting dots between random references that just made Xander laugh.

In the end, they skipped the movie, saving it for tomorrow or the day after, and ended up just chatting about simple random stuff until they had to head back. Jack’s friends were coming around seven and he wanted to have dinner at least started by the time they got there.

“Can I trust you to make salad?” Jack asked as they walked into the house at twilight. Xander was tired from walking all day but it was the good tired of a time well spent in the sun. He figured he hadn’t gotten this much sunshine in years.

“Yeah, I think I can handle butchering a head of lettuce,” he answered. “I’m supposed to avoid cutting myself, right?”

Jack looked back at him before grinning. “Smart ass,” he said. In the kitchen, Jack began pulling out vegetables from the fridge, tossing the tomatoes in quick succession at Xander who caught all but one.

“Hey!” the young man protested. “Okay, I am not cleaning that up,” he pointed indignantly at the dead tomato that was now dripping juice all over the floor. But Jack only tossed him the role of paper towels.

“Sure you are.”

“Oh, no, this is so totally your fault. I am not cleaning up after you,” said Xander.

“You’re the one who dropped the tomato,” said Jack innocently.

“You’re the one who threw it in the first place,” Xander countered in the same sweet tone of voice.

“So now you’re the one who gets to clean it up,” Jack smiled, pleased with this final non-argument.

“Aren’t I supposed to be the kid here?”

“Which is why you have to do what I say,” Jack nodded sagely. And at Jack’s expression of knowing importance as if everything made perfect sense, Xander couldn’t help but laugh. Jack held out a moment longer before he too chuckled at the complete idiocy of the conversation. To Xander it felt wonderful, like the most terrible thing in the world for once was a stupid tomato on the kitchen floor.

When they finally calmed down a bit, Xander wiped up the mess with the paper towels and Jack went to work fixing up some pork chops for dinner. Xander found a knife and started on the salad – not cutting himself as he minced up tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. They worked in silence, but it was a comfortable one that didn’t need to be filled. Xander smiled to himself. It had been a really good day. And he really liked Jack. He was funny, easy to tease, and didn’t push on subjects Xander didn’t want to talk about. He just felt . . . comfortable to be around. He was pretty easygoing as far as old people went and he didn’t get annoyed with Xander’s lame jokes or endless sarcasm. In fact he made worse jokes than Xander did. It was pretty cool.

Xander had moved on to tipping and tailing green beans when there was a knock on the front door. “IT’S OPEN,” Jack shouted without looking up from the gravy. Xander heard the door open and a couple sets of footsteps echo in from the foyer. Suddenly, putting down his knife seemed like a good idea. He wasn’t exactly nervous about meeting Jack’s friends, it was just that he was meeting them at Jack’s house without any of his own friends to hide behind. It wasn’t like he was at work and could be all professional and just talk about the new wall they were putting in. But thinking about work actually made him feel a little better because, hey, contrary to popular opinion, Xander was an adult and as such he could handle this. All this went through his mind in the fifteen seconds it took for the two men and woman to get from the front door to the kitchen.

“Hey, guys,” Jack looked up and greeted them, still stirring the gravy. “This is Xander. Xander, guy in glasses is Daniel, lady’s Sam, and the big guy is Murray,” he introduced them. Xander grabbed a nearby dishtowel to wipe his hands so he could shake their hands. Daniel was about Xander’s height with brown hair who gave him a friendly smile as did Sam, a shorter woman with equally short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Murray didn’t smile so much as smugly beam. He stood behind the other two ramrod straight, and wore a black beanie pulled low over his forehead. He was very stiff, and it struck Xander as odd at first but he decided to worry about getting through this meeting instead.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

“The pleasure’s all ours,” said Daniel brightly. “We’ve be waiting to meet you since Jack first heard about you.”

“Oh,” Xander shot a quick look at Jack who looked back with concern in his eyes at his friend’s turn of phrase, but Xander simply smiled instead, a little shakily perhaps but it was still a smile. He suddenly felt like he had an image to live up too, and he never did well under pressure, especially now that he wanted Jack’s friends to like him. And he all of a sudden realized that he was very young compared to all of them. “Me too,” he said. “I mean, except with you. And only since yesterday.” And realizing how stupid that sounded, Xander shut his mouth before he dug himself any deeper. “Something to drink?”

Both Daniel and Sam nodded with amused smiles, cheerfully accepting the beers Jack got for them while Murray received a Sprite. “Relax Xander,” Jack told him. “It’s not like any of them are your long lost relatives.”

“Right. ‘Cause we know how awkward that is,” Xander returned, but relaxing nonetheless at the return to their earlier banter. “Don’t mind me. I’m normally an idiot.”

“I’m sure you’re not,” Daniel contradicted him easily. “Don’t let us rattle you. We don’t bite . . . except for maybe Sam.” He cast a sly look at her as she sputtered on her beer.

“Daniel!” Sam swatted his arm, playfully outraged, but the tension was broken.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Jack shoed everyone to the dining room while he shook Xander’s beans into a pot. “We’ll eat in ten minutes. Let’s go sit down.” It took a few minutes to get everyone from the kitchen to the living room and happily situated. Xander found himself in one of the big comfy armchairs while Murray had claimed the other one. Jack took a hardwood chair by the kitchen where he could keep an eye on dinner, and Daniel and Sam sat on either end of the couch.

“So what do you guys all do?” said Xander to get the conversation going. Across from him, Daniel and Sam exchanged a look before Daniel spoke up.

“We all work on the base together up at the Mountain. I’m a civilian consultant in the linguistics department.”

“The Air Force has a linguistics department?” asked Xander surprised. “For what?”

“Codes,” said Sam quickly. “Some encryptions use other languages as another layer.”

Xander nodded while everyone else was doing the group communication thing. Made sense. Uncle Sam wouldn’t want just anyone to be able to listen in on their top secret conversations. “So what kind of languages do you use?” he asked curiously.

“Oh . . . well, I usually work with the uh, ancient languages,” said Daniel.

“So you know stuff like Latin and Indo-European?”

Xander watched Daniel’s eyes light up in surprised delight as he leaned forward like Giles sometimes did when he was getting into a serious, yet incomprehensible discussion. He should have known better than to ask about the Indo-Europeans – he’d already had Giles disturb his dreams over them once. Just what had he gotten himself into here?

“Well, we still don’t know much about Indo-European, just that it was the language and culture that unified ancient humans before they branched off into separate tribes,” said Daniel. “Now what’s really fascinating – ”

“Daniel!” Jack overrode the really fascinating fact with a tired and put upon sigh. “Do we really have to have a lecture about dead people right now?”

“I’m sure the hockey scores can wait, Jack,” Daniel bit back, cutting his eyes at his friend. “Xander did ask . . .”

“No, it’s okay, we can talk about something else. I heard about the horse sex already,” Xander interrupted hastily. “Couldn’t sleep for a week.”

Dead silence met this remark as everyone stared at Xander for a heartbeat. Then, “I fail to see what equine copulation has to do with the Indo-European tribe,” said Murray.

“I’ll second that,” said Jack who was looking at Xander strangely, making him feel uncomfortable for opening his mouth. So he knew about an obscure ritual, what was wrong with that? Okay, so he could think of a lot of things wrong with it . . . but so not the point here.

“It’s, uh . . . a ritual of kingship,” said Daniel after a beat. “The ruler sets a mare loose and everywhere it runs is then a part of his domain. The king ritually has sex with the horse when it returns, thus marrying himself to the land. They usually sacrifice the horse. It’s a custom that has been historically found in Ireland and as far east as Mongolia, thus indicative of an older tradition we call Indo-European.”

“That’s gross,” said Jack with a grimace.

“That’s what I said,” Xander seconded.

“Where did you ever hear about that?”

“I accidentally walked in on a conversation Giles and Dawn were having,” said Xander, unconsciously shuddering. “Trust me, had I known, I would have stayed away.”

“Don’t go for the academic stuff?” asked Sam with a smile.

“That and it’s disgusting,” said Xander. “Would you want to have sex with a horse?”

“No,” she chuckled good-naturedly. “But then I don’t want to be king either.”

“So what do you do?”

“I’m an astrophysicist.”

“Oh.” Pretty hard core, Xander readjusted his impression of her. Not that he had thought her stupid before just that he hadn’t expected her to be Willow-smart. “So you actually do the telemiwhatsit?”

“Deep space radar telemetry, yes,” said Sam with a grin and a quick glance at Jack.

“Xander, don’t get her started either,” Jack butted in. “Just smile and back away slowly.”

“So this is the stuff that bores you to tears?” asked Xander with a teasing grin. Jack nodded as he sipped his beer. “Sounds pretty interesting to me.”

“You want to talk about horse sex again?”

“No, I’m good,” Xander hastily backpedaled. “So how ‘bout those toothless idiots?”

“Hockey players?” asked Daniel, returning the grin. In the corner, Jack sputtered as Xander had known he would.

“I don’t get why anyone would want to go out on freezing cold ice to beat on each other with sticks. That’s crazy!” He lifted innocent eyes to meet Jack’s outraged ones as the older man tried to form a coherent sentence.

“Yes, Jack. Do tell us what’s going through their heads?” Daniel deadpanned, taking on an air of one truly fascinated by the subject. Jack-baiting was apparently a hobby of his too. He and Xander traded a conspirital look when Jack went off on how he had no friends who understood him but he seemed pleased nonetheless.

Still grumbling, Jack shoed them all to the table to eat where conversation turned more toward Xander and the camp in Cleveland and then carpentry and construction working, finally ending up as a general discussion of first jobs and disasters. Xander learned that Sam was a major up at the base and that Murray had gone straight into the military though he never said exactly what he did now. He was an odd one, with a very precise and often formal way of speaking that, despite his accent, was nowhere near American. Xander couldn’t place him; it was like he had been born recently or something, but Xander didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask. Daniel talked about archeological digs he’d been on in college and mixups they’d run into with the locals.

Jack stuck to the stories about the odd jobs that he’d had in high school. Xander liked these the best because they most closely mirrored his own often degrading jobs. And through it all Jack kept making bad jokes at his own expense that kept everyone smiling and happy. The running banter between Jack and Daniel was funny to watch, as were the occasional but spot-on zingers from Sam and Murray. Xander could see how close they were and often felt a like the odd man out, but then Jack would pull him back into the group with a well-aimed remark or question. And even though it was different from home, it still felt right.

*********************************************************

The next two days flew by. Jack and Xander had spent a lazy day at the house watching TV then renting a couple of “manly movies” as Xander so eloquently put it – namely *Charlie’s Angels* and the first *Lethal Weapon* – and generally vegged out. It had been really good. It was certainly different than the usual hanging out with Daniel or Teal’c that Jack did. With Daniel it was always a struggle to get through anything without a million comments on taste or veracity, and with Teal’c Jack wasn’t allowed to interrupt the dialogue with anything more than a brief cultural explanation. But Xander watched movies the way Jack did – with one eye on the girls and the other on anything comment worthy ranging from “That is so cool, I want one” to “You stupid idiot – look up!” After the movies they ended up staying up way too late watching the TNT Steven Segal ball buster before finally collapsing into bed.

For once, Jack slept in the next morning, though he was still up hours before Xander made an appearance. They had a light breakfast that turned into lunch before they decided to get out of the house and go exploring a little bit. So it was three hours later that they found themselves at the park, once again out under the sun. At first they just walked along the path stepping out of the way of joggers and their dogs. It was a rare moment of quiet for the two of them, unfilled with chatter. Xander looked relaxed as he walked beside Jack. Overall, things had gone pretty well, Jack thought, better than he had expected in fact. Xander was a good kid. He was so young and irreverent about everything, it was difficult to remember sometimes that this was the same man he had watched calmly handle a bunch of teenaged girls. The same man who had picked up and moved when he had nothing left

“Do you miss Sunnydale?” Jack asked, breaking the peaceful silence between them. Xander looked up from the ground at him, caught off guard by the question for a moment.

“Sometimes,” he said, looking back out at the trees. “Sentimental value and all that. I don’t think I’d have ever gotten out of there if it hadn’t disappeared.”

“If you had wanted to you would have found a way.”

“Maybe. What about you? Do you ever go back to your hometown?” Xander asked.

Jack shrugged. “Not really. My dad died about fifteen years ago but my mom’s still hanging in there. My brothers take care of that end of the family. We don’t really talk much anymore.”

“Why not?”

Jack glanced over at him at the innocent question, then back across over the open field. He honestly didn’t think about his family much. They were on an island whose bridges he had burned a long time ago. Now, it was simply easier to deal with them from afar with a phone call at Christmas. “We were never really all that close,” said Jack. “My brothers were still kids when I left for college. Then when I went into the military, I never got home much.” He shrugged. Jack didn’t know exactly where things had gone wrong, just that one thing had led to another and then when Charlie died it had been too much.

“Do they know about me?” asked Xander quietly.

Jack shook his head. “No, I haven’t told them yet. It’s not you,” he added when he realized how that sounded. “We just don’t talk often. If you want to meet them . . .” He left it hanging.

“I don’t know,” Xander seemed uncomfortable at the thought. Hell, he had just gotten used to Jack. “Maybe later.”

“No rush,” Jack smiled at him. “As I said, we’re not really close.”

They walked on, a quiet breeze ruffling through their hair. “It’s kinda funny,” said Xander. “You wanting a chance with me even though you never talk to your own brothers.”

“I guess,” Jack thought about it. But it was different. With his brothers, it was as if they had tried and failed, and now there was too much resentment between them to go back to the way things had been. Xander was a new chance and more than that, he was Jack’s child. He felt that he at least owed him enough to try.

“Me and my dad never talked,” said Xander. “Not like this. And he never would have taken me to the park just for a walk.” Jack didn’t say anything, just watched while Xander continued to stare straight ahead, remembering his son’s comment about Giles the other night – the British librarian had been there, even after high school.

“I wish I could have been there,” he said quietly.

Shrugging again, Xander said, “It’s not your fault. Life just sucks like that. I bet you took Charlie to the park.”

“But I didn’t protect him.” The familiar wash of guilt spiked through him, blunted slightly by the weathering of time. What he wouldn’t give to have him back.

“You did what you could,” said Xander who stopped walking and turned to meet Jack’s gaze. “I know you miss him, but he’s in a good place now.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Heaven,” Jack looked toward the field briefly then back. They started walking again.

“I said I didn’t believe in religion. Never said anything about Heaven or Hell,” Xander smiled. Having been to Hell, Jack didn’t disagree. Still, it was a little odd to be on the receiving end of a life pep talk from a twenty-three year-old. Another reminder that the carefree young man had seen and done more in the real world than most in his short life.

They were walking again, heading around the last few bends before they ended up back near the parking lot. Jack’s mind flittered over the age-old question of what to do for dinner. He thought they might go out again since it was Xander’s last night in Colorado. The suggestion was met with enthusiasm and the return of the sillier, bantering Xander that didn’t worry about life’s larger questions. Like old friends, Jack easily swung into the same mood. It was funny how a few days had shaken away their former stuttering tenseness around each other. As they chatted over pasta about Xander looking for a job when he got back, Jack wondered briefly what it would have been like to have watched this son grow up. How would he be different? What would he be like then? But he decided not to dwell on those lost years, for he would never know, and all they had was now to make the most of it. Jack was going to miss him when he went home.

*******************************************************

“So I guess this is it,” said Jack when they reached the security line at the airport. “Next time I should fly you home myself.”

“That would be cool,” Xander grinned. “Can we get one of those harrier planes that does the vertical lift thing?” He could just see the slayers’ jaws dropping when he landed in the backyard. Major impressive points. Giles would have a cow or even a heard of cattle.

“I’d have to ask the General, but he likes me,” Jack replied. “So I might be able to swing it.”

“Let me know when you do.”

“You betcha,” Jack’s grin matched his own. “So you wanna come out here for Thanksgiving?”

Thanksgiving . . . Xander shook his head. “Can’t. We got people coming home. You should come though.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up at the unexpected invitation before settling into a pleased smile. “That’d be great,” he said. “Count me in.”

“Good. I’ll be sure to keep everyone from killing you,” Xander joked.

“Just as long as the turkey you roast isn’t me,” said Jack. “Now go on. Don’t miss your flight.”

Xander shook the offered hand warmly. “Thanks, Jack. For having me and everything.”

Jack nodded. “Always. I’ll see you in November.”

As Xander joined the growing line, he looked back over his shoulder and waved one last time. It had been a good visit, and he was looking forward to the next one.


Six Hours Til Dinner

Xander decided unequivocally that he hated the holidays. Name any holiday, any holiday at all, and he could tell you ten ways a demon had ruined it. Anything that was a cause for celebration for humans had its equivalent in demon societies. Take Thanksgiving for example. Every family in America sacrificed a turkey for health and good fortune, just like each family of big, fat, and slimy gathered in the old, abandoned YMCA building across the street sacrificed a person to their big, fat, and probably slimy god for the same reason. And he had thought that maybe this year would be different. But nooooo, here he was, two in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day with his battleaxe and a crossbow waiting with Willow and Giles for Buffy’s signal.

Buffy and Dawn had come across a pod of demons abducting a woman Tuesday night. They hadn’t been able to beat much out of the creature they had kept alive other than he there was some big annual sacrifice planned for the full moon, which of course was Thursday. And unfortunately they had no idea at the time what the demons were, what the sacrifice was supposed to do, or where it was going to happen since none of the Hellmouth’s alarm spells had gone off. Thus they had spent the last two days and nights around the dining room table doing research. And with everyone home for the holiday for the first time since Sunnydale, not to mention Jack, Buffy was in full holiday mood and determined to have a normal Thanksgiving dinner.

Xander had slept maybe eight hours since Tuesday, any available nap time having been commandeered by Buffy for chopping vegetables, mashing potatoes, or making cranberry sauce while the other cooks in the kitchen – namely Willow and Giles – brewed a potion that would null the effects of the consecration or something. Xander was a little fuzzy on the details. All he knew was that Andrew had saved all their asses when they had run out of eye-of-newt by first suggesting then braving the supermarket for fishheads and the eyes therein. Xander just hoped the substitution worked cause they really didn’t have time to kill the several hundred demons. Robin and Faith were flying in at three, Jack at four, and poor Andrew and Dawn, under protest, had the rest of dinner to get finished and the house to clean until it was social-worker perfect.

Xander almost wished Jack wasn’t coming so they didn’t have to worry about cleaning up. Though it had been he who had had to remind everyone in the first place that keeping his military father in the dark was probably a prudent idea at the moment. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Jack, he did, but he was still unsure of how he would react to all of a sudden being told that vampires were real and there was an army of superpowerful girls destined to fight them. After the whole fiasco with the Initiative, no one, not even Xander was willing to risk the girls, especially when they were on their own and far from the Scoobies’ protection. Everyone had gone home for the school year except for Vi and Diana who were both survivors of Sunnydale with no other homes to go to. It was funny how the greatly reduced household hadn’t settled down much.

“They’re ready,” Willow broke the silence in the car.

“Guys?” Buffy’s voice echoed inside his head as Willow included him and Giles in the telepathic connection. “Once the fighting starts give us a few minutes to get everyone occupied.”

“You got it,” Xander thought as the three of them gathered their weapons and the potion they had to get intact to the focal point of the ceremony. Right. No problem. Happy Thanksgiving.

************************************************************

The Cleveland airport was crowded and noisy on the most traveled holiday of the year, but not nearly so much as it must have been the day before. Still annoyed that he couldn’t write off visiting his son as a valid reason for needing an F-18 to get halfway across the country, Jack made his way as quickly as he could from the family of four who’s two-year-old had decided that the plane was the perfect spot for a tantrum. He hated flying commercial, but at least he was on the ground now and would soon be out of here and heading for food. He was a little nervous about spending his weekend in the company of Xander’s surrogate family – he’d have much rather spent it in Colorado in the company of his own surrogate family – but his son had already had plans. Hopefully it would go better than the last time he’d been in town. Just think before speaking, he reminded himself. And don’t piss off Mr. Giles. Right. No problem.

Since Jack had packed lightly again, he didn’t bother gathering around the baggage carrousel with his fellow passengers and instead searched the sea of faces for Xander. But he didn’t see him. Probably was stuck in traffic or something.

“Jack! Jack O’Neill!” a voice, decidedly not Xander’s called out over the uncaring masses. He stiffened, eyes immediately scanning for exits and whomever it was calling his name. “Over here!” A hand wave from a brown haired girl standing on a chair by the sliding doors. Of course he shouldn’t have been surprised. As Jack made his way over to her he recognized her as his inquisitor from his first visit though he couldn’t remember her name. She easily jumped off the chair and spoke to the couple who stood with her, a tall lanky black man and a shorter brunette woman with a couple of bags gathered around their feet. “Hay, Jack!” the girl waved at him brightly when he joined them, shifting slightly from foot to foot.

“Hey,” he replied with an easy smile, wondering if Xander were around somewhere.

“I’m Dawn Summers. We never really got introduced before,” she said. “Xander got sent to the store by Buffy and wasn’t back by the time I had to come pick them up,” she gestured to the couple who were looking him over curiously, the woman especially. “Oh, this is Robin and Faith,” she introduced them. “This is Jack.”

“I’m Robin,” the black man offered his hand resolving the first question in Jack’s mind with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“So you’re Xand’s old man, huh?” said Faith as she too shook his hand. Her voice was low and a little raspy but her handshake firm, a little too firm even, and Jack definitely didn’t like that appraising look in her eye that made him feel like an interloper.

“You’re not going to threaten me too, are you?” he asked warily. “’Cause I think you’ll have to get in line. Buffy’s already claimed my arms and Mr. Giles hinted they wouldn’t be able to find my body.”

Faith smiled broadly at this, her entire demeanor relaxing. “Guess I’m covered then,” she said. “But if I were you, I’d worry about Willow instead.” Jack raised his eyebrows at this mention of Xander’s other close friend he had yet to meet. This was new. “She’ll toast you like flambé if you hurt him.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” said Jack dryly, which only made Faith grin again.

“Yeah, I can see the family resemblance,” she said unexpectedly. Jack felt a jolt of warm surprise shoot through him at this pronouncement from a stranger. “So D, we getting out of here or what?” Faith abruptly turned to Dawn who jangled her keys and led them to the car.

“Dawn, how’s your senior year been?” Robin asked as they began walking.

“I can’t wait till I graduate!” the young woman told them emphatically. “But at least there’s boys.”

Jack listened quietly while the others chatted about how much Dawn’s school sucked. It sounded like a normal teenage rant of a smart kid ready to burst free of the system. Robin asked about her classes and how she was doing in them while Faith alternated with questions about the opposite sex. Miraculously, the two threads of conversation never broke as Dawn handled them both with aplomb. It was so different from Sam and Daniel’s one-track minds, reminding Jack instead of Cassie’s ability – and Xander’s for that matter – to shift topics with barely a thought between breaths. When Robin asked about college as they merged onto the highway, Dawn just shrugged.

“Depends on how the money works out,” she said. “I’ll probably end up working with Giles.”

“What does he do?” asked Jack curiously. Xander had never said exactly and ever since his last visit he’d wondered.

Dawn glanced at him where he sat next to her in the passenger seat of the car. “He, um, works with this group in England. Doing book stuff.”

“Book stuff?” that sounded a little vague, though Xander had told him Giles had been a librarian.

“Research,” she amended. “Helping people find what they need to find. Some translations. That sort of thing.”

“Ah,” Jack nodded. Made sense, but still, he felt there was a lot left unsaid. “So what’s he do in Cleveland?”

“Same thing you’re doing,” Faith answered, staring at him in the rearview mirror. “Visiting.”

“Hey, I was just asking,” Jack defended himself. Jeez, these kids were so protective of the guy. What was up with that? All he wanted to know was what the man did for a living. It was like it was some big secret.

“He usually brings his work with him when he’s around,” interjected Dawn before Faith could reply, giving her a look in the mirror. And before anyone could add to the conversation, a phone rang. Dawn immediately snatched up the red cell phone from the cup holder. “Buffy?” she answered it, her voice squeaking up. Watching her, Jack noticed that her whole body had tensed. Then she let out a breath and smiled. “Good,” she said. “I’ve got everyone. We’re on our way home.” A pause. “Okay. See you then.”

“That was Buffy?” Robin asked tentatively as Dawn hung up.

“Yep,” the teenager grinned. “The turkey crisis has been resolved.” She seemed awfully excited about it for some reason, but then teenagers were fickle about food Jack supposed.

“Well, that’s good,” said Faith also letting out a sigh of relief. “Though I’m sorry I missed it, but right now, I’m so hungry, I could eat a zebra.”

“You don’t like zebra,” said Robin.

“Yes, I do. I had it when we were staying with Nagyia.”

“That was a beef.”

The two of them continued arguing over when they had eaten the zebra, and it wasn’t until Dawn leaned over and told him they had just come from Africa that the conversation made any sense at all. “What were they doing there?” he asked.

“Teaching English and stuff,” Dawn replied with a vague hand wave. Africa, Jack mused. The first thing that came to mind was Giza and the pyramids. In a way it had been they that had ultimately changed his life by bringing Daniel into it.

Out of conversation, the two of them fell silent, content to listen to the happy bickering of the couple in the backseat. The trip to the house took longer than Jack remembered, but nonetheless, they arrived intact around five. As soon as Dawn had parked the car, two people appeared at the front door. Jack grinned when he saw that one of them was Xander.

*******************************************************

Xander heard a car pull up in the driveway and frantically looked around at the sitting room and open den for any remaining axes or stakes. Or weirdly named books. Or anything else mystical that couldn’t be passed off as decorative. He hadn’t realized just how much they had lying around until they had tried putting it away. It was a miracle Jack hadn’t noticed everything when he’d been here the first time. It had been almost impossible to find space for it all – the largest repository being the finished basement a.k.a. the Slayer Barracks. But for the moment, everything looked okay. Weapons were in Buffy and the slayers’ bedrooms upstairs, magical stuff in Willow and Kennedy’s room, books downstairs, and weird invoices in the office that served as Giles’s room. Pretty much everywhere but the ground floor was a mess. It was a good thing they only had to keep this up for the three days Jack would be here.

“They’re here!” Diana exclaimed, rushing out of the kitchen like a cat with its tail on fire. The young slayer hadn’t been able to sit still after the fight, and Buffy’s Nazi-chef routine was enough to drive anyone that could escape out of the kitchen. Xander marveled that she still had energy to burn. He felt like he was going to go narcoleptic at any second now, exhausted from too little sleep and sore from the demon fighting. Regardless, he joined Diana at the open door in welcoming their guests because, well, he was actually excited about seeing Jack again.

“Faith!” Diana shouted, running out to meet the older slayer as she and Robin emerged form the back seat.

“Hey!” Faith smiled. “Diana, right?” she asked as she gave the younger woman a hug.

Xander followed more slowly while they chatted, getting their things out of the trunk. “Hey Jack,” he called cheerfully to the older man, who already had his one bag in his hand.

“Xander, it’s good to see you,” Jack grinned back, holding out a hand which Xander shook heartily. He wore his habitual leather jacket and jeans, and looked glad to be there. “Though you look like you haven’t slept in a week.” Xander shrugged ruefully. If only Jack knew.

“Yeah, well it’s the holidays,” he said instead.

“Hey, Xander!” as Faith as she and the others caught up to them on the walk.

“Hey, Faith,” Xander smiled at her. “Robin, glad you made it this year,” he shook the other man’s hand. “Long time, no see.”

“No kidding. I think I’m having reverse culture shock,” said Robin. “But do you remember Peter Rhinbald? He’s been a great help. He’s holding things together while we . . . have this little vacation.”

Xander nodded, glancing quickly at Jack who listened with a mild expression of interest at the unfamiliar name. Xander did indeed remember Peter Rhinbald; he was one of about fifteen of the old surviving watchers that Giles had dug up in the last year that was willing to help out with finding and training slayers. Rhinbald’s presence in Africa was the reason Faith and Robin could get home this year for the convening of the Council which would be held next week in the dining room to discuss the state of the mystical portion of the world. But that was still one turkey dinner and three days of freedom away.

For now everyone simply herded inside to the noisy cacophony that had not dissipated despite the mini-slayers returning home. At the moment, they could hear Buffy and Andrew having a . . . rather strident conversation about how to mix the gravy.

“Xander, how ‘bout you show us our where we’re staying first,” suggested Robin upon hearing the shouting match. “I don’t think Buffy’s ready for us yet.”

“Good idea,” Xander was only too happy to agree. He certainly didn’t want to go into the kitchen at a time like this. So he and the girls led their guests upstairs. The house was large with six bedrooms. The master suite was another slayer bedroom where for the holiday Buffy and Dawn would be joining Vi and Diana. Andrew and Xander were next door on the left with the office across the hall where Giles was staying. In the middle was an empty slayer room where Jack would be staying, and around the corner were the last two rooms for the two sets of couples. During the summer all but the guys’ room and the office were the home for as many girls as needed to fit since the other residents of Scooby Central were in and out for most of the year.

Xander let Diana and Dawn show Robin and Faith to Dawn’s normal room at the other end of the house while he stayed with Jack. “Just ignore the other beds,” he told Jack, gesturing toward the two sets of bunk beds that lined the far walls. “Or next time bring your friends.”

Jack grinned as he dropped his bag by the bottom bunk with the pile of linen at its foot. “Watch out, I just might do that,” he said as he gave the place the once over. The walls were bare, bereft of the posters and life of the summer. Xander grabbed the sheets and started making the bed.

“Sorry we didn’t get to this. It’s been pretty hectic around here,” he said. Jack grabbed the other end of the sheet and helped fit it into place.

“No problem,” he said easily. “It sounds like you have a pretty wild bunch here still.”

“And would you believe there’s only nine of us?” Xander shook his head. Had they been this loud back in Sunnydale?

“Only nine?” Jack looked up with a teasing grin.

“Hey, you didn’t live here with forty-two teenage girls over the summer, Mr. I-Live-Alone,” Xander retorted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in estrogen.”

“And you have my congratulations for surviving,” said Jack in such a way that Xander wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or not. “So you still working at Home Depot?”

“Yep,” said Xander, tossing him an end of the blanket. “Still in the lumber yard. I think I’m getting a raise in January. One of the other guys there also does some freelance work and he asked if I wanted to go in with him on a job next week.”

“That sounds cool,” said Jack. “Interior carpentry?”

“Yeah,” Xander nodded, pleased he’d remembered his specialty. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“That’s great,” Jack grinned at him. “I always love going back to work after being forced out of things for a while.”

“How do you get forced out of work that consists of looking through a telescope?” wondered Xander at the rather odd statement.

But Jack just shrugged. “Not necessarily on this assignment, but you know, in general,” he said, taking a seat on the now made bed. Xander joined him, thinking again about Jack’s blacked out file, both curious and still not wanting to know. He wondered what kinds of Special Forces missions Jack had been on, wondered how much they had helped the country in the unseen war for power that Xander largely ignored. Had it been bad stuff? Worthy stuff? Was it like in the movies where soldiers did questionable things in order to preserve peace on Earth? And if he had liked what he did why had he quit? He was a decorated colonel, he should have had some say about his final posting.

“So do you like being out of the action now?” Xander asked. In their own war against the minions of darkness, to use Andrew’s phrase, Xander didn’t think he could ever just walk away, not knowing what he knew, knowing what he could do.

Jack was silent for a moment, his eyes turned inward. “We do good work at the Mountain,” he finally said. “I don’t regret being a part of it.”

“I thought you said it was boring?” He’d said it several times in fact, and his friends had made fun of him for it.

“Well, there’s boring, and then there’s really boring,” Jack neatly sidestepped the issue, a fact that was not lost on Xander though he did it very well. “And the people are some of the best I’ve ever worked with.” More points for the subtle shift in conversation. He was actually up there with Veronica on the don’t-notice-I’m-not-talking-about-it scale.

But Xander didn’t know how to ask without seeming pushy, so he let it go and chalked it up under the other questions he would ask later someday when he felt like he knew him better. “Daniel, Sam, and Murray?”

“Yeah,” Jack nodded with a soft smile.

“How did you guys meet? ‘Cause based on your job descriptions . . .”

Jack smiled again at the open-ended question. “Daniel was already working on the project when I got there. We didn’t like each other much. I thought he was some academic I had to baby-sit, and he thought I was a military hardass, which I guess I was. It was just after Charlie died and I was pretty torn up inside.” He looked at his hands and was silent for a second. “Anyway,” he went on, “we had to work together in the field for a while and we ended up friends.”

“What were you doing?”

“Oh, you know . . . maneuvers. Testing out his . . . theories and codes,” Jack waved a vague hand. “It’s still classified,” he shrugged apologetically. But Xander wondered why the designer of the code would be allowed in the field at all. He was a civilian and a liability – even on maneuvers that were meant to simulate real conditions. It just didn’t sound quite right. But then if it was classified, maybe they had been doing something else, though for the life of him Xander couldn’t fathom what they could do like that under a mountain.

“Carter joined us about a year later taking no crap from anyone about being the best in her field and a woman. She’s got to be one of the most brilliant people I know, including Daniel,” he grinned again with that contemplative look once more in his eye.

“Carter is Sam?” Xander asked for clarification, not recalling ever having learned last names.

“Sam, yeah,” he said softly, turning the apparently unfamiliar syllable over in his mouth. “I can’t say we liked each other from the get-go, but we respected each other. And Murray and me just hit it off when we met. There wasn’t a lot of conversation to it.” Jack smiled again at the memory.

“He certainly never said much while I was there,” Xander agreed. Though he still wasn’t sure what bothered him about the man, but there was something just off . . .

“DIIIINNERRRR!” A loud call to the table put an end to the conversation as both men looked toward the door.

“You ready?” asked Xander, with a sympathetic lifting of his eyebrows. He’d worry about the mystery surrounding Jack later. Right now they had to get through dinner without him caging onto any Scooby secrets.

“Yeah. Sure,” said Jack, standing up and stretching slightly. “How bad can it be?”

“Just don’t be afraid to fight for your food,” Xander advised him. “They all like you better now since I like you. And if anyone gives you trouble just remind them that I control the house funds.” But Xander didn’t expect trouble. Everyone was just happy that he was happy – Dawn was even a little jealous. Besides, Jack could charm the skin off a rattlesnake. A house full of people giving him the benefit of the doubt shouldn’t be a problem.

********************************************************

It took a full fifteen minutes to get everyone settled around the dining room table. And what an impressive table it was with every available space filled with turkey and potatoes and beans and garden salad and bean salad and boiled onions and soup and bread and even more food at the other end. It had been a long time since Jack had been at a real family Thanksgiving with twelve people. Xander gave him a whirlwind of introductions in all the hustle and bustle, and he barely remembered the names to go along with the blur of faces. Though he did notice that the only blood relatives here were Buffy and Dawn and himself and Xander. But watching them as Faith and Robin got passed around for hugs or handshakes they had missed earlier, as Buffy and Andrew still squabbled over whether or not the gravy was ready, as Xander poked fun at Giles, and the girls giggled and stole carrots from the salad bowl, he could see how close they were. They were their own family, like he and his team were family.

Finally they were all seated. “Oh my god! Wine!” Buffy exclaimed as soon as she sat down, immediately jumping to her feet again, her eyes as round as saucers at this new crisis. “We have wine, right?”

“It’s in the cleaning cabinet,” said Giles calmly from his seat at the head of the table with Buffy on his left. The young woman sprang from the table and into the kitchen.

“So that’s where it is!” said Xander across from Jack. “I thought someone,” he glanced pointedly at Dawn and Vi next to each other on his left, “had sneaked it.” The two girls looked up with innocently outraged expressions that he would even suggest such a thing.

“No, no, it was me,” Giles said a little embarrassed at having been caught out and the kids immediately started asking if his nerves were becoming too delicate in his old age and other, equally insulting things. Buffy returned in the midst of this with the missing wine, a happy look of relief that everything was finally ready to go.

“Buffy,” said Dawn with a meaningful look at her sister while the wine bottle was passed around.

“Oh, right,” said the other girl. “Hey everyone,” she called over the micro conversations which quickly dried up. “Okay, so Dawn and I wanted to try something new this year before we get started.” She looked across the table at Diana on Jack’s left. “It was a tradition in Diana’s family to go around and say what you’re thankful for and we wanted to do that this year. I hope that’s okay.”

Clearly stunned by the suggestion, Diana simply nodded. Jack wondered why she wasn’t with her family now. Her and Kennedy and Vi. Xander had told him about Buffy, Willow, and Andrew – and Robin and Faith had clearly been on their own for a while – but the other girls were still teenagers, hardly at an age when they stayed at a friend’s house for Thanksgiving.

“Okay, so I’ll start,” said Buffy. “And if someone says yours you have to come up with a new one too. I’m thankful that everyone made it today and that I’ve gotten to have a nice long visit with everyone, Xander and Willow and especially Dawn.”

“I think that was two,” said Xander who was next, eliciting smiles and a few chuckles.

“Hey, it’s a new tradition,” said Buffy. “We’re allowed to make mistakes.”

“Okay, so I think I’ll add my voice to the I’m thankful everyone’s here chorus I can tell is coming. And I’m thankful that I survived this summer – and today,” more grins from everyone, “and I guess mostly I’m thankful that I met Jack this year.” His son looked directly at him and smiled softly. Jack felt an intensity build between them and it was just the two of them in the world for that one second. And when the torch passed on to Dawn at Xander’s left, they smiled and both turned their attention to the young woman who was thankful that she only had 112 days of high school left before she graduated.

Vi was thankful for her aunt who had let her take this exchange year in the States (which explained to Jack why she was here for Thanksgiving but made very little sense as to why her guardians were young twenty-somethings with unstable jobs.) Robin came next with a thankful for Africa, the continent that had enchanted him, and for Faith, this last said with the besotted smile of one in love to which Jack internally rolled his eyes. Andrew at the foot of the table was much more dramatic.

“As head culinator for the Xena-like warrior women, I would like to take this opportunity to be thankful for the trials and tests of strength that have proved my quality and shown that I would never have taken the ring or anything else of corrupt evilness no matter how much good I thought it could do.” Jack looked across at Xander to see his response to this . . . interesting and nonsensical speech. The one eyed man merely shrugged and grinned with the others who rolled eyes in the way of those exasperated but fond of their friend’s idiosyncrasies.

“Andrew – ” Faith began, but the young man kept going.

“*And,*” he said pointedly, glaring at her, “and I’m thankful for you guys being . . . you know . . .” He trailed off uncomfortably, then added, “and for the Thanksgiving parade because it was cool and I’d never been to a parade before.” This sparked a few comments about the parade in general before they continued on with Faith who was thankful for surprises and second-chances and Kennedy who was thankful for being back and getting a chance to hang out more with Vi and Diana.

“And I’m just glad we’re off the road,” said Willow, the red head next to Jack whom Faith had warned him about. Since they’d sat down she’d been tossing quick glances at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, much as Xander had done when he had come to visit back in September. It was a little annoying but at the moment he couldn’t do anything about it. “Not the road was bad or anything,” she quickly looked at Kennedy and grinned. “Just good to be back home with everyone.”

Then it was Jack’s turn and he suddenly found all eyes on him from behind pleasant but guarded expressions that still weren’t sure what to make of him, this stranger in their midst. Hell, he didn’t know quite how *he* felt about being this far outside of his comfort zone. “Well, I guess you all know what I’m thankful for,” he said lightly. “Finding Xander and being given a chance to get to know him. It means a lot to me.” And it did. Jack felt so . . . lucky, especially sitting here with all these kids whose parents weren’t here.

“I guess it’s me,” said Diana next. “It’s been forever since I’ve done this. And even though it’s all different, it’s just the same. So I guess I’m thankful for thankfuls because they’re a little bit of home I haven’t had since . . . and I don’t know why I’m crying,” she smiled through tears that slid silently down her cheeks.

“Hey now,” said Xander softly. “If you keep that up you’re going to dilute the taste of the food.” Diana laughed in a short burst, wiping her eyes with her napkin. The gentle teasing led to a few more smiles as finally Giles took the floor.

The Englishman raised his glass of wine and looked around the table at everyone before speaking. “I’m thankful – grateful even – that you are all here, safe, alive and well. And I’d like to propose a toast to Diana’s parents for such a wonderful tradition, and to all others loved and lost who cannot be here today.” Solemnly, they all rose their glasses in a silent tribute. Giles’s words touched a place deep inside Jack where memories lived, giving them air for a moment and tasting bittersweet with the wine as it slid down his throat. Across from him Xander had closed his eye briefly, his mouth twisting into a sad smile when it opened and met Jack’s gaze. And when he looked at Buffy to Xander’s right and Dawn to his left and the others around the table, Jack felt the undercurrent of shared grief like a gentle wave – and he wondered again about the lives of these kids that had left this kind of mark.

“I think the food’s getting cold,” Dawn broke the spell. “Let’s eat. I declare it turkey time.” So they ate, the graveness giving way to the clank of serving spoons on porcelain and the sputter of conversations, mostly about the food and if more could be passed along. Xander hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Jack to fight for his food. With the way the girls seemed to eat, they would easily demolish the immense quantities of food on the table. Not all of it had gotten around yet, too much of the food on the closest platters already on everyone’s plate. For the first few minutes everyone just ate. Somehow at the far end of the table, the zebra conversation started back up with Andrew delightedly asking a hundred questions about it and the lions in Africa in general. Eavesdropping, Jack concluded that Xander was right, Andrew was an odd person.

“So Jack,” Willow turned to him after a few minutes. “How did you track Xander down?” Jack looked over at the bright, interested expression on the young woman’s face that was marred only by some nasty parallel scratches along her jaw.

“Willow,” said Xander like he didn’t want her to ask at all.

“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable non-threatening conversation starter,” the young woman turned to her friend. “It’s not like I’m telling him that I’ll turn him into a turnip if he hurts you.” She gave Jack a sideways look, and he couldn’t help but smile as Xander again sighed her name in exasperation. Here they went again.

“If I ever hurt him you can turn me into a turnip and feed me to a rabbit,” Jack told her. Willow smiled at him then turned back to Xander smugly as if she had won an argument, which Jack supposed she sort of had.

“Willow, I like Jack. He of the good, non-asskicky type.”

“Asskicky?” Jack lifted his eyebrows. Was that even a word?

“Yep,” Dawn confirmed to Willow. “And if he had a sticker it would say ‘Inspected by number ten.’” Jack was glad he wasn’t the only one who looked up at this odd statement. “You know, like a sweater,” Dawn clarified.

“Yes, I’m sure Colonel O’Neill enjoys being compared to a sweater,” said Giles dryly.

“Jack,” he offered the other man the courtesy of his first name feeling a little out of his depth. A sweater?

“And I don’t want to scare him away,” said Xander with a grin for Jack that he was only too happy to return.

“Scary?” said Willow, her voice squeaking higher. “I’m not being scary am I? Am I Kennedy?” she turned to the girl on her other side.

“No, baby,” Kennedy laughed, taking Willow’s hand reassuringly. “You’re not being scary.” Jack blinked in surprise at this new development, caught off guard by the display of obvious affection.

“Well, I’m glad you came,” said Buffy, pulling his attention back from the couple at his side. “You get extra points for showing up.”

“Points?” Jack smiled nervously at the idea. “You keep score?”

“Don’t worry, you’re doing fine,” Dawn reassured him, though he was hardly reassured. Now he felt like too many people were watching his every move and waiting to see if he messed up; it was a little eerie when he thought about it. On the other hand, Buffy’s show of support was a nice change from the outright suspicion of his previous visit.

“So how long have you known Xander?” Jack asked Willow, hoping to deflect the conversation away from himself.

“Since kindergarten,” Willow replied with a fond look at his son who in turn looked horrified.

“Oh no. No. We are not doing this,” Xander shook his head wildly. “Willow, I’m warning you . . .”

But Willow was ginning excitedly and Jack just knew he was about to get a whole lot of childhood dirt. And he was right, starting with how the two kids had met on the first day over spilt milk – Xander’s all over Willow. Things quickly deteriorated from there, and Jack had the luxury of listening while he ate to ‘the time when.’ He heard about another boy named Jesse who joined them in first grade, and a girl named Cordelia who was rich and the leader of the mean little girls who constantly terrorized the trio. He found out that Xander was a goofy little kid but with a loving heart who had once snuck out of his house and run all the way to Willow’s because she had gotten sick and had left school early. As the others were reminded of stories from their own childhoods, they chimed in allowing time for Willow and Xander to eat, and so they worked their way through dinner.

Eventually, the other dishes got passed around the table. Willow passed him the soup bowl as she recounted the time in middle school when Xander and Jesse had tried to build a water balloon slingshot. Smiling at the image of the two boys getting completely soaked when the slingshot failed, Jack dished out some soup – and jumped in surprise with an “aaahg!!” A fishhead with no eyes floated in his bowl. It was very, very disturbing. Who the hell cooked fishhead soup for Thanksgiving?

“Andrew,” Diana giggled, answering the question he had accidentally asked out loud. The young man in question waved timidly from the other end of the table while the others laughed at Jack’s expense at having been the first besides Andrew to actually put it in his bowl.

“Do I even want to know why it doesn’t have any eyes?” he asked.

“Uh, that wold be a big ‘no’,” said Xander who looked uncomfortably at Willow, and Jack noticed that the lighter mood of a minute before had tensed up suddenly for no apparent reason.

“Well, I guess it’s good that it can’t see its about to get eaten,” he commented, poking the head with his fork. “Though I don’t think I’m going to eat it either.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to try just one little bite?” asked Andrew. “It won’t bite back. See?” The kid actually brought spoon to mouth and swallowed a healthy dose of fishhead. Now, Jack had eaten a lot of thing in the name of not pissing off the locals – but the very thought of having to sacrifice his stomach while on Earth made his insides shudder at the thought.

“I think I’ll pass.” He smiled tightly. No way, no how.

Andrew’s face fell and he resorted to mumbling about how no one appreciated fine cuisine anymore. Jack just stared at him. Something was seriously wrong with that kid. Conversation picked up again, this time centered around Andrew and the stranger things he cooked, both a mixture of what had turned out and what hadn’t. Soon Andrew himself was joining in with self-criticisms and references to the Iron Chefs, and Jack added his own edited versions of strange food he’d eaten on missions with MRE’s at the top of his list.

Before Jack knew it, he was feeling happy and stuffed and Buffy was serving pumpkin pie and ice cream. Xander was the first to yawn, followed by Dawn, the effects of the heavy meal making themselves known, even at such an early hour. Jack for his part was content, pleased to have met Willow and heard some stories, pleased that Xander’s friends had welcomed him this time – even if he had been threatened again. And though his friends hadn’t been there, it had been a good Thanksgiving.

********************************************************

The house was finally quiet. Good food, good company, and utter exhaustion had Xander laid out and half-asleep on the couch in the den where he and Jack had ended up. Buffy and a few others were still cleaning up in the kitchen. Giles was making tea. Willow and Kennedy, Dawn, Diana, and Vi had gone to bed, the week and the day finally catching up to them. Xander was surprised that all of them had lasted as long as they had. For his part, he felt like for the last few hours he’d been running on nothing but sugar and excitement. Warm on the couch, he pushed up his sleeves and closed his eye in contentment and let sleep dance seductively across his eyelids.

“Xander, can I ask you something?” Jack asked a few minutes later, his voice edging in on his trance.

“Yeah, sure,” Xander rolled his head against the back of the couch so he could see Jack. The older man was in one of the armchairs, a pensive look on his face.

“I was just wondering how Willow got those scratches on her jaw,” he said, and immediately Xander woke up. “They look like fingernail marks.”

Sitting up slightly, Xander wasn’t sure what to tell him since it certainly wasn’t going to be ‘because we were fighting demons earlier.’ Jack watched him as he pushed himself further upright, buying time to think. “She and Kennedy sometimes . . .” he trailed off, his face flushing at the implication he left hanging.

But Jack didn’t seem to buy it. “And the cut on your arm?” He looked Xander straight in the eye. Xander pointedly did not look at the incriminating scratch and resisted the urge to pull down the sleeves of his sweatshirt that he’d stupidly pushed up, berating himself for being all kinds of an idiot. Hadn’t they nearly killed themselves cleaning the house to prevent just this? Moron! It was a deep cut near his elbow, too long to be passed off as a cooking accident. Numbed by a handful of painkillers Xander had forgotten about it under soft fabric till now. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. “Xander . . .”

Caught, Xander didn’t have an answer. “Work accident,” he heard himself say, the lie sounding hollow in his own ears. He didn’t quite look at Jack but he could feel his eyes on him, hurt and curious for secrets Xander couldn’t tell him. Buffy’s family had locked her up when she’d tried to explain everything, and even though Xander knew that wouldn’t happen to him, the thought of losing Jack was suddenly uncomfortable. He was too close to having something . . . he didn’t know what, but it was there, growing under the surface and explaining now would only shatter it into a thousand pieces. And that wasn’t counting the thousand other lives that might be destroyed because after he tried to explain and prove the existence of the supernatural, what if, that little part of his brain wondered, what if Jack accidentally let something slip to his superiors or he told them about slayers. That possibility perhaps scared Xander the most. “It’s just a scratch,” he added.

“Some scratch,” said Jack without his usual humor. When Xander looked up he could tell Jack didn’t buy this explanation either. Suddenly the room felt too small for the two of them.

“I’m going to go see if Giles needs help,” said Xander and he fled the scene. He needed time to think.

**********************************************************

Jack scrubbed an angry hand through his hair, cursing himself for a fool for opening his mouth. Work accident, his ass . . . that cut looked like a knife slice. And Xander knew it. And now Jack was worried about how he got it, more so now that his son had run from the question. Question, Jack looked down at his hands. All he had were questions upon questions about his son’s life, about his friends’ lives that had led them here to this house. Questions about fights and why every kid here had lost a parent or two. He just wished Xander would let him in that last step and *talk* to him. He could say how glad he was to have Jack here all he wanted, but Jack wanted to be more than just a person at the table.

Giles came in then with Xander trailing behind, his son avoiding his gaze as he retook his seat on the couch. If the Brit was aware of the tension between them now, he gave no sign of it as he passed Jack a mug of coffee. “Thanks,” he murmured.

Giles nodded and sat back in his own armchair. “Goodness, it’s been a long day,” he said.

“I guess you’ve been pretty busy with everyone coming home,” said Jack in an effort to have a conversation. Xander seemed to have gotten over pretending Jack wasn’t there but his face was closed off and unreadable. The sleeve of his sweatshirt was pulled down again.

“Mmm, yes,” Giles agreed mildly.

“So you’re a linguist?” Jack asked in a Herculean effort to dispel the silence, even knowing he was going to regret this conversation. For the moment, he put thoughts of Xander and knife fights to the side.

“I have studied a few languages, yes,” said Giles modestly. “Xander said one of your colleagues was working on codes based on ancient languages?”

“Daniel, yeah,” Jack replied. Except for the small fact that he didn’t. How was he going to talk his way out of this one?

“And yourself? Any interest in the subject?”

Jack shrugged. “Latin’s the only ancient language I know. More or less. From school,” he added. No way was he explaining why he had actually learned a dead language. “Daniel wanted me to ask where you studied.”

“Oxford,” Giles replied. “What was your friend’s last name?”

“Jackson, Daniel Jackson. Have you heard of him?” Jack asked, half-afraid of the answer.

Giles thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “Can’t say that I have off the top of my head, but I’ve been out of the loop for a while as it were. What’s his specialty?”

“Egypt.”

“No, sorry,” Giles smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I never really kept up with the Egyptian journals.”

Somewhat relieved and oddly disappointed, Jack gave him an sympathetic smile. He could understand not keeping up with boring journals, but of course that probably meant that Giles had been reading other equally boring things. “So what’s your specialty?” he asked.

“Folklore,” said Giles. “Quite interesting to actually look at what people believed and the stories that cross cultures.” Ah, another enthusiast, Jack inwardly groaned, wondering why he had even bothered to ask. “But if you’re anything like Xander, I won’t bore you,” Giles surprised him by saying instead of the long-winded lecture he’d been expecting.

“Thanks, G-man,” said Xander sarcastically from the couch.

“Will you ever stop calling me that?” Giles asked with a long-put-upon sigh to which Xander only grinned and shook his head. “Yes, well, I think I’m going to turn in,” said Giles. “Try and catch up on all the sleep I’ve missed this week.” He rose, nodded politely, and took his empty teacup to the kitchen before disappearing up the stairs. It was just the two of them again. The sounds from the kitchen had died down until only the gentle murmur of Buffy and Faith talking in the dining room whispered through to them, too low to understand.

“So does this mean he likes me now?” Jack asked to break the hovering silence.

“I asked him to be nice,” said Xander. “But yeah, he’s not all out against you anymore.”

Jack watched Xander stare at his mug, feeling the distance that had suddenly resurfaced and not knowing how to bridge it. “Do you know why he decided to become a librarian?”

“He’s always been a librarian.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Well, it’s a loaded question,” Xander finally looked up, one eye boring into Jack. “Giles is a good guy.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” Jack replied, frustrated.

“Then what? You keep asking about him one way or another.” Xander’s tone was accusatory, attacking before he was attacked.

Because I find it weird that you live with your high school librarian, Jack thought but didn’t say. Instead he heard himself ask “What were your parents like?” before he even thought about it. Xander stared at him for a moment, another unreadable expression on his face.

“I wasn’t abused if that’s what you’re asking,” he said after a moment. Jack just watched him, relieved yes, but waiting for more, hoping the walls would come down. “They weren’t the greatest parents in world. Mostly they just drank too much and yelled at each other and left me alone.” Xander shrugged. “Poor me,” he deadpanned without a shred of self-pity.

“I’m sorry,” Jack told him softly, wishing he’d been there. It didn’t sound like much of a home, but it was better than he had expected. And then Jack felt angry for thinking that such a compromise was a good thing just because it wasn’t the worst that could have happened. It was practically neglect, for crying out loud, and he was suddenly angry at Jessica and her husband, at himself for not being there when he should have been. Dammit, why hadn’t she told him? Looked for him? Anything?

“Nothing you can do about it now,” Xander shrugged again, looking back into his coffee cup. “They’re gone and I’m grown. I had Willow and Jesse, Buffy and Giles and . . .” he didn’t finish.

“Do you still keep in touch with Jesse?” Jack asked having not heard the name mentioned until today.

“He died,” Xander answered flatly. He sipped his coffee, not inviting any questions while Jack simply stared in surprise before murmuring another empty condolence, which Xander also shrugged off, “It was a long time ago.” Jesus. From the stories, Jack figured a long time ago must have been sometime in high school. He swallowed hard, wondering what that must have been like for Xander. No one deserved to lose a best friend during the toughest four years of life.

“How did he die?”

Xander hesitated before answering, “car accident.” Another lie.

“And your arm?” Jack asked carefully.

“Is fine,” Xander gave him a wary look, clearly not wanting to talk about it. Jack ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. This was a side of his son he thought they’d gotten past.

“It makes me worry,” he said honestly. “I’m not going to hold it against you.” He just wanted to know what had happened, and Xander just didn’t want him to know for whatever reason that Jack didn’t understand. “Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I’m here.”

“Is it weird?” asked Xander, the wariness still there in his face, shadowed by his eyepatch that also had no explanation. “All of a sudden having a son?”

“It was a little at first,” Jack conceded. “But it feels right.” It felt right like taking care of Daniel when he was sick felt right, or making sure Sam slowed down, or making sure that Teal’c was feeling loved. It was as if Jack had merely added Xander to that long list of people who meant something to him and who Jack looked out for, even if he did live in Cleveland.

Xander wasn’t going to tell him about his arm. Or the scratches on Willow’s face, or how Jesse had really died. Jack could see that. It made him feel like an outsider in this house and as if all he had built with Xander over the last few months lay just on the surface. Yeah, he and his son joked and shared a sarcastic sense of humor and got along well enough, but beneath was a responsible man who thought about more than videogames whom Jack had only glimpsed in brief snatches. Tonight, Willow had shared a little about the boy he had been, but nothing about who he was now. And that was the man sitting here with him, as much a stranger as when they had first met.

Xander didn’t reply. Instead he sort of nodded and turned on the TV, resolutely ending any further conversation. Jack watched as he shifted down the couch so his head was resting on the back, his blindside firmly toward the older man. Jack took the opportunity to watch as Xander quietly fell asleep, all the while contemplating the mystery that was his son.

***********************************************************

Xander and Jack were careful around each other after that night. By some silent agreement, they avoided deeper conversations and stuck to the little things like they had in Colorado. But the easiness of that trip was lost in the band of tension between them. Xander wondered if he should tell him, and get it over with since it seemed inevitable now that Jack would discover the truth. But it was still too risky, and a part of Xander wanted to keep Jack as far away from the truth as possible for his sake. Oddly, he didn’t want Jack to worry about him, which seemed to be defeating the purpose in light of what Jack had said. Basically, Xander didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing but carry on.

It wasn’t as if Jack was being completely straight with him about what he did either, although Xander didn’t really care as long as it had nothing to do with the supernatural – and from the sound of Sam the astrophysicist and Willow’s discrete peek into their files, it didn’t. So there.

But the secrets still gnawed at Xander while they were at the mall on Friday and watching movies all day Saturday, his own and Jack’s. Would there ever be more to their relationship than the light banter that spread like palm leaves over a hidden trap that held the truth below? And if they talked about it, would they survive the fall? Xander didn’t know. But he could think of a million ways that it could go wrong.

Jack left on Sunday morning without them ever having said anything more about it. Xander had been invited again for Christmas, though it would depend on when he got off work – for both his jobs. As he watched Jack head off for security, Xander sighed and decided that he didn’t have time to stress about this whole . . . thing now. What would come would come. He had other stuff to worry about.


Seven Swans

“There they are,” Jack whispered. He passed the binoculars to Teal’c who lay beside him behind the bushes on the top of a little hillock overlooking a valley where twenty jaffa were putting together a machine of some sort. He needed to get Carter to take a look at this. Since there was so little cover she had stayed with Daniel out of sight further down the slope.

“They are indeed Anubis’s Jaffa,” said Teal’c a note above a whisper. “And to the east there are another several more in the trees.” He handed the binoculars back for Jack to take a look. The colonel counted eight standing around. From their positions he guessed they were guarding something. The intel they had received from the Tok’ra had been incomplete, as usual, and had only warned them about a possible weapon being built. But what Jack couldn’t figure out was why here in this valley? They were miles away from the ‘gate and the valley wasn’t that great a spot for an ambush. Taking one last sweep of the activity below, Jack crawled back from the edge and signaled for Carter to take his place while he joined Daniel below.

“How’s it look?” the archeologist asked quietly.

“Ten working on that weapon, another ten standing guard, and eight off in the trees to the east,” Jack told him. “We’ll see what Carter makes of what they’re building, then get back to the ‘gate.” He looked at his watch; it was almost four o’clock on Earth.

“Do you think the Tok’ra were right about this being a staging ground?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe,” said Jack with a shrug. He always took what the Tok’ra told them with about a barrel of salt. “They’re up to something all right, but I’m not sure what. For the moment it looks pretty low key.” He cast his eye about their six but there was no movement. Above them, Carter and Teal’c were still checking out the scene.

“Sir,” Carter hissed suddenly, “we’ve got two Jaffa heading our way.” She and Teal’c quickly slithered away from the edge and back down the slope until they were crouching beside Jack.

“How far away are they?” asked Jack immediately turning in his crouch to face the hill.

“Approximately one hundred yards,” said Teal’c. “I do not believe they saw us.”

“Did you see enough?” Jack turned to Carter.

“Yes, sir,” his Major replied. “And I think we have time to set up the camera.”

“Do it,” Jack ordered. “Daniel, Teal’c start back for the ‘gate. We’ll be right behind you.” The two men nodded, Daniel shouldered his pack, and they started off. Carter quickly went to work, wriggling back to the cover at the top of the hill with the video equipment while Jack kept watch beside her. The two Jaffa drew closer, probably heading for the ‘gate themselves. They would be hard pressed to get there ahead of them. But soon Carter finished, and with a quick confirmatory nod, they too got out of there as fast as they could.

The way back to the ‘gate was grassy with stunted trees and bushes like the ones scattered about their observatory. Jack hoped to make it back to the trees about half a mile away before the Jaffa caught sight of them but he doubted they would make it. And the sudden shout and blast of staff fire just proved him right. Jack hated it when he was right like this. He swore silently as he and Carter broke into a run. Ahead of them, Teal’c and Daniel returned fire until they joined them in the woods in an all out sprint to the stargate. The Jaffa were slowed down, though not by much, by their clunky armor.

“So much for a nice easy recon mission before Christmas,” Jack panted to Carter as trees brushed past and fallen logs tried to grab their feet. Teal’c led them off the beaten path in an effort to throw off their pursuers, trying to find a spot they could hide in so they could double back, but the trees were too small for cover so they just ran. By the time they rejoined the path, Jack felt like his lungs were going to burst. He checked behind them for the Jaffa who had been slowed a little but were nonetheless still there. A few minutes later, they burst into the ‘gate clearing. Daniel in front ran and dialed home while the rest of them made for the wormhole that blossomed in the stone ring. Staff fire peppered the ground beneath their feet but Jack ignored it in favor of speed. He was the last the dive through the ‘gate, whoosh through the wormhole, and land in a barrel roll on the ramp on the other side, shouting, “Close the iris!”

Jack took a moment to catch his breath from the run before pulling himself to his feet amid the hustle of armed marines and the blaring claxons. Daniel, Carter, Teal’c, all were winded but alive and accounted for. Didn’t look like anyone was hurt. In the control room, General Hammond watched gravely so Jack threw him a cheery if a bit sardonic smile.

“Welcome back, SG-1,” said Hammond. “We’ll debrief in one hour.” Jack glanced at his watch. Four twenty-nine blinked back at him. One hour for the post-mission, one for the briefing, one and a half for the paperwork, two to get to the airport and pick up Xander an hour late. Great. Jack reminded himself for the millionth time to never say ‘yes’ to a quick mission ever again. And he really needed to stop throwing himself through the stargate, he thought as his shoulder protested movement and his knees throbbed from where they had hit the ramp.

The next hour passed in the blur of the well familiar. No Doc, no snakes in our heads, yes General, something is going on there. Jack listened as Carter explained that she thought the Jaffa had been building a platform for something much bigger, though again she didn’t know what it was exactly. Hopefully the video would tell them more – if it wasn’t discovered and destroyed. There really wasn’t much more to add. Jack could practically feel the freedom of the holiday like a little kid in school as the briefing drew ever closer to being dismissed. And then, right after Hammond wished them all a good break and reminded them about the Christmas party, he said those fateful words, “Colonel, could you stay a moment?”

“Of course, sir,” Jack stopped and sat back down in his chair with a forced smile. With all due respect, he could have killed his CO.

************************************************************

Xander glanced at the time on his cell phone again only to see that two minutes had passed since the last time he had checked. The rest of the passengers from his plane had already deserted the baggage claim, leaving him alone with his duffel on a bracket of chairs. He wasn’t sure what felt worse, sitting alone feeling forgotten or the impatience and nervous energy that came from waiting. Jack’s cell was turned off and only his machine was answering at home leaving Xander wondering where the hell he was. Oddly, beneath the slight hurt, his greatest fear was that something had eaten Jack in the parking lot.

Where was he? He was forty minutes late and counting. Not showing was something that Xander would have expected of his own parents but not Jack. Jack was better than that, and this small shattering of expectation only served to remind Xander of how little they really knew each other. Six months, most of that spent apart with only two real visits and a scattering of phone calls and now a few more days to try and get to know each other. Though after Thanksgiving, he wondered if they ever really would.

The woosh of the sliding doors opening grabbed his attention, but it wasn’t Jack who walked through. Had he forgotten? Xander didn’t think so, but the worry lingered. He just wished he would hurry up and get there. And then he heard his name being called from the left. Turning so he could see, he smiled in relief as he saw Jack walking toward him.

“Hey, kid,” Jack smiled, looking more tired and stiff than Xander had ever seen him. “Sorry, I’m late. I got held up at the base.”

“It’s alright,” Xander replied, just happy that he was there and not being digested or anything. “Been a busy week?”

“Yeah,” Jack sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Nothing like being understaffed to load up the paperwork.”

“At your desk all day?” Xander asked, thinking of his stiffness.

“I wish,” Jack half laughed. “I’ve been dealing with stupid requests and meetings for the most part.”

“And they didn’t spring for pizza?” Xander joked, receiving a sideways glance from Jack that wasn’t very amused. “Not even donuts?”

“No. But that sounds like a good idea. You mind stopping on the way home? I don’t feel like cooking.”

“As long as you’re asking about pizza and not donuts,” Xander agreed. His days of sugar subsistence were long over.

“So how are you doing? How’s work?” Jack asked.

“Oh you know, it’s Christmas,” said Xander. “Everyone comes in looking for the perfect present. Some people have some really weird ideas. There was this guy who came in the other day wanting to build an automatic clothesline for his wife so she wouldn’t have to go outside to hang the wash. I tried to get him to check out a dryer but he insisted. Stupid man didn’t know when to quit.” It wasn’t really all that interesting, but Jack smiled anyway and they ended up talking about other customers with strange ideas for the ride home. It was comfortable and Xander found himself relaxing into the easiness of the conversation that held no hidden traps or pitfalls.

They picked up pizza at a place near Jack’s neighborhood and arrived at the house ten minutes later. Xander was staying in the same room so he deposited his stuff there before rejoining Jack at the kitchen table.

“Are you all getting together for Christmas again?” asked Jack as Xander took his first slice, judiciously chosen to have the most toppings. Xander was only staying for four days until the twenty-third. He and Jack had both decided that a short visit was better than a long one at this point.

“Just a few of us,” Xander replied. “Buffy’s home now with Dawn and Andrew, and Willow and Kennedy never left. Giles will be getting back the same day as me. Diana and Vi went to England to Vi’s aunt’s place.

“Robin and Faith are in Africa?”

“Yep.”

“Sounds like another fun filled Christmas.”

“Holiday season,” Xander corrected him. Off Jack’s inquiring look he added, “Willow’s sort of Jewish and sort of pagan.”

“That’s an interesting combination,” said Jack evenly, doing his best not to judge. Xander appreciated it, but it really wasn’t necessary. He thought they were mutually exclusive too.

“You should see our decorations,” he said dryly. “It’s like Santa came in circumcised and decided to follow his wood sprite girlfriend’s suggestions.” Jack grinned. “I’m serious,” Xander went on. “We have Hanukah candles lighting up an Earth shrine with the statue wearing an elf hat.”

“But does it look good? That’s the true test of a decorating disaster,” Jack noted, taking another piece of pizza.

Xander shrugged. “I think I’m used to it now. Though what about you? There isn’t even a wreath on the door.”

It was Jack’s turn to look about his undecorated house and shrug. “We’re celebrating at Carter’s house this year,” he said by way of explanation. “Even when we have it here, I don’t put much out. I’m usually working down to the wire.”

“But you’re a colonel. Don’t you get extra time off?”

“I could,” Jack agreed. “But there’s not much to come home to.” No family except his friends, Xander remembered. And now him. Funny how similar they were in that regard.

“Have you ever thought about remarrying?” asked Xander.

“I’ve thought about it,” said Jack, a little surprised by the question. “Doesn’t mean anyone was available.”

“Who was she?”

“She?” Jack lifted his eyebrows innocently, but Xander knew better.

“You don’t think about getting married without someone in mind,” he said. “So spill. Who’s my potential stepmom?”

“Have *you* ever thought about getting married?” Jack asked instead.

“Hey, no changing the subject!” Xander raised a pointy finger. “You’re not answering the question.”

“Neither are you.”

“It’s a personal question.”

“And I should answer it because . . . ?”

“We’re bonding here. Guy talk.”

“I though guy talk was supposed to be about sports and stuff.”

“The ‘and stuff’ is girls,” Xander said as if he were explaining it to Andrew. Though he suspected Andrew’s mind was on other things.

“Fine,” Jack sat back in his chair, a slight smile playing across his lips. “I’ll tell you if you tell me who you thought about marrying.”

“You first,” Xander agreed, his curiosity piqued.

Jack was silent for a moment before he spoke. “There’ve been a couple actually. One was a woman I met while I was abroad for a couple of months. We were just friends at first, working together and after awhile it became more, but then work pulled me away again.” He paused, then continued. “And the other . . . I still work with her.”

“Fraternization regulations?” Xander asked.

“How did you know?”

“I watch TV. Everyone know about those,” Xander thought it was pretty common knowledge. “What kind of women are they?”

“Smart. Independent,” Jack shrugged searching for words. “They’re both people I respect a great deal.”

“Will I get to meet the one you work with?” asked Xander as he tried to picture her. It was kind of odd that thinking about Jack with someone wasn’t too bad.

Jack shrugged noncommittally as if to say maybe, maybe not. “So what about you?” he asked.

It was Xander’s turn to sit back and think about how to describe Anya. How did you describe a hurricane to someone who hadn’t been there? It still saddened him to think about her, but time had indeed softened the loss into good memories. “Her name was Anya,” Xander began. “She was pretty amazing.” He pulled out his wallet and got out his only picture of her, worn around the edges by a year and a half of grief. It was of her standing by the cash register in the Magic Box holding a fan of twenty-dollar bills and smiling like the sun. Jack took the photo and smiled.

“She’s beautiful,” he said.

“Beautiful and greedy and embarrassingly blunt,” Xander smiled back getting a pair of raised eyebrows from Jack.

“That why you broke up?” he asked.

“No,” Xander accepted the picture back. “We were going to get married. But I wasn’t ready; left her at the altar, families there and everything.” He glanced up to see what Jack thought of that but the older man’s face was inscrutable. “I was afraid we’d end up like my parents. A year later we were almost back together. And then she died.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jack quietly. Xander nodded looking back at the picture. God, he missed her! “She loved money,” he heard himself say. “Loved the way it smelled and the way it could buy her pretty things. Sounds all valley girl when I say it like that, but it wasn’t. She wasn’t.” He looked up. “She thought fifty years was too little time to have together.”

“How did she die?”

“She never made it out of Sunnydale,” Xander answered, and even this half-truth felt like betraying what she had died for. No matter how much she had protested, she had always come through for them against whatever big bad had reared its ugly head. Once again he wondered what would have been had she lived. Would they be married now? He liked to think so.

He and Jack finished eating in silence that was only broken by Jack’s offer of coffee, which Xander happily accepted. His thoughts still centered on Anya, but now he wondered what she would have thought of Jack. She would have wanted to see his gun. And he could just see Jack fluttering about nervously when she would say something about orgasms, perhaps with a witty comeback like Giles, only not as British. Or maybe not fluttering, Xander amended smiling at Jack’s gray and rather dignified head across from him.

“What?” Jack noticed his gaze.

“Nothing,” said Xander. “Just thinking.” Mentally shaking himself, he corralled his thoughts back to the here and now. “So, we going clubbing tomorrow?” he asked.

“Clubbing? Ah, no,” Jack shook his head. “But my CO did invite us over for a Christmas party.”

“Will there be eggnog?” he asked hopefully. Xander loved eggnog. He hadn’t had any good ‘nog since that last Christmas with Joyce. He grinned when Jack nodded. “Then consider me party going.”

*********************************************************

The next evening, Jack waited impatiently by the door for Xander to get ready to go. When he finally emerged from his room in a clean long sleeve shirt, jeans, jacket, and shoes, Jack looked pointedly at his watch. They were going to be late. Jack hated being late.

“Didn’t you hear me tell you we were leaving in ten minutes?” he asked as they got into the car.

“I live with girls. You say ten minutes, I hear half an hour,” Xander replied easily. “Your CO’s not going to kill us for being late to a party unless he’s a social stickler of the deranged kind.” He paused before adding, “he’s not, is he?”

“No,” Jack answered. “Where do you come up with this stuff?” Xander didn’t deign to answer.

As it was they were still the first to arrive. “Jack!” He was greeted enthusiastically by George’s granddaughter, Kayla who threw herself at him for a hug which Jack happily returned.

“Ooff! You’re getting big!” Jack exclaimed, amazed at how much she’d grown since the last time he’d seen her.

“Not that big, Jack,” Kayla protested as she stepped back with a huge grin. “Who’s this?” she asked noticing Xander behind him.

“This is Xander,” Jack introduced the two. “My son,” he added after a brief hesitation. He and Xander still didn’t bring up their relationship that much, if ever, but if it bothered Xander, he didn’t show it as he shook the little girl’s hand.

“I didn’t know you had a son!” Kayla was indignant that he hadn’t told.

“I lived with my mom,” Xander explained with an easy smile.

“Oh. Well it’s really nice to meet you,” she said. Just then, George and his daughter joined them from the kitchen.

Jack introduced Xander, amused at how the young man unconsciously straightened up in George’s commanding presence.

“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” said Xander shaking his hand.

“The pleasure’s all mine, son. Jack here can’t stop talking about you.”

Xander glanced at him, surprised by this news. Jack only shrugged. He really didn’t talk about him that much; George was exaggerating, but Jack didn’t bother to correct him when he was having so much fun. “Now you’ve made me nervous,” said Xander.

“Would I say anything bad about you?” asked Jack mock hurt.

“I don’t know, would you?” Xander asked back, only half joking. He really wasn’t sure, Jack saw, still uncertain about his place in Jack’s life.

“Nothing but glowing praise,” Jack reassured him, making Xander shift uncomfortably. “None of Willow’s stories got out.”

The look of horror on Xander’s face was priceless. “They better not have.”

“Well, I’m sure if you chat up Dr. Jackson and Major Carter, you can get some dirt of your own,” George smugly smiled. “And I know a few stories myself.” Jack definitely didn’t like the grin that blossomed on his son’s face.

“You are an evil, evil, man, sir,” Jack told his CO.

“Yes and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”

And with that, Jack knew that by the end of the night Xander would know every story the General had to offer. He could only thank God most of his exploits were classified.

*************************************************************

A little over an hour later Xander managed to slip away for a moment with a plate full of food. More guests had arrived that he’d met while chatting with George. He really liked the portly General who had regaled him with the many headaches of Jack O’Neill. His father was apparently a practical joker, though it didn’t surprise Xander that much. His favorite story was of when Jack had enlisted Private Shepherd, an actual German Shepherd who had a series of complaints filed against him for insubordination and slobbering on his colleagues. It had taken three weeks for the administration to realize they’d been played.

Now, sitting on the sidelines, Xander watched as Jack talked to Sam and Janet whom he’d met only briefly with her daughter earlier. When Kayla interrupted them, Jack gave her his full attention as if what she had to say was the most important thing in the world. He was good with kids, Xander thought, really good.

But the arrival of Daniel and Murray in his little corner of the living room pulled his attention away from Jack. Xander smiled at them in greeting, watching Murray in particular as he sat with his back straight and calmly began shoveling food into his mouth.

“I see you finally got away from Hammond,” said Daniel in greeting. “I heard he was dishing out Jack stories?”

“Yep. Vengeance for my best friend spilling at Thanksgiving,” Xander replied around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes.

“Well, if he ever gives you a hard time, we’ve got a couple that the General doesn’t know about,” Daniel gestured between himself and Murray.

“Vengeance, as you say,” said Murray solemnly but with a smug little smile that was eerily reminiscent of George’s. Good to know.

“So you’re only staying till the twenty-third?” asked Daniel.

“Yeah, I’ve got to work on Christmas Day,” said Xander. Though not the main reason for leaving a little early, it at least didn’t make him sound like he didn’t want to be there. The truth was all about semantics.

“How has your vacation been?” asked Murray in his precise tone that didn’t sound quite right.

“Good,” said Xander. It was an all-purpose answer but he didn’t really have a better one. “I just got in yesterday.”

“Would you care to join us at the mall tomorrow? We are going on a shopping excursion.”

“I’m not sure Jack’s going to give you much of a choice,” Daniel smiled. “He hates having to suffer alone and he says the rest of us don’t count.”

“I guess, I’m in then,” said Xander, not sure how he felt about going shopping with Jack and his friends. He suddenly felt like Giles in reverse, the young man out of the group, though he was at least grateful he wasn’t going out with a bunch of older women. “You guys Christmas shopping, or what?”

“Christmas shopping,” Daniel sighed. “We’ve been working pretty hard lately. Haven’t had much time to get stuff done.”

“And I shall be purchasing a new hat,” added Murray, very pleased with the idea. Xander eyed the monstrosity of red and white fake fur that sat low on the tall man’s head. He had been wearing a hat the last time he’d met him, too.

“So does the hat hide a perpetual bad hair day?” he asked curiously. “Cause they have stuff for that now.”

“I like hats,” was the simple reply that was and wasn’t an answer. Murray was just weird, Xander concluded. And possibly not human. The words, the posture, the hats – no self-respecting adult wore a Santa hat to an informal party and actually kept it on. But then again, George was wearing a reindeer sweater. Nevertheless, it was rather worrisome because what if he really wasn’t human? The military had to know; those sorts of things didn’t slip by them.

“Anyone want anything else to drink?” Daniel interrupted his musing by standing with his empty cup. Both Xander and Murray shook their heads and the linguist left in search of a thirst quencher. They ate in silence for a moment before Xander decided to go ahead and ask.

“So Murray, where’re you from?”

The big man looked up at him, swallowed the food in his mouth, and said, “I am from Chulak, Colorado.”

“Where’s that?”

“Three hours west of here.”

“Are you human?” The flat stare he received was anything but amused. “Just kidding,” Xander hastily backpedaled. “Though it’d be okay if you weren’t. Mostly. It’d actually depend but since I’ve no doubt that you are it’s not really an issue so forget I even asked.” Murray’s expression didn’t change. In fact, the blank stare was starting to creep Xander out, but finally Murray spoke.

“I am. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Xander waved it off, wishing once more that he’d just kept his mouth shut. It was probably a really stupid idea to antagonize the six-foot giant sitting next to him. He was better off wondering in silence ‘cause the silence wouldn’t kill him. An uncomfortable minute passed during which Xander concentrated on eating and trying to ignore Murray’s watchful eyes. It didn’t work too well; he still felt like a bug under a microscope. He just wanted the other guy to look away.

“Xander Harris,” said Murray suddenly, “how are things between you and O’Neill?”

Xander looked up at the odd use of his name, slipping it into the see-he’s-not-human column before his mind caught up with the question. “Fine,” he said. Other than the fact that they never really talked about anything.

“He worries about you,” said Murray. “He wishes you would not hide things from him.” Xander stared as Murray took another bite of his chicken. Where had that come from? But he knew – Thanksgiving. Secrets peeking out of shadows. Murray returned his gaze with that same calm expression that never seemed to change. “I too have a son that I seldom see,” he said softly. “I know it is difficult, but O’Neill cares for you a great deal. I have known him for many years. He is an honorable man and he will never turn away from you.”

“Even if I’m really Batman?” asked Xander, a little stunned by Murray’s unwavering faith in Jack.

“Even if you are Batman,” Murray nodded once. “Though he lives in Gothem City and not Cleveland.”

“He could have moved.”

“And leave the citizens to the evilness of the Joker? I think not. He would not abandon his responsibility to them.”

“Whose responsibility to whom?” asked Sam Carter joining them with Daniel. The blond woman took the seat next to Murray.

“Batman’s to the people of Gothem City and why he would never leave,” replied Murray. Sam looked at him in surprise, a wide grin breaking out on her face.

“I don’t know much about that,” she said, “but I sure do love Robin’s bike.”

“That was the only reason you saw that movie in the first place,” said Daniel.

“You didn’t like it either,” Sam retorted.

“Well, no,” Daniel agreed.

“You have no taste,” Murray intoned. “It was an excellent movie. Though the first film was my favorite.”

Xander watched as the three friends began arguing over the merits of the Batman movies. Murray loved them while Daniel and Sam kept poking holes in plots and special effects but the banter was friendly and they were having a good time. They were obviously close, closer than Xander had realized the last time he was here. Daniel and Sam seemed to finish each other’s thoughts while Murray had a counter argument for every point they brought up. Xander’s opinion was asked for a couple of times and he had to agree that they were fun in their campy goodness. Soon he was arguing about who had been the best Batman. And every now and then he’d meet Murray’s eyes that were smiling now instead of glaring, but that were still watchful. And they seemed to say, ‘even if you were Batman.’

*******************************************************************

Across the room, Jack watched Xander laughing with his team. It was cool to see the people who meant the most to him together and getting along. Not that he thought they wouldn’t or anything, but it was still good to see.

“Jack, you’ve got a fine son there,” announced George as he joined him at the coffee table he’d commandeered. “A very nice young man.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have much to do with that,” said Jack.

“Maybe not,” the General conceded, “but he does remind me of a certain young sarcastic officer I used to know.”

“Well, I certainly don’t know who you’re talking about, sir,” said Jack playfully to the tease. “So what stories did you tell him?”

“Only the best,” George evaded.

“Stories?” Cassie Frasier said joining them. “You were telling Jack stories and I wasn’t there?” She batted hurt eyelashes at George very disappointed she had missed it. Jack on the other hand was very grateful. Xander knowing was bad enough but at least he had the inside scoop on him. Cassie on the other hand he couldn’t touch, the reason in the form of one short doctor settling in beside her daughter next to him.

“I think you already know enough about me,” said Jack. “You already had an unfair advantage over Xander.”

“It’s still not fair,” Cassie grumbled, though she wasn’t really that upset about it.

“Maybe if you talk to Xander, you can ask him,” suggested Janet with a sly look at Jack.

“Doc, are you trying to set our kids up?” he asked suspiciously.

“I wouldn’t go for him anyway,” said Cassie while her mother protested innocently. Immediately, Jack switched to being offended on his son’s behalf.

“And why not? There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“He’s not my type,” Cassie shrugged. “He’s too . . . happy.”

“Happy?”

“You know . . . going on though life unaware. He just seems like the kind of guy it’d be hard to have a deep conversation with . . . I mean . . .” she stopped, suddenly realizing what she had just said and blushed. “I don’t mean that he’s shallow or anything . . . cause I’m sure he’d not. And he has the whole one-eye thing going for him that’s pretty cool . . .” She trailed off, deciding that stopping was better than digging the hole deeper.

Jack smiled to show he wasn’t offended. He could see how she would get that impression. Here Xander was always smiling and joking, hell most of the time he acted as if the next great disaster was a bad day at work. But then there were the little things he didn’t talk about like growing up in Sunnydale, his parents, his eye. Jack recalled the sad smile he’d worn when he finally mentioned his lost girlfriend. Xander lived in the here and now, not dwelling on the past, not worrying about the future.

“How did he lose it?” asked Janet referring to Xander’s eye.

Jack could only shrug. “He hasn’t told me. I asked the first time we met, and he wouldn’t say anything. I thought at first that it was because we had just met but . . .” He had lied about the deep cut on his arm too. “I guess he’s just not ready to tell me some things,” he smiled for the others, not wanting to bring up things that were better left between him and his son. Though how he would find out without driving Xander away, he didn’t know. From where he sat, it looked like serious fighting, gang fighting, though Xander seemed far from the type to get involved in that sort of thing. And his friends seemed to be involved which was even weirder if it was gangs because the bubbly girls he had met were also not the type. There were just too many mysteries and none of them added up.

Jack sighed and let it go for now as it was neither the time nor the place. Maybe later he’d work up the nerve to ask. Maybe he should just wait until he knew Xander better. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything at all.

**************************************************************

When they got home that night, Xander sat down heavily on the couch, tired from the long evening. Behind him Jack was talking to Daniel as the two looked for the book the linguist had stopped by to get. Apparently he’d been looking for it for a week before he remembered he’d left it at Jack’s after coming over to dinner once. Though from the sound of things, Jack had lost the book too. Xander let their playful back and forth wash over him as he relaxed. He was almost dozing when the phone rang in the kitchen.

It rang once more before Jack picked it up. “O’Neill . . . all right . . . all right . . . call Major Carter. Dr. Jackson’s with me.” Xander heard him hang up, and wondered what was going on. Jack soon appeared from the kitchen, all trace of humor gone from his face. “Xander, Daniel and I have to go to the base. Will you be okay here?”

“At eleven thirty at night?” Xander asked. That seemed a little late to him.

“It’s probably nothing,” Jack forced a smile and Xander could see that he clearly didn’t believe it was nothing. If it were nothing, there’d be some serious shouting going on over the phone right now. No, Jack was worried about something. And Daniel the linguist and Sam the astrophysicist were wanted too. “We’ll be back soon.” Vaguely Xander nodded as he watched them grab their coats and go. They had a silent conversation in eyebrows and headshakes and then they were gone, leaving Daniel’s car in the driveway.

Whatever they were doing, it made Xander nervous all of a sudden. Initiative nervous. Because why did a deep space telescope need a linguist and a Special Forces colonel in the middle of the night?

Wide awake now, he turned on the TV to try and banish his worries from his head but it didn’t work too well. It was only when he heard the electronic strands of the Peanuts theme coming from his room that thoughts of secret military organizations finally went away. Because he suddenly had bigger fish to worry about. After a stunned second, Xander leapt up and ran for his phone that he’d put on top of the dresser.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Xander?” Willow’s voice came down the virtual line.

“Yeah, it’s me. What’s up?”

“We just got an SOS from a slayer in Broomfield, Colorado,” said Willow. Xander’s blood ran cold. “Her name’s Courtney, she’s thirteen – ”

“Her parents didn’t want her coming to training this year,” Xander remembered their only Colorado slayer. The conversation he’d had with her parents had been so frustrating.

“She was hysterical on the phone and hung up before I could get all the details. All I know is that there was a major attack and that she’s in trouble. Have you got a car?”

“If you have directions.” Xander went to his bag and dug out his stake, cross, water gun and liter of holy water. Quickly, he went into the living room and found Daniel’s keys, only feeling a little guilty about borrowing his car. Willow stayed on the phone and gave him directions from her computer in Cleveland. The drive took two hours going almost ninety on the highway. Xander only hoped a cop didn’t stop him but he was more scared about what he would find once he got to Broomfield.

Potentials became slayers when they hit puberty at which time Willow felt them join the network. She had a special locator spell that found the new slayer, wherever she was so that the Watcher’s Council could find her, offer her training, and help her into her new life. In North America, Xander was point man in that department. Now, driving in the dark, he couldn’t help but feel like he had failed Courtney somehow by not talking her parents around. He’d thought he’d done well by getting them to agree to next summer, but now it looked like next summer would be too late.

Once he was off the freeway, Xander followed Willow’s direction to a nice neighborhood in suburbia. And then he saw the fire. A great billow of smoke rose above the houses with tendrils of orange licking at its base. As he drew closer, he heard sirens and shouting and water hoses as firefighters tried to control the blaze. It was like graduation all over again. How was he going to find Courtney in this mess?

He got as close as he could before parking the car and going on foot. Willow had said she had called from the house that was now torching to a crisp. Xander hoped she had made it out alive. A quick look through the emergency vehicles came up with nothing so he moved past them to the edge of the spectators who watched in disbelief. He’d met Courtney once, over a year ago. She’d been in awe of her new power, excited and scared all at once. Where would she be now? Xander just kept walking away from the crowds, the heat of the burning house at his back.

And then he saw her hidden in between two closely growing trees in someone’s front yard, staring at the flames and unnoticed by anyone else but him. As soon as he started walking in her direction though, she looked at him, watching like a scared cat as he approached. Her shirt was torn and dirty, bleeding cuts streaked down her arms and the corner of her mouth was a brilliant red. In her hand she clenched a broken chair leg, her whole body ready and tense for a fight.

“Courtney?” said Xander softly. He held up his cross and stake from her to see, see that he wasn’t burning. “I’m Xander Harris with the Watcher’s Council. Do you remember me?” She didn’t answer but her eyes flickered from his face to his hands and back. “I’m going to get out my driver’s license and my ID card, okay?” He waited until she nodded slightly before fishing out his wallet. The ID card was for the Council, charmed so that it couldn’t be tampered with. He tossed them to the ground in front of her where she cautiously picked them up and inspected them. Courtney looked up a moment later, the tension fading from her.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I – ”

“Don’t be sorry,” said Xander. He walked slowly towards her making sure she wouldn’t suddenly attack him. “What happened?”

“They came.” She turned back to the house. “A whole gang. My little brother let them in . . . there were so many of them.”

“Your family?”

The tears that streamed down her face were the only answer he needed as the girl before him started to shake. Xander reached out a hand to her shoulder offering her the only comfort he could. The gesture broke the wall that had held the reality at bay through the horror of the last few hours and she latched onto him with a wrenching sob of pain. Xander just held on while her world crumbled around her like the house down the street, lost to the violence of the night.

“He said it was retribution,” Courtney cried. “I don’t even know what that means! And then he killed them, right in front of me. They were screaming and I couldn’t do anything!” Her voice broke in her throat in counterpoint to her labored breathing. “I should have died too!” she sobbed. “I should have died!”

“I know,” Xander murmured, rubbing her back. “But you survived.” Survived to live in a world without her family, and though she wanted to die now from the pain, Xander knew that she would make it because she was a fighter. He didn’t need two eyes to see that she hadn’t given up, not in the house, not out here.

After a few minutes, she calmed some, her cries dissolving into hiccups. Beyond them the firefighters had gotten the fire under control, diminishing the flames to embers. “Do you think they’ll be mad?” Courtney asked. “About the fire? It was the only way.” The only way to kill the vampires, Xander knew.

“We don’t have to tell them,” said Xander. They would figure out what they needed to on their own.

“So what now?” she asked. “I mean, my family’s dead. I’ve got nowhere to go. My house is gone. I burned my house!

“Hey, hey, hey,” Xander soothed before she lost it again. Courtney looked at him wide-eyed and terrified. “Let’s not panic.”

What now indeed. The authorities would only take her to a children’s shelter, then foster care if no relatives stepped up to claim her. All were people who wouldn’t know that her family had just been murdered, wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t care. They’d find out she set the fire and then she’d be blamed. What she needed was support right now, friends, family.

“Do you have any relatives nearby?” he asked.

Courtney shook her head. “My aunt and uncle live in Missouri.”

“Is there anyone you want to stay with?” But she shook her head. “Then you’re coming with me,” he decided. He wasn’t about to strand her here, not traumatized and an easy target for the rest of the local vamps. No, the safest thing for her was to come with him now. He handed her his cell phone. “Call your best friend, let her know you’re okay. Tell her your cousin came to get you,” he instructed when she just stared at it then him blankly but after a moment she did as he asked.

A few minutes later, they were skirting the dwindling group of spectators behind the fire trucks, heading toward the car. Not long after that they were back on the road heading for Colorado Springs. It wasn’t until Courtney fell asleep exhausted that Xander even thought about what he would tell Jack.

********************************************************************

To say Jack was worried was an understatement. To say Jack was worried and mad and confused as all hell would be closer to the truth. In fact Jack was pretty pissed off. Things had been bad enough when the Tok’ra arrived with their sudden discovery of Anubis amassing his forces and Jack’s Christmas holiday was cut short. Then he came home around one a.m. trying to figure out what he’d tell Xander only to find that Xander had taken off in Daniel’s car without so much as leaving a note and some pretty hasty unpacking of his bag. The only good thing Jack could see in this whole situation was that most of his stuff was still here, and even that really hadn’t helped his bad mood much

But now it was four in the morning. Daniel had gotten a cab home, and Jack hadn’t slept for worrying about Xander and what the hell he had been doing for the last three hours. He was going to kill him when he got back. Just what was he playing at?

Headlights in the driveway immediately grabbed his attention. He rose as the car doors opened and shut, and was at the front door when it opened. Xander stopped short when he saw the glare Jack was leveling at him.

“Where the hell have you been?!” he demanded. He could see the sarcastic reply forming on Xander’s lips until he thought better of it and answered simply.

“Broomfield.” He licked his lips. “It was an emergency.” And then Jack saw the girl standing slightly behind his son. She was young, barely a teenager with auburn hair that was a tangled mess. Dried blood and dirt streaked her clothes underneath Xander’s jacket that she wore while faded bruises and tearstains peppered her chin.

“I see,” said Jack softly, taken aback. The girl looked like she was about to fall over. “I’m Jack,” he offered her his hand, which she dully shook.

“Come on,” Xander ushered her to his room, leaving her in the bathroom to get cleaned up. “Where’s your first aid kit?” he asked when he returned. Jack got it for him then waited in the kitchen for Xander to get back after getting the girl settled. Jack was so surprised by this sudden turn of events that he didn’t know what to think. Mostly he was confused and even more worried than he had been. His anger giving way to fear which only jumpstarted more anger. He ended up making coffee while he waited.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked when he heard Xander in the doorway. His son didn’t move for a moment but he finally joined Jack at the table. He looked exhausted. Small wonder after a long day and four hours of driving to Broomfield and back.

“Courtney called Willow. Willow called me,” was all Xander said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“She was in a fight,” Jack commented, trying to keep his voice low. “And you both smell like smoke.”

“Her house burned down.”

“So why is she with you?”

Xander looked up then away quickly and didn’t answer. And Jack knew that when he did it would be another lie.

“Jesus, Xander, what are you involved in?” he asked.

“Who said I was involved with anything?” Xander snapped back, getting angry. “She’s a girl from camp this summer. She was in trouble, she called us.”

“She calls people she barely knows in Cleveland instead of her local 9-11?” Jack couldn’t believe it. “She was in. a. fight. I’m not an idiot Xander. I can tell grab marks and punches from a random crash to the ground. And it’s not just her. You and Willow were pretty beat up over Thanksgiving.” That got Xander’s attention. The young man’s head snapped up but he remained silent. “So, yes, I think you’re involved in something,” said Jack. “Feel free to prove me wrong.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“*You *are my business. And if that’s not enough then I think stealing my friend’s car and kidnapping a kid and hiding her at my house make it my business.”

“Fine,” Xander got to his feet. “We’ll go to a hotel. We’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

“Xander!” Jack wanted to strangle him. Running was not going to solve this and he’d be damned if he let his son run out on him now. “I’m not throwing you out. I just want to know what’s going on!”

“Well, I can’t tell you because I’ve got people to protect!” Xander said harshly. They were standing, facing each other now. “Consider it classified, Jack. You should know all about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack felt like he’d been slapped.

“Linguists don’t go on maneuvers, Jack,” said Xander. “And no one on a little shit project gets called into base in the middle of the night five days before Christmas. I’m not an idiot either and I spy with my little eye a secret government program.”

At his words, Jack saw all the fear and distrust his son had for him at that moment and it hurt like nothing else had since his team had thought he’d betrayed them. “Yes, my work is classified,” he said. “But what does it have to do with you bringing home a girl whose house just burned down?”

“Nothing,” said Xander looked away then back, meeting him stare for stare. “I’m just saying, I’m not the only one keeping secrets around here.”

“So you don’t trust me,” said Jack. “Is that it?”

“I don’t trust who you work for,” Xander replied evenly.

“This is me, Xander,” Jack pleaded, suddenly tired. “I’m your dad first. This has nothing to do with what I do or can’t talk about. If you’re in trouble, if you need me I’m yours.”

The young man looked away at the table, uncertainty in every line of his body. When he finally looked back he said, “I’m not in any trouble.”

Jack’s protest at the obvious denial was cut short by a scream from the guestroom. Immediately, Xander bolted down the hall, Jack on his heels. Courtney was thrashing in her sleep while Xander tried to shake her awake without getting hit by flailing limbs.

“Courtney, wake up!” said Xander loudly.

“They’re here!” the girl shouted as she woke with a start. “They were screaming! Oh God – ”

“Hey,” Xander pulled her into his arms while she dissolved into tears. Jack simply watched him soothe the distraught girl, realizing a moment later that this was another side of Xander he hadn’t seen, hadn’t even known about. His son as the adult in control, rocking the poor girl. Xander was the helper here, but why him, Jack wondered. He tried to make it sound simple, but how could it be? If anything Xander should be at a police station in Broomfield right now instead of at Jack’s house. People to protect, he’d said. Courtney? The other girls? They had people to protect them already, families and police, in theory anyway.

“You want a book?” Xander asked a few minutes later when Courtney settled down some.

When she nodded, Jack volunteered to go find one. He didn’t have much in the way of fiction around but he managed to find a Star Wars novel that Teal’c had left behind. Courtney accepted it with a watery smile.

“Here,” Xander reached to his discarded jacket and pulled a rather large wooden cross out of the pocket. Courtney took it from him, her fingers running over the wood in fascination. “I know it’s not much consolation, but they’re in Heaven now.”

“How do you know?”

“Friend of mine’s been there.”

“It should have been me,” she whispered.

“It shouldn’t have been anyone,” Xander countered. “It just is.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right outside.”

He and Jack retreated to the kitchen. Xander once more refused to look at him. “We’re leaving tomorrow,” he finally said breaking the tense silence. “Willow’s getting us tickets.”

Jack nodded, unhappy about it, but what could he do? “What was with the cross?” he asked instead.

“Security blanket,” Xander looked up, appearing very tired all of a sudden. And older than his twenty-three years. The man before him was far removed from the kid of yesterday.

“Security blanket, huh?” Jack didn’t quite buy it. It was becoming a familiar feeling, and one that he really didn’t like. “Don’t you think we know each other well enough to cut all this crap?” he asked wearily, but Xander just gave him an inscrutable look.

“Do you believe in vampires?” he asked.

“Vampires?” Jack repeated, not sure he had heard correctly. He was way too tired to try and follow this. “As in Dracula?” Xander twitched slightly but nodded. “No, why?”

“Could you?” Xander went on.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer the question.”

Jack paused before saying a flat out ‘no’. He wasn’t sure what metaphor Xander was going for but maybe it was one of Daniel’s paradigm shift things. Besides, he’d certainly seen enough other stuff walk out of legends. Only on other planets. So he shrugged and said, “yeah, maybe,” hoping it was the right answer. “Why?”

“’Cause until you do, you don’t know me,” said Xander. With that parting remark, he went and crashed on the couch. Jack sat down at the table wondering what the hell he meant by that before finally deciding that it was way to late – early in the morning to try and figure it out. But as he went to bed himself, he wondered if he would ever have the chance to find out.

*******************************************************************

The next morning Jack woke to find the house empty with a note and brightly wrapped package on the table.

“Jack,” he read. “We called a cab for the airport. I’m sorry that everything got out of hand last night. I left your present on the table. Hope you like it. Merry Christmas, Xander.”

Jack set the note aside and fingered his oddly shaped present. White snowmen grinned up at him from a red background. Gently he tore it open. Inside was a rough wood carving of a flying eagle with a little boy on his back. The detail wasn’t great but the paint helped to fill it out and catch the essence of flight. A loop of string came through the boy’s head for hanging on a tree. It was really magnificent. The maker’s mark on the tail read ‘XH.’

Jack smiled briefly, impressed and touched. And scared he wouldn’t see Xander again.


Eight Men In Black

Jack was distracted all morning. At the briefing of SG team leaders at 0900, he barely heard as Hammond went over the intel they had received from the Tok’ra last night about Anubis on P-something. Basically the General was warning them that the military teams might be called to duty even though it was Christmas. SGs 1 and 6 were the only ones on standby at the moment for the recon missions.

But since Jack knew all this, his greatest fear at the moment was that Hammond was going to call on him for input. Because he really wasn’t in any sort of mental state to know what he was supposed to add since he hadn’t been paying attention to what the General had already said. His mind instead kept going over his fight last night with Xander, trying to figure it out, figure out a way to speak to him again after his son’s flat refusal to talk.

It was just . . . confusing. And frustrating. And he wanted to check out that fire in Broomfield because he was sure it was Courtney Xander was protecting. But from the military? She was a kid. The military wouldn’t care about her unless she was a miniature terrorist in disguise. Wait – that couldn’t be it, could it? Xander as a part of some terrorist cell? The very thought chilled him as he immediately rejected the idea. Not Xander, he wasn’t the type. He didn’t have a mission and he was too lighthearted to care. But then, it wasn’t the lighthearted Xander he had gotten to know that had faced him last night, deadly serious and not giving an inch.

And that was another thought that scared Jack because how could he have missed the capable young man underneath all the friendly banter. He knew he hadn’t, not completely. Glimpses were there, buried in stunned memory of their first meeting and snatches of conversation since. But it wasn’t something he had really thought about before because he had never tried to profile Xander before. He just was. And now the question was what was he doing that he didn’t want the military or government to find out about. That left knife wounds on his arms and handprints on his friends. That had him practically kidnapping a beat-up girl whose house had burned down. That had a metaphor in vampires.

That was maybe the weirdest part of all this. And the most cutting, being flat out told that whatever he and Xander had did not even scratch the surface. But mixed up with the stinging hurt, Jack still couldn’t figure out the vampire thing. All he knew about them was that they drank blood, slept in coffins, and could count really well. Though he didn’t think Sesame Street was what Xander had been talking about. But then sometimes he really couldn’t follow what Xander was talking about, and now he couldn’t ask because his son had taken off, kidnapped girl and all. Though she certainly hadn’t been resisting. But having nightmares of people coming and people screaming – people in Heaven – and taking a cross as a security blanket.

Why had Xander had a cross in the first place? Jack knew he wasn’t religious. But that he did believe in Heaven and Hell. And the friend he’d mentioned, was that Jesse? Anya? But still, why was a cross a security blanket? That made no sense. None of it made sense to Jack’s sleep deprived brain. And Xander had hopped the first plane back to Cleveland.

“Colonel O’Neill?” General Hammond’s voice snapped him back to the briefing at hand. Around him the other team leaders were shuffling to their feet, the briefing obviously over. On his pad, Jack had drawn stick figures with fangs and bat wings, underlined by a row of question marks. One of them wore an eyepatch. Maybe that was it, he though sarcastically as he pushed the pad away face down and turned to Hammond. Maybe Xander was really a vampire.

“Are you all right, Colonel?” asked Hammond a concerned frown on his face.

“Yes, sir,” Jack mustered a smile for him, despite the cold inside. Hammond paused a moment longer before deciding to take him at his word.

“SG-1’s briefing will be at 1100,” he went on. “We don’t have too much information about the planet Anubis is using so we’ll be working with the Tok’ra on this one, Colonel. I expect you to at least make an effort.”

“Oh, I always make an effort, sir,” said Jack. “Besides it’s Christmas. Good will and all that.” Hammond gave him a hard stare but said nothing at the dig. Jack knew he would rather be at home with his granddaughters too and suddenly felt bad for opening his mouth. “Sorry, sir.”

“I’ve had another call from Major Davis,” Hammond continued as if he hadn’t said anything. “Kinsey has moved on from Christmas phone calls to members of the Congressional Appropriations Committee to a few people at the Pentagon. Now, I don’t know any names yet . . .”

“But he’s looking for support come inauguration day,” Jack finished. “Are we sure the election wasn’t rigged?”

“Colonel.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jack sighed. Politics and power. Kinsey and Anubis, both converging pains in the ass.

“I’ll see you at 1100 then,” Hammond dismissed him. Jack nodded and left, his thoughts temporarily redirected angrily at Kinsey for fighting them from the inside. It was no wonder Xander didn’t trust the military, because if Kinsey was in charge?

Which reminded Jack of Xander’s own deduction that he worked on a top secret project. He sighed again. They really needed to come up with a better cover story, especially for why Daniel worked for them. He still didn’t know how he was going to explain this one to the General. Arrrrgh! Why did all this have to hit the fan right now? God, he needed a cup of coffee. Daniel better have something good and strong, he thought as he neared the archeologist’s office. Cause if he didn’t Jack would be very disappointed.

A quick glance at the coffeepot perched precariously on a filing cabinet showed good news, however, the first Jack had had all day.

“Jack,” Daniel said by way of greeting when he came in without knocking.

“Hey, Daniel,” Jack gave him a half-hearted smile. He made his way carefully to the coffee, grabbing the spare mug from an equally precarious position on a stack of books nearby.

“Bad news?” Daniel finally asked, his voice filtering softly over the stream of dark liquid.

Jack shrugged, turning and taking a sip. He leaned back against the cabinet. “Same as last night. Briefing’s at 1100.”

Daniel waited a beat, then asked, “Then what’s with the . . . long face?” he settled on.

Jack rubbed a tired hand over his face sincerely hoping he didn’t look as bad as he felt, but at the same time knowing he did. But he was glad Daniel had asked. Saved having to bring it up himself at least. “Xander left this morning,” he answered.

“Left?” Daniel was surprised as well he should be. “He didn’t come back?”

“He came back,” Jack corrected. “Around four this morning. Brought a ten-year old girl with him. Said her house had burned down. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on beyond that. They left for Cleveland this morning before I got up.”

Daniel stared in surprise, a crease forming between is eyes. “He just left?”

“We kinda had a fight,” Jack admitted. He smiled sourly. “Turns out he’s stubborn too.”

Daniel didn’t crack a smile. “I’m amazed he got a flight out.”

“What?”

“Four days before Christmas he got a flight home within what? six hours of needing it?”

It was expensive too, now that Jack thought about. He knew Xander had a job but he didn’t think he made that kind of money. Drugs? Again, Jack rejected the idea. There were no signs of that, though the vampire metaphor might fit, sucking his life away little by little. But what did a girl’s house burning down mean? Who was Xander protecting?

“Jack,” Daniel repeated his name he realized.

“Sorry, what?”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” He shrugged in answer. Daniel glanced back at the computer screen he’d been working on, hit a few keys, then turned back to Jack. “Explain what happened again.”

“What happened?” asked Carter as she walked in with Teal’c. Jack noticed she had brought her own mug.

“Xander left this morning,” Jack said moving out of her way. Both Carter and Teal’c stopped short at the news while Jack went on to tell about the girl, her nightmare, and Xander’s complete lack of trust in him or the government. “And he figured out that I work for a top secret project,” he finished, hearing again in memory the harsh accusation that Jack had lied to him too.

“Xander Harris is most perceptive,” said Teal’c. “Last night he asked me if I was human.”

“He what?!” Jack started so violently his coffee sloshed over his hand.

“He asked if I was human and then hastily retracted the question,” Teal’c repeated. “I believe. It was difficult to follow but he did not press the subject.”

Perceptive indeed, thought Jack worried more than ever. Now what did that mean? His mental list of mysteries was getting way to long. “Daniel, what do you know about vampires?” he asked.

“Vampires?” both he and Carter chorused at this new wrench in the works.

“He said I wouldn’t know him until I believed in vampires,” Jack explained with another grimace. “And if I knew what that meant you’d be the first to know,” he added off his team’s questioning looks.

“Well, they drink blood,” Daniel offered recovering quickly, his expression furrowed as he thought about it. “Don’t like sunlight, garlic, or religious objects . . . I think you have to kill them with something wooden. Are you sure he said vampires?”

“Dead sure,” Jack grimaced at the pun that slipped out.

“Well,” said Daniel. “I don’t have time to really find anything now, but I will once we get back from the mission.”

Right, the mission. The job they paid him the big bucks for, and yes that was sarcasm. Jack should be focusing on that right now. Daniel and Carter had background research to do and he had to get his requisitions in before the briefing as well. And then there’d be no time while they were offworld figuring out what Anubis was up to – and then he’d be tied up trying to figure out what they were going to do about whatever they found out. No time till later to call and try and patch things up, no time for Carter to make sure Xander wasn’t a terrorist or drug lord, no time to do anything but worry about keeping the planet safe. This really sucked.

But when Jack got back to his office after reminding his team about the briefing, he decided that it was too important to put off. So he grabbed his phone and called Xander’s number from memory only to hang up disappointed when the dull tone of the busy signal washed back across the country.

*******************************************

Xander hung up the phone with a sigh. Courtney’s aunt and uncle in Missouri were frantic and not taking too well to the fact that he’d made off with her after the fire. Suspicious and confused, they had kept threatening to call the police and we’re greatly surprised when Xander had told them to go ahead and even found the local number for them. Speaking to Courtney had helped and finally after two days of phone calls, they had agreed to drive to Cleveland to see her.

From what Courtney had told him, they weren’t very close, but they did see each other every couple of summers when schedules lined up so they weren’t strangers by any means. And family was what Courtney needed right now, people who had known and loved her parents and brother whom she could grieve with. And since they were probably going to become her legal guardians they needed to know the truth about how they had died and accept it sooner rather than later.

Standing, Xander stretched the kinks out of his back that came from sitting too long and glanced out the kitchen window over the back yard. Fresh snow covered the ground and hung lightly on the tree branches like in a picture book. Indented lines of old footsteps crossed back and forth with a new path broken over them that led toward the bench under the trees. Courtney sat there alone. She was still in shock, Xander knew, that phase of knowing but not *knowing* in her heart that they were gone. Buffy or Dawn would go out and get her soon, the Slayer offering training and the teenager a chance to bake cookies or something. It was funny how much better they’d gotten at this, knowing when someone needed time alone and when they needed a distraction. But Xander didn’t smile because it really wasn’t funny at all.

“She still out there?” asked Willow, coming up behind him. He felt her move to just behind his right shoulder, not needing to look at her as he nodded. Willow was silent for a moment, then said, “the police in Colorado are still looking for her but don’t know you took her. They think she ran away.”

“Have they talked to her aunt and uncle?” asked Xander, slightly surprised.

“I don’t know,” said Willow softly. “They’re calling it a Christmas tree fire right now but the investigation’s still open.”

Xander nodded again. It was only a matter of time till the authorities figured out that she was in Cleveland, especially since they weren’t really making a secret out of it. Xander thought back over his impulse to have Courtney call her best friend. A stupid idea but at the time important. Important for her friend to have hope, and yeah, worry a lot, but at least know that she was alive. He wondered if Courtney had ever told her that she was a slayer. He knew she had gone out and hunted a few times, scared and alone but curious and excited about her new power coursing through her blood. She had staked a few fledglings and a minion or two, which had only served to get her noticed by the local posse. Who had then decided to let her know who was in charge.

“Why don’t we quit, Will?” Xander asked quietly. “Why don’t we just wake up one morning and walk away? Leave all the death and danger behind us and never look back?”

No answer, just white snow, pure and innocent, then, “Do you think you could?” Willow’s voice was soft. Xander didn’t answer. He didn’t need to because they both knew the answer was simply ‘no’. It was as much their destiny now as it had been Buffy’s, only theirs by choice.

“We should call the other girls,” he said instead. “Make sure they’re doing okay.” He turned away from the window and the bleakness outside. “Courtney’s relatives are coming. They should be here in a couple of days.”

“I’m going to leave soon to get Giles. You wanna come?” asked Willow. But Xander shook his head, the drive to the airport not appealing to his exhaustion. Willow smiled slightly and then left him to go get her shoes and coat. Xander went to the sitting room and collapsed on the couch. It was the twenty-third and felt nothing like Christmas. He was supposed to be getting back from Jack’s today, home from the vacation that wasn’t.

His last night there was a blur of smoke and worry, shadowed by distrust. Xander didn’t know what scared him more: the fact the Jack hadn’t denied working on a secret government project or his unwavering concern that seemed genuine. No one besides the Scoobies had ever cared so much about what was going on in Xander’s life or had even been worried that he might be doing something dangerous. How was he supposed to react to that? Telling him the truth didn’t seem like an option in light of the secret project, but then for all Xander knew it could be something as normal as an anti-terrorist bomb or something. A linguist would sure be useful there.

And in the back of his mind, Xander couldn’t help but think about what Murray had said, that Jack would stick by him no matter what. And the pleading on Jack’s face when he’d said the same thing. One more time. Jack had been saying it since they met that, that he was going to be a part of Xander’s life come hell or high water. So should he tell him? Was it caution or the cynicism born of being raised by drunks that was holding him back? Xander didn’t know the answer to either question. He just . . . didn’t know.

*************************************************

The first clue Xander had that something was wrong was the sound of birds screaming through his ear, shocking him into wakefulness. His second clue was the green glow that pervaded his and Andrew’s room, lighting it up slightly in some warped version of night vision goggles. He could barely make out the normally red numbers on his alarm clock – it was three o’ seven.

“Wha – what’s that noise?” groaned Andrew from the other bed. Xander could see him curled up against the softening sound.

“The wards have been breached,” Xander told him groggily, rolling out of bed. “Come on, get up.” Barely awake he simply reacted to this new threat and leaned over the foot of his bed to grab his favorite battleaxe and stake from where they lay on top of his toolbox. Behind him he heard Andrew hiss from the cold and scramble for his own stake. Two seconds later the two of them were out in the hallway –Andrew wrapped up in his bathrobe and Xander in his blue flannel pjs. They joined Giles at the end of the wall at the top of the stairs where they couldn’t be seen from the open foyer below. At the other end of the hall, also standing back from sight, were the girls who looked madder than hell that their beauty rest had just gotten interrupted. Willow was the only one missing.

But suddenly her voice was echoing inside Xander’s head. “There are eight of them just past the first ward,” she said. The first ward was at the edge of the lawn. Their cue that the second ward that was etched into the walls of the house had been crossed would be the return to darkness. “I think they’re human but they have guns and look military. Four are approaching the front door, four the back.” She was silent. “They’re not stopping at the light.” The soft green glow that illuminated the house was meant to scare away those who dared attack them.

“Kennedy, Giles, Willow, and Andrew, take position here,” ordered Buffy through Willow’s telepathic link. “Giles and Andrew hide downstairs. Wait till they all get inside then hit them. Kennedy, you and Willow will have to distract them enough so Giles and Andrew can get them from behind.” The younger slayer nodded confidently in understanding. “The rest of us will cover the back.” Without waiting, Buffy led them down the stairs to the kitchen and the back door, ducking and grabbing extra weapons along the way. Dawn she put in the hall bathroom to get at the first person through there, Xander got the spot just behind the dining room door in case they came through there, while Buffy and Courtney covered the kitchen, hiding behind the island counter.

“Courtney, are you ready for this?” he heard her ask the young slayer. “Remember, you’re stronger and faster. Don’t look at the gun; it’s doesn’t matter. You’ll knock it out of their hands before they can use it. Here, this is for you.” Whatever Courtney’s response was, it was too low for him to hear. For his part, Xander felt the rush of adrenaline even as the rest of him stood calm and relaxed, not thinking about anything but waiting for what came through his door.

And then the green lights went out. And it was so quiet you could hear a vampire breathe. He heard the back door creak open, slightly stuck in the cold, then felt the draft as it was opened. Footsteps, barely there and cautious. No voices or whispers, just the suggestion of sound. A minute passed, or it felt like a minute, but then the dining room door eased open, and Xander held his breath behind it, the swinging door sticking open. He heard the stranger enter but he didn’t move far, no more than a couple feet from where he hid. He was waiting for his fellows before moving on. The slight hiss of a radio and the soft whisper of “dining room clear. Leads to a living room.”

And then Kennedy said, “We’re ready,” and Buffy yelled, “Now!” all in his head. The soldier in front of him never knew what hit him. First it was the door, slamming into him as Xander emerged with a burst of energy, then it was the flat of his axe, taking advantage of his moment off balance. In the kitchen he heard the sounds of guns clattering to the floor, and Dawn’s battle cry as she distracted the third who had never made it to the hall. In the foyer, crashing and thumping and an “Ow!” from Willow and a girly scream from Andrew and more sounds of slayer kicking butt and taking names. Xander rushed into the kitchen to give Dawn a hand. She was sword fighting her guy’s gun, mangled at the tip, only holding her own because her blade wouldn’t let him close. Xander came up from behind and banged him over the head, knocking him unconscious. Dawn just grinned and together they turned to watch the rest of the fight.

Buffy’s guy was down, a black lump laying wide eyed and shocked against the wall by the fridge. Buffy stared him down. He started to get back to his feet, slowly, painfully, but the Slayer was simply there before he was fully upright and punching him out.

And Courtney . . . Courtney was on fire. Smaller than Buffy, she fought with the Scythe like the slayer she was. Her guy had regained his gun but it was wrecked beyond usefulness until its only purpose now was to fend of the red weapon of the girl half his size. She couldn’t quite get past his guard, not using her full strength, months of holding back working against her as did her size, yet she was just that much quicker, that much ahead of each counter move he made. And suddenly she was there. She faked high and went with a low kick that knocked the soldier back into the wall. Xander winced when he heard the boards crack from the impact. He was down and out for the count. Courtney stared at him in wonder, her breath slowing quickly now that it was over. And silence reigned throughout the house.

Xander looked at the three unconscious soldiers on the floor, then up at the pajama squad, Buffy already searching out the duct tape, and felt a twinge of sympathy for the men when they woke up, but it quickly faded.

“Is that what it’s like?” Courtney broke the silence. She looked at Buffy with wide, amazed eyes, still holding the Scythe ready for battle.

The older slayer turned and nodded, a slight smile on her face. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what it’s like.”

And Courtney burst into tears. The Scythe slipped a bit in her grip but she never dropped it. Alarmed, Buffy turned to Xander, but before he could do anything Dawn was there, gently taking the weapon and handing it to her sister before gathering the girl into her arms murmuring nonsense.

“I’m gonna make some hot chocolate,” said Xander at large. Chocolate solved most problems and he figured that right now it was what everyone needed before even trying to process what had gone down here in the space of, he looked at the oven clock, twenty minutes. He turned the lights on, and Buffy taped up hands and feet before gong off to check on the others. As he busied himself with the water and mugs and extra doses of chocolatey goodness – tea for Giles – Xander heard the others’ low voices as they decided to put their new prisoners in a corner of the basement in a containment field. Kennedy and Buffy dragged out the four from the kitchen. He heard Velcro rip and metal clank as the soldiers were stripped down to harmlessness then shuffled down the stairs. The scent of burned herbs mixing for the containment spell floated back up, such a natural part of the scene that Xander barely noticed. Everything was ready by the time they came back up.

Courtney and Dawn trailed in from the living room and they all clustered about the island counter. No one said anything, no one really looked at each other. Except for the odd stake or axe on the white surface it looked like they were at a slumber party. A really quiet and depressed slumber party. Xander decided he was too tired to think about it. In fact he was pretty sure that he was too tired to think at all. They drank their hot chocolate.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Dawn said softly, her voice catching in her throat at the unexpected use. Xander glanced over at her where she stood with her arm around Courtney still, a pensive expression on her face as she drained her mug. “We don’t have to do anything with them till after Christmas, right?” she asked hopefully. But the way she didn’t look up said she knew, like they all did, that dealing couldn’t wait.

“Are we still going to the mall tomorrow?” asked Andrew hesitantly. “Because I still need to get stuff . . . for people . . . since we didn’t go Tuesday . . .” he trailed off but Buffy smiled at him.

“And miss the holiday masses?” she asked a little too brightly.

“We need to go to the magic shop too,” added Willow. “So I can redo, you know, the protection spells.” She brightened up a little. “Oooh, and we can get more balsam branches for the hearth. And we forgot to find mistletoe the other day, too,” she gently whapped Kennedy on the arm for not reminding her before.

“Can’t forget about that mistletoe,” agreed Kennedy with her own gentle shove back. Xander smiled, watching as Willow grinned.

Silence fell once more but this time it was a little lighter. Until Buffy said, “Willow can you go get your very-truthful stuff?”

“Veritaserum,” Dawn corrected her quietly as Willow nodded and went to the dining room where it was kept.

“Veritaserum?” Courtney repeated. “Like in *Harry Potter*?” Dawn just beamed and looked smugly at the rest of them, extremely satisfied that another slayer had gotten the reference to the name she had given the truth drops.

“Yep,” said Dawn.

“Cool.” And for the first time a genuine smile eeked out of the corners of Courtney’s lips. The knowledge that the magic of books actually existed and was real finally sunk in in a way that her own power hadn’t yet.

Willow returned a second later with the very-stuff and handed it wordlessly to Buffy. The Slayer looked at the small vial expressionlessly for a moment before leading them to the living room where her guy sat tied to a chair, his head lolling on his chest. Xander wordlessly splashed half of the glass of water he’d grabbed into his face. The shock of cold water had the soldier sputtering back to consciousness. He looked around wildly, taking them all in as he yanked on the rope and tape that held him fast. His eyes that glared defiantly would have been so much more convincing if he hadn’t been so disoriented by the sight of a bunch of kids in pajamas.

Buffy took the glass from Xander and added a couple drops of the truth-maker-teller to the remaining water. “Drink this,” she shoved the glass in the soldier’s face while he yanked his head away. “Look, we can do this the easy way or the way with me holding your nose and forcing it down,” she told him impatiently. When he still made no move to accept she said, “Xander,” and he took the glass while she took the soldier’s head. A minute of snapping teeth and gagging later and they let him go.

“What the hell was that!?” he demanded, anger finally provoking him to speak. “And who the hell are you!?”

“Hey! Watch your language!” snapped Xander with a quick look at Courtney. “We’re the ones asking questions here.”

“You won’t get anything out of me,” the man practically growled.

“What’s your name?” Buffy calmly took over.

“Ethan Sloan. Captain. 0983745-8332.” Over by the couch Dawn was taking notes. “Where’s the rest of my team?”

Buffy ignored his question. “Why did you break into our house?”

“Orders.” Sloan looked unhappy that he had said anything at all. He was going to fight it. The potion only made someone tell the truth as they knew it, and it did allow a little wiggle room around inexact questions. Good thing Buffy was pretty direct.

“And what were your exact orders?” she asked with a little more steel in her voice. Oh, yeah, she was starting to get impatient. Sloan better start talking if he didn’t want the old fashioned Summers treatment.

“To extract Alexander Harris and hold him in a safe location until we received orders to release him.”

Everyone looked at Xander while he just stared at Captain Sloan. Him? They were after him? What the hell? He was of no value, no superpowers, no reason the government would be interested in him. “Why me?” he asked.

“I didn’t question my orders,” said Sloan with a disdainful glare. Right, soldier, don’t ask questions, just do as you’re told.

“Who do you work for?” asked Buffy.

“The NID.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a committee.”

“Commanding officer?”

“Colonel Howard.”

“Where are you stationed?” asked Willow.

“Brighton, Ohio.”

The questions went on but they didn’t learn much more than that besides the hotel they were working out of. Sloan only had his orders; he didn’t know any of the reasons behind them. Black ops trained, yes, but that only meant he and his teammates were highly specialized grunts.

It was about four am when Kennedy and Willow took him back downstairs with the others. Xander was too tired, the late hour and the stress finally making their presence known in the absence of adrenaline. He didn’t want to think right now about being a government target. It actually bothered him less than it should have, but that was probably because he was tired. More awake and he’d be freaking out about the implications. Nevertheless, it still took him a long time to fall asleep.

********************************************

The next morning everyone slept in late. It was almost ten-thirty before Xander and Andrew dragged themselves out of bed and downstairs to the kitchen. Willow and Kennedy were already there making pancakes for everyone, and Giles sat off to the side reading the paper, cup of tea already in hand, looking more awake than necessary. But then, he was still jet lagged so it was no wonder he looked so chipper. Xander contributed to breakfast by putting on the coffee while Andrew was a bit more productive with a skillet and ten eggs. It didn’t take too long for the aromas to rouse the other girls from their warm beds and not long after that they were all comfortably seated in the dining room chowing down on scrambles eggs and Mickey Mouse pancakes.

“So research all day?” asked Willow once the initial feeding frenzy calmed a little.

“Quite,” said Giles. “The sooner we find out why the government wants Xander the better. And we need to know how much they know about slayers.”

“We should probably contact Riley, too,” said Buffy. “See if the Initiative is behind this.” But she didn’t sound very convinced of that, and with good reason. The Initiative if anything, stayed out of their way, especially now that Riley seemed to be one of the top dogs of the program. In fact, his housewarming gift had been a check with a good six zeroes on it that had gotten them through the first year of traveling and training slayers. But it looked like the rest of the government hadn’t gotten the memo.

So why him? he wondered again. If the government wanted slayers, the only thing he was good for as a hostage was pissing them off. Besides, it would actually do no good because Willow would just magic him away, no problem, since military bases probably didn’t have a magical signature much less protection. And you didn’t hear about slayers without hearing about The Witch. So what was up with the Xander kidnapping? It only made sense if they didn’t know and if they didn’t know why were the attacking? Why would anyone care about just him?

And then it hit him like a punch to the gut, so hard that he forgot to chew and ended up choking on his eggs.

“Xander?” asked Dawn giving him a pat on the back while the others looked at him curiously.

“It could be Jack,” he said once he regained his breath. Though it still felt like his breath was coming in gasps because Jack wouldn’t, would he? “He works for a classified project. And he’s been . . . but I don’t think he’d try to kidnap me.” Jack was more the let’s-scream-at-each-other-until-we-settle-it type. He wouldn’t do something like this. He cared too much about wanting the father-son thing to work, surely he wouldn’t throw it all away to curiosity. But doubts flitted around in his head because, well, there were eight black ops soldiers in the basement.

“We’ll find out,” said Willow dangerously. And Xander was suddenly grateful, once again, that she was on their side. And God help Jack if he was behind this. But he wouldn’t be, would he? Xander desperately wanted him not to be. He wanted it to be some rogue group of the Initiative or something, anything other than Jack.

“So Willow and Dawn, you two okay for computer duty?” asked Buffy and the two nodded. “Me and Kennedy will go by their hotel room, see what we find there. Xander, you can get in touch with Riley? See what he knows?” Xander nodded. “Giles – ”

“I’ll help out here,” he said. “We need to reset the wards as well.”

“Okay. When Kennedy and I get back, we’ll go to the mall,” Buffy forced a smile that no one really returned.

“So should I make more pancakes?” asked Andrew, drawing Xander’s attention to the plate that held a remaining three. No one made any move to claim them, but before he could point out the obvious, Andrew went on, “for the prisoners, I mean . . . or we could starve them,” he suggested when he only received blank stares.

“I think I vote for the starving plan,” said Kennedy.

“Seconded,” said Dawn.

“So no pancakes?” asked Andrew. “And I don’t have to make Christmas dinner for them, do I? Because that, like, doubles what I was planning and I’d have to put on my kelvar and face the soccer mom’s at Kroger’s. That’d be like sending Neo against all the Agent Smiths and their kids. You’re not going to make me do that are you?” And Andrew looked so pathetic and terrified that Xander couldn’t help but grin at the thought of him fighting off a hundred housewives with a stick of bread.

“I think they’ll survive on pancakes,” Xander reassured him. No need to go out of their way for the bad guys. If they were anything but human . . . he sighed. Stupid morals.

Once everyone had finished eating, they broke up to go get dressed and get on with their assigned tasks. Willow and Dawn quickly took over the dining room table with their laptops and scramblers and other hacking equipment. Xander grinned to himself when Courtney gummed up to Dawn, listening raptly as the young watcher explained how they were going to break into some of the most secure computers in the country. The girl had a bad a case of hero worship going on. Giles was in the kitchen with a book and supplies for the wards while Andrew did the dishes. Xander grabbed the phone and the official address book and started trying to track down Riley.

The day passed rather anticlimactically as research days often did. Xander ended up taking Andrew and Courtney to Home Depot with him while they were still waiting for Buffy and Kennedy to get back. He needed to fix the battered kitchen wall and part of the banister of the stairs that had gotten broken in the attack. Willow and Dawn were deep into their search for information – Willow having taken a quick break to do the protection spells with Giles – and barely noticed anyone else around them. Giles was actually helping them by organizing the scattered information they dug up and reading some dusty book when he wasn’t needed.

Xander had just started prying off the broken boards in the kitchen when the slayers returned with lots of nifty military toys but little useful information. Half an hour later they left for the mall and last minute shopping, mostly for Courtney. Xander made sure they stopped by the local magic shop on the way home. The best magic shop in Cleveland was no Magic Box. The owner was a New Age “believer” with three kids and a love affair with incense who thought she sold nothing more than health crystals and herbs. Giles had a supplier up in Chicago who gave him discount prices on bulk orders on their more obvious magical supplies, but for basics and mistletoe, it was good enough.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wrapping presents and watching Christmas specials on TV. Xander worked on the kitchen wall, keeping both his hands and mind occupied. Willow and Dawn were still working, but from the mixed sounds that kept echoing form the dining room, they were making progress. Andrew fixed grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and distributed them with Christmas cookies to everyone scattered about.

“Xander?” he came up a few minutes after his initial pass. He held a plate of pancakes with red and green m&m smiley faces. “We should feed the evil army of darkness,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. But Xander just nodded, understanding. He set down his screwdriver and followed Andrew to the basement. It was a large, finished basement that stretched under the whole house. The stairs opened into a den with couches and another TV. False cubicle-like walls partitioned off ‘rooms’ next to the real outer wall, each one containing two sets of bunk beds that housed slayers during the summer. There were two bathrooms at either end. The soldiers had been sealed in two of the rooms, one on each side of the green bathroom with a little strip outside the doors so they could walk between the two rooms and get to the facilities.

“Are you sure it’s just kids?” he heard one of them say from the room on the left.

“Yes,” another sighed, Sloan, and from the way he said it Xander could tell they’d been going over it all day long. “Kids in floral pajamas and bathrobes.”

“The girl who got me looked about ten,” said another glum voice.

“I still don’t believe it,” the first guy replied. And Xander felt a perverse set of pleasure that these government issued lethal weapons just got their asses kicked by a bunch of girls and dorks.

“Better believe it, buddy,” Xander called out crossing his arms across his chest, coming to a stop just beyond the invisible line. Silence from within, then all eight emerged crammed in the little space Willow had allowed them. None of them tried to push forward; they knew exactly where the bars of their cage lay. “Captain Sloan,” Xander nodded to the one he recognized.

“Mr. Harris,” Sloan acknowledged him tightly. “What do you want?”

Xander shrugged toward Andrew. “Though you might be hungry,” he said. Andrew shifted forward and pushed the plate of pancakes through the barrier, waiting nervously while Sloan just looked at it. “No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Xander didn’t care one way or another and he turned to go.

He waited for Andrew to set the plate on the floor. “It’s not drugged or poisoned or anything,” said Andrew. “Just happy faces, see? And if you want milk or kool-aid, I think we have grape left . . . and, uh, well . . . Merry Christmas.” The soldiers looked at each other then back at Andrew, unsure what to make of him or the pancakes. But when Xander glanced at them from the foot of the stairs, he saw Sloan pick up the plate and take it back inside with them.

Xander wondered if they had families waiting for them back home. And he remembered the look on Jack’s face, worried and scared. For him, not wanting him to be in danger, needing to understand. When he reached the kitchen, Xander grabbed the phone instead of his tools. But Jack wasn’t home.

*******************************************

“So the NID has two parts, good and bad. The bad part is what we’re dealing with and it has a lot of really secret projects,” said Willow later that night. It was around eleven and everyone was seated around the dining room table with a glass of wine except for Courtney who had purple kool-aid. “They recruit most of their agents from the military and what they all have in common is a somewhat flexible morality.”

“In other words, people who have no problems kidnapping an American citizen on Christmas Eve?” said Buffy.

“Pretty much,” Dawn nodded. “Anyway, we found Colonel Howard in Brighton and after a little computer magic – mine not Willow’s – we found the guy who gave him his orders from Washington. That guy, Kielly, oversees a project called Area 51 in Nevada.” Dawn paused and waited for a reaction. Which she got.

“Area 51?” repeated Andrew. “There’s really an Area 51? That is so cool!”

“You’re going to tell us aliens are real aren’t you?” asked Kennedy who was watching Willow who shrugged.

“It looks like a research center. Weapons and planes and stuff. There wasn’t any real stuff in the files we found. It was mostly administrative paperwork. No top secret anything was on the computers other than tell us it was top secret. We checked, even cheating,” she ducked her head about using magic.

“And these NID people are in charge of it?” asked Giles. “These weapons projects?”

“No,” Dawn jumped back in. “They just have their people there. Like spies. Kielly isn’t in charge of Area 51, he’s in charge of the rogue NID keeping an eye on it.”

“Like a KGB CIA office,” said Andrew.

“Sort of . But we don’t think Kielly was the top guy giving orders. But there’s no electronic trial to follow so we don’t know who the top guy is,” she gave her sister an apologetic glance.

“So what does this weapons stuff have to do with me?” asked Xander.

“Okay, so here’s where we really had to do some digging,” said Willow as if what they had already discovered was barely anything. “While we were poking around Area 51 we found invoices from an Area 52 but all we knew was that it’s another base somewhere. Then we started looking into Jack again and whatever he’s into. And we found out that he works at Area 52, which is run by the Air Force.”

“Wait,” Xander searched for words, sure he was making the wrong connections but . . . “You’re saying that Jack works at the place that’s sending weapons stuff to Area 51?”

“Yeah,” Willow answered. “We couldn’t find out much of what they do there. We think their sensitive computers are an isolated network like the ones at Area 51, but the ones that were hooked up to the internet had some interesting archeological stuff on them, which was kind of weird. Some of the cultures they were looking at are ancient.”

“And from all over the world,” added Giles. “South America, the Middle East, Europe, China, everywhere.”

“And they took us *forever* to get into,” said Dawn. “Even with Willow cheating.”

“It took me a while to figure out how I needed to get around some stuff,” the redhead blushed. “Whoever designed the system was *good,* really good, some of the best protection I’ve seen. Which just made it harder because you gotta be careful with the magic and technology mixing. That and we didn’t want them to know we were there.”

“So, this and Xander?” asked Kennedy to get them back to the point.

“Well, we’re not sure,” Dawn traced the edge of her wineglass with a finger. “When we went back to the NID computers the only stuff we had that connected was a file on Jack and some other people at Area 52. They don’t have anything else on the place really. It’s always referred to as Area 52 or Project Bluebook or the SGC but nothing on what it actually is. It’s like they don’t keep that info where hackers can get to it.”

“It’s probably all nice and neat in some hard copy somewhere,” Willow sighed.

“All right, so this it what we have,” said Buffy. “The people who want Xander spy on a place that gets weapons stuff from the place where Jack works. Do they spy on the 52 place too?”

“There aren’t any agents there,” Willow shook her head.

“So maybe that’s what they want,” said Andrew. “Agents there.”

“So why don’t they just put them there?” asked Courtney as if it were obvious, but Xander thought he saw what Andrew meant.

“Because maybe they can’t,” he said. “The Air Force has control of Area 52. If it’s so secretive that magic can only get us into the least dangerous computers, then maybe they don’t want people with stretchable morals in charge. Maybe it’s like when Riley joined us to stop Maggie Walsh only before Adam got made.”

“So the NID wants you so they can force Jack, your dad, to let them in,” finished Dawn. “That sounds like my life.”

“Jack wouldn’t kidnap me,” said Xander confidently now. And he realized that he was relieved by this alternate hypothesis. Greatly relieved. And at the same time pissed off that he’d gotten dragged into some government power struggle, especially now since the eight commandos knew that something was up with them. How much time did they have before the government sent more people to find out what had happened to their people they had already sent? How did he tell Jack about the attack without him asking how they had defeated the team? He was already asking enough questions. And now he worked for a secret weapons project? But if Jack were preventing the NID people from taking over, then could he prevent them or others like them from getting their hands on the slayers?

“So what now?” asked Kennedy. “’Cause we can’t just keep eight commandos as pets.”

“Xander?” Buffy turned to him, open and waiting to follow his lead on this one.

“I’m gonna call Jack,” he said slowly. “He at least deserves to know about the NID. But he’s gonna have questions.”

“Perhaps we should treat him like any other parent,” suggested Giles watching Xander closely for any reaction. “Bring him here and explain things to him.”

“He works for a weapons project for the military,” Xander couldn’t help but say, though part of him wanted to do just that. “And you want to tell him about superpowerful girls fighting the forces of darkness?”

“You know him best,” Giles conceded. “But we’ll have to tell him something. And I’d much prefer it to be here where we can control the situation than in some other unsavory place.”

Xander knew he was right, especially with the rate at which Jack was noticing things. Jack kept saying he came first, right? Looked like now he would see just how far he was willing to go. Xander only hoped his gut feeling panned out, but at the same time he couldn’t help but wonder how well he really knew the man who was his father.

***********************************************

Jack stopped short when he entered the briefing room late in the afternoon on Christmas Day. He and SG-1 had just gotten back from their recon mission two hours ago and he had thought that the holiday couldn’t get any worse, but here was worse standing in front of him in the form of Kinsey’s aide all dressed up in a suit and tie. General Hammond did not look happy. No sir, not happy at all.

“Ah, Colonel O’Neill, Merry Christmas. It’s nice to see you again,” the aide whose name Jack had not remembered the first time they had met smiled cheerily.

“The pleasure’s all yours, I’m sure,” Jack answered with a not so sunny smile of his own. His feet regained the ability to walk and he went and sat in his customary chair by the General. His team followed flickering looks back and forth amongst themselves, asking each other what new crap was about to hit the fan.

“Charming as usual,” said the aide.

“Mr. Freyland has a proposal for us from Vice-President-elect Kinsey,” said General Hammond. Who was still as far away from happy as a suicider.

“Oh?”

“Mr. Kinsey feels that you have served your country well over the last several years and deserve a nice rest,” Freyland smiled condescendingly. “I’m sure you’ve been looking forward to retirement, Colonel.”

“I have, have I?” Jack couldn’t believe this. Kinsey couldn’t force him into retirement. Who did he think he was?

“How is your son doing, Colonel?” asked Freyland. “I understand he lives in Cleveland?”

Jack’s blood ran cold. “You son of a bitch!” Jack was on his feet and only Daniel’s quick reflexes kept him from jumping the table and throttling the smug bastard on the other side of the table.

“Mr. Freyland,” Hammond began but the slime cut him off smoothly.

“General I believe your family is missing you today as well. Colonel, I’m sure you would like to talk to your son. Here’s the number.” He slid a piece of paper across the table to him. “I’ll be here tomorrow to pick up those papers.” And with another smug smile, he left.

“General – ” said Jack, shaking off Daniel’s hands.

“Use my office,” Hammond told him.

Jack practically ran and grabbed the phone, his fingers fumbling over the numbers while his mind skipped over any number of horrible things that could be happening to Xander at this moment. Dial tone, then an automated message informing him that the number he had called did not have a voice mailbox that was set up. Which brought Jack up short because that wasn’t how these things worked. Something was seriously wrong here. Had Freyland given him the wrong number? But that didn’t seem likely because that’s not how these people worked. They wanted you to know that they had your son in their possession and that they could and would do anything to him to get your cooperation. They didn’t send cocky young aides to bluff.

Maybe someone on the inside was helping him out? Jack dialed his home voicemail. Please let there be someone helping him out. He couldn’t think about what else a silent phone might mean. “There are . . . five . . .new messages,” said the recording. “To listen to your messages press one.” Jack did so. “First message. Eight thirty-six pm, yesterday: Hey Jack, it’s me,” his son’s voice took over. He sounded normal, like nothing was wrong. “I just . . . um . . . Merry Christmas, Jack. Just wanted to . . . you know, tell you. I guess that’s it. Bye.”

Not kidnapped then, thought Jack as he punched through to the next message. “Second message. Eleven twenty-two pm, yesterday: Jack, it’s me,” his son’s voice again but less unsure. Jack felt a little tension creep away. “Look . . . we need to talk. So call me.”

Talk. He sounded serious but not frightened or anxious. That was last night. He was okay last night. “Third message. Six oh-three am, today: Jack, where the hell are you?” And Xander was not happy. But still not scared. “It’s Christmas morning. Aren’t you supposed to be up by now? I really need to talk to you. Like yesterday. Call me.”

That was this morning. Safe and angry at him for not answering. “Fourth message. Eight forty-one, today: Jack,” Xander’s voice was agitated. “If I said I’ve got eight NID agents in my basement would you give me a call?”

Jack’s heart stopped. He didn’t just say . . . He replayed the message and established that he wasn’t hearing things. How the hell did Xander get eight NID agents in his basement? He played the final message. “Fifth message. Two fourteen, today: So I get it, you’re not home. Probably off eating chicken or something. Did you get my last message? Cause they’re still there, and we’re running out of pancake mix. We really need to talk.”

Stunned, Jack returned to the briefing room. His teammates and General Hammond all stopped talking and looked at him. “So Xander’s safe,” he said with a calm that he did not feel. “And apparently he has eight NID agents in his basement.”

“Eight – ”

“NID agents in his basement,” Jack finished Daniel’s sentence. “Sir, I know we’ve got a lot going on here but request permission – ”

“Granted,” said General Hammond. “And take SG-1 with you. I understand he’s your son, but please remember that there are issues of national security at stake. The higher ups . . .”

“Understood, sir,” Jack nodded. He turned to his team who were still surprised by the news, even Teal’c’s eyebrows seemed higher on his forehead then usual.

“And Colonel, I want to know how your son was able to subdue eight specially trained operatives,” said the General. He nodded again before determinedly leaving with his team. Jack wanted to know too. And he was sure as hell going to find out.

 

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