"Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" Eight year old Jordan Harris squealed as she heard the front door open and close. Within seconds she was moving out of the kitchen and launching herself into her fathers arms. "Daddy!" She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Well, I'm glad someone is happy to see me." Alexander 'Xander' Harris joked as he wrapped his arms around his little girl, glad to be home. "Where's your mom?"

Jordan buried her face in her fathers neck. "Kitchen." She mumbled against his warm skin. Boy had she missed him.

Xander tightened his hold on the little blonde spitfire in his arms. "Buffy?" He called as he moved out of the hall and into the kitchen. "Honey, I'm home!" Stopping, he took in the sight. His wife of eight years was currently battling the fiercest creature in their house; their two year old son, Jack.

Buffy looked up sharply and a smile transformed her face. "You're early!" She coughed and sputtered when a spoonful of cheerios and milk smacked her square in the face.

"Go get your mom a paper towel, Jojo." Xander told his daughter as he sat her on the floor and went to help his wife with the task of feeding Jack. "Hello there, little guy." He greeted the boy when he turned in his highchair. "Giving your mom a hard time, I see." He pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down on the other side of the now giggling toddler.

"He's definitely your son." Buffy grumbled as she took the paper towel off her daughter and wiped her face. "I thought vampires were bad..." She continued to grumbled as she picked cheerios out of her cleavage. "I'd take them over demon offspring any day."

Xander grinned and ran a hand through the boys blonde hair. "Don't listen to her, Jack. Mommy's just cranky because she missed daddy, isn't that right gumdrop?" He asked all gooey, sickly, sweet.

Buffy glared at Xander. "Sure, pookie." She hated it when he used pet names and he knew that, that's why he used them. "How long you home for this time?" She asked as she stood, taking the half empty cereal bowl when her to the sink.

"Actually, I need to talk to you about that." Xander undid the highchair and pulled Jack free, handing him to his sister. "Can you take him into the living room?"

"Okay." Jordan grunted as the boy was played in her arms and she slowly carried him into the living room where a play area was set up for him.

"What's up?" Buffy asked as she rinsed the bowl out and placed it in the dishwasher. "You didn't get fired did you?" She hoped not, being a stay at home mom meant that they relied solely on Xander's income to sustain them.

Xander shook his head. "I've been offered a big contracting job in California." He paused waiting for the news to sink in. "It would mean a significant pay raise and normal hours. I'd be home every night and weekends."

Buffy frowned. It sounded like a good job but there was one problem. "California?" They had sworn never to return to that state or even that side of the country ever again. "What about Jordan? This place is all she's ever known. She has friends here and a school she likes."

"She's eight, Buff, she'd adapt." Xander really wanted to take this job. It meant more stability for his family. And he liked the fact that he'd get to see his kids every day. Currently, he was working out of state, five months out of the year. "I think this would be good for us."

"But California?" Buffy shivered at the thought of the life she and Xander had left behind eight years ago. "We promised."

Xander knew it was going to take a lot of convincing to get Buffy to agree to the move. "What are the chances that we'd run into them? California is a big state."

Buffy sighed. She knew this day would come but she had hoped that the kids would be all grown up when it did. "It's not them I'm worried about. It's all the nasties that call California home. We're safe here, I don't know why, I just know that we are. 'Nothing weird or strange ever happens in Portland, Maine', that's why we moved here, remember?"

"What about your mom?" Xander switched to another approach. "She doesn't even know she has grandkids...isn't it about time we face our pasts instead of running from them?"

"Maybe." Buffy whispered then chewed on her bottom lip. "I suppose you're right. We couldn't hide forever." Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "Alright, lets do it."

Xander smiled and pulled her into a hug. "That's my girl. I'll go call Rodney and tell him he has himself a deal." He stood and left the kitchen to use the phone in his office.

Buffy watched him go then wrapped her arms around herself. She didn't want to go back but this was a good career move for Xander. But she was tired of running away from her responsibilities. She was the slayer and as such it was her duty to slay vampires and save the world from all the nasties out there. She just hoped her daughter understood because an unhappy child was worst than going up against any demon, any day.

Six weeks later Buffy found herself unpacking in their new house in San Francisco, California. Jordan and Jack were playing in the living room and Xander was off meeting with his new employees and surveying the new job site. She had to smile at the thought of Xander, her Xander shaped friend, giving orders to a bunch of burly contractors that could bench press him with one arm tied behind their backs. A lot sure had changed in eight years. Like he wasn't just her Xander shaped friend anymore, he was her Xander shaped husband. A knock on the door drew her attention away from her musings. "Coming!" She called out then rolled her eyes when the knocking continued. "I said I was coming!" She flung the door open, ready to yell, but stopped when she saw who it was. "Erm...we don't need any encyclopedias!" When she went to slam the door, a foot prevented it from closing. Grunting, she tried to force it closed, foot and all. A muffled hiss of pain was followed by the foot being removed, and she couldn't help but smirk.

"Mommy, there's a strange man looking in the window." Jordan informed her mother then went back to coloring. A bunch of boxes was blocking any view from the window inside to the floor but she could still see the window from where she was sitting.

Buffy sighed and marched over to the window where she promptly closed the curtains but she had to give the man credit because he just moved to another window.

"I know you're in there, Buffy!" The man's thickly accented voice floated in through the double paned window. "You can't hide in there forever!" He declared.

"No, but I can try!" Buffy shot back as she closed those curtains as well. Soon the entire living room was dark. She waited with baited breath to see if the man, she did not want to see, had gone away. A knocking on the back door made her jump. "For the love of..." She trailed off and stormed into the kitchen where she threw open the back door and crossed her arms over her chest. "What?!"

The man blinked and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Nice to see you too, Buffy." He greeted, cheerfully. "It's been a bloody long time."

Buffy hung her head and took a breath. How had he found her and so quickly at that? "Hello Giles." She finally greeted, civilly. "Long time no see, I see you haven't changed."

"And I see you have." Giles took a moment to eye his former pupil. He had to admit that she looked smashing for having been missing for eight, almost nine, years. "May I come in?"

"Sure, why not. You've already scared the neighbors." Buffy waited for him to enter before sticking her head out then closed the door to the outside world. "Thanks by the way."

Giles surveyed the boxes sitting around the rather bare kitchen. "Your welcome. Just move in?"

Buffy leaned against the door. "Cut the small talk, Giles. What is it that you want?"

A wounded look crossed over Giles face but it disappeared as fast as it appeared. "I heard you had moved back to California and I thought I see how you've been...where you've been? Tell you that your mother has been worried sick, same ol' same ol'" He looked sharply towards the living room when a foreign noise caught his attention. "Is that a wounded animal?" He asked, cautiously.

"You could say that." Buffy mumbled as she brushed passed him. "What's going on in here?" She wanted to know as she picked Jack up and tried to quiet him down. "Jordan?"

Jordan pouted. "He tried to eat the green and I needed it!" She motioned towards the slobber coated crayon laying on the floor.

Buffy shook her head. "Go wipe it off in the bathroom." She shooed the little girl towards the upstairs bathroom then turned back to her unwanted house guest. "So...what?" She asked as her former watcher stared at her, mouth open.

Giles was shocked when Buffy returned with a toddler in her arms, a vaguely familiar toddler at that. "You didn't...steal...that did you?" He motioned towards the boy.

"Steal?" Buffy looked down at her son then back to her former mentor. "Noooo." She drew out then chuckled. "I promise I got him the legal way." Seeing Giles uncertain look she hurried on. "I swear. I got the scar to prove it." She used her free hand to lift up her shirt to show him her c-section scar. "See!"

"He...he's yours then?" Giles couldn't believe it. "Y...you have a child?" This was very shocking for him.

Buffy held up two fingers. "Children, actually. Two children to be exact. This is Jack and my daughter Jordan just went upstairs."

Giles cleared his throat once he got over the shock. "And the father? Is he...around?"

"Well not at the moment. He's at work." Buffy told him as she handed him Jack so she could clear off two of the chairs.

"What...?" Giles looked down at the boy he was currently holding like a football. He had to admit that little Jack was a cute baby. He could see clearly that he was Buffy's son but there was some aspects to his appearance that were also familiar but didn't belong to his wayward charge. "And who is the...uh...father?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and took her son back then sat down. "He doesn't bite, Giles, well not anymore." She cooed at the baby then smiled when he copied her. "Who's a good boy? Huh? Is Jack a good boy? I think he is." She tickled his belly. "You're a smart man, Giles. Who do you think my children belong to?"

Giles considered the question as he sat down in the other empty seat. "It can't be Angel, can it?" He sure hoped not.

"Tall, dark, broody, and extremely dead?" Buffy snorted. "Nope, we were too different, with him being dead and me not."

"Alright then. Good, good." Giles line of thought stumbled as he took a closer look at the boy. "He does look a bit like...Xander? Alexander Harris is the father?"

Buffy slapped her hand against her thigh in a form of a clap. "Very good. You figured out that my husband is the father of our two children. However did I survive all these years without you?" Sarcasm dripped from her voice.

Giles cleared his throat, this was certainly unexpected. He had figured that the two had left together but he never thought that anything but friendship was going on between them."

"I was two months pregnant when we left." Buffy could just hear his thoughts. "I won't say that Jordan was a mistake because she wasn't but..." She shrugged. "I can't remember what demon we were fighting but the aftermath was bad. I was so tired and wanted to just quit but Xander...he wouldn't let me. We went back to his place and he had a stash of...well...lets just say that we both got pretty wasted and took comfort in each other. Two months later I found out I was in the family way. I told him and we decided to do the right thing."

"So the right thing was to disappear?" Giles didn't buy that.

Buffy glared at him. "The right thing was to leave the hellmouth and raise our child together. We didn't know where we was going but along the way we decided to make it official. So by the time we ended up in Maine, that's where we had been living, we were a family in every sense of the word. Jordan was born healthy and that's all we could have ever asked for until Jack came along. I didn't come back here willingly, Giles. I came back because of Xander's job. But since I'm here...I am the slayer, right? Duty and stuff?"

Giles frowned and adjusted his glasses again. "Are you certain? Having a family...well...it's unheard of. Most slayers don't live passed their teens let alone into adulthood."

"I'm as certain as I'll ever be." Buffy nodded to back up her words.

"Good. Very good then." Giles nodded too. "I'll tell Willow then? And I'm sure if you need someone to watch the children...Tara would be willing."

Buffy smiled. "So Willow's still a lesbian? At least somethings stay the same." She laughed at the look on his face. "See! Somethings do stay the same!"