AN: Unbetaed because honestly I had no clue where I would go to even think about finding someone to look it over – so if you see any glaring errors please let me know so I can fix things. PM me if you want to go over the whole thing with a fine tooth comb, I would be grateful. :D

Description: Tom Harris has more family out there than he knows about, question is – does he (along with Alex and Jack) dare get to know them?

Disclaimer: Not mine… characters property of A. Horowitz and Mutant Enemy.

Watchers & Spies
By Marns AKA Bumpkin
Rated PG-13
Gen
(Wordcount: 4,765)

Alex and Tom came home from school to an odd sight – Jack and some strange one-eyed man sitting together in the living room laughing as they traded stories of some kind. No doubt, and Alex had more than a sneaking suspicion that he was right in this, Jack's were heavily laced with anecdotes of his younger self's antics, with Tom's mixed in liberally too as he was a long time co-conspirator and influence on Alex. Though, Alex thought with some amusement, what kind of influence Tom was tended to be up for debate depending on who you talked to, and that was even before Tom had moved in with Jack and him after Tom's parents had died in that horrific example of why you should never have a flaming row while driving at high speeds. Of course after Tom had moved in he and Alex had only gotten closer, both as friends and confidants – especially since Jack had made sure that MI6 knew that Tom was going to be let in on Alex's 'job'. She'd told them that since he was going to be living there, under their roof, that there was no way she was going to censor herself about what she could and couldn't talk about when at home. MI6 had grumbled and protested, but in the end they'd brought over the forms for Tom to sign and so he'd officially been let in on the secret. That had been a month ago and things had been going smoothly since then, Alex guessed it had been too smoothly – hence the entrance of Cyclops from who-knew-where who was now in their living room hearing god-knew-what from Jack.

He exchanged a speaking look with Tom and saw that he didn't have a clue who the one-eyed wonder was either. Great. Fantastic. Just what we needed. Yet another stranger intruding onto our lives, like we needed something new to try and adapt to yet again. Alex scowled and glared while moving on cat quiet feet further into the room, the two talking didn't register his presence at all. Tom on the other hand moved into the room like the average teenager he was – loud and clumsily – his entrance immediately got Jack and her guest's attention. Jack, seeing them, grinned in welcome, jumped to her feet to face them and crowed, "MI6 screwed up! Isn't it great?"

Alex blinked. His mind was rather blank with shock at his guardian's pronouncement. Tom did the same as Alex but then found his voice when Alex didn't. "Holy totally out of the blue, Jack! What in the hell are you talking about?" Then he stiffened and his eyes slid over to Jack's guest who had also gotten to his feet when Jack did in a show of good manners and stood facing them as well. "Er, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't we sign some nifty papers that said we were supposed to keep our mouths shut about the whole us being involved with the MI6 thing?"

A rather familiar lopsided smile spread over the one-eyed man's lips – very familiar in fact, it looked exactly the same as the one that would cross Tom's lips when he was feeling more than a bit mischievous. Alex's eyes narrowed as he filed away the observation like he did when on a mission and would notice something. Then the man spoke directly to them for the first time and what he said derailed Alex from what he was thinking about. "No need to worry about clearance issues, mine's higher than Blunt's if you want to get technical." He out and out grinned as both boys got a stunned expression at that little revelation, then he continued, "Anyway, I guess I should introduce myself, Xander Harris at your service-"

"Harris?" Alex interrupted Xander, okay so maybe he hadn't been totally derailed. He pointed towards Tom, "You're related to this buffoon?"

"Yep, cousins through our fathers – once removed or second or something like that." He looked a bit sheepish, "I didn't exactly pay that much attention when they were explaining the exact relation. I just latched onto the fact that we were undeniably related, it was all I needed to know to act."

"Act?" Tom asked. "And is anyone going to explain the 'MI6 screwed up' thing at any point?"

"Part and parcel of the same thing." Xander answered his cousin. "See, MI6 – or maybe just Blunt, it really doesn't matter in the long run – they had their nose out of joint when Jack here forced their hand about Tom being let in on Alex's 'job', so feelers were sent out to see if there was any other place or person for Tom to go to. Unfortunately – for them as it turns out – they pinged on me." Xander gave them a sinister little smile, they shivered appropriately. He was about to continue his explanation but their attention was drawn off to the side where a very strange sight met their eyes. Jack was singing softly and doing her version of a little victory dance. But what she was singing, it was enough to make them all shudder – the last part especially.

"~ You've been Nixed, MI6, deep-sixed, out of the mix you bleeding dicks!~ "

"Jack! Enough!" Alex snapped at her. He shuddered, "You're American, don't try and swear in English – it's giving us nightmares!" Jack frowned and then pouted at him but she still stopped. Their peace of mind once again assured, Tom and Alex turned to Xander so that he could finish explaining.

"See I work for the IWC, which stands for the International Watcher's Council, and the International part of that title isn't just lip service – we are truly worldwide. We are also very powerful. A fact that is rather evident when you consider that it's the Prime Minister and Queen that we deal with as our primary contacts here in England, the President in the USA, and other personages of similar rank in other places – this is why I can say my clearance is better than Blunt's. He is only cleared for English matters, I am cleared for International matters – do you understand so far?"

Alex and Tom both nodded. Scarily ultra-powerful International organization that Blunt had poked with a metaphorical pointy stick and gotten the attention of while having a temper tantrum because he was pissy when Jack made him tell someone a secret he didn't want to – nothing hard to understand about that. Stupid yes, hard to understand no.

"Good. Well anyway, the Queen alerted the IWC that someone was fishing with my surname – we checked it out and found a lot more than we thought we would. Family and a really bad situation. We at the IWC really didn't appreciate finding out that MI6 was blackmailing a kid into being an agent, especially not one who hadn't had any counseling or even the time to deal with the death of the last of his family." Xander focused on Alex as he said strongly, "I don't care how skilled you are Alex, that never should have happened to you." Alex jerked his head in acknowledgment while his face got stony. Xander backed off. "Anyway, seeing we are who we are – we decided to fix things. So a few calls later and here I am, Mr. Cousin-something-something-fix-it. Now you guys get to choose – you can sign a few legal papers that we already have prepared and come home with me – or you can stay here and hope that Blunt stays away now that he knows we're onto him." He paused for a beat as all present shared a speaking look, one that quickly degenerated into disparaging smirks. "Yeah, we don't think he's smart enough to keep his distance either, but hey we're giving him a chance. At any rate, back to the subject at hand - both ways are good with us, although I want to reassure you that the two–" Jack cleared her throat and Xander didn't miss a beat, "er, all three of you that is – are very welcome to come home with me. Needless to say, whichever you choose, that I do expect you to read the papers in full before you sign them, alright guys?"

They all agreed in various ways and offered Xander refreshments and a chair to wait in while Tom, Alex and Jack gathered together for a quickie conference.

"I like him," was Jack's contribution.

Alex snorted and said, "You like him because indirectly he's sticking it to MI6. Question is do you believe him?"

"Don't you?" Tom asked, looking back and forth between his two companions. "I mean I know in some ways it sounds too good to be true, but in other ways it sounds too wild not to be true – if you get what I mean."

"What? Genie in the lamp syndrome?" Jack asked confused. "Or are you talking like ala Baron von Munchausen?"

Alex rolled his eyes, he sometimes really wondered about who he was closest to in the world. So Alex's firm reply of "Neither." overrode Tom's confused "Who?" Then Alex drew them back to the reason for the mini-conference, "Look, let's not get off topic here – I personally think he's on the level and at this point wouldn't mind taking the out as long as both of you come with me. What do the two of you say?"

"In."

"In."

Their huddle fell apart and the three of them situated themselves on the couch opposite Xander's chair as they started look over the papers Xander had brought. There were three distinct parts; the custody ones they had been expecting, the version of non-disclosure they used, and finally waiver of liability. The last one was where all three of them felt their credibility being more than a bit strained. That and their eyebrows trying for lift-off.

"Alex," whispered Tom, pointing to a word in the waiver. "What's a 'Hellmouth'? Have you heard of anything like it in any of your 'travels'?"

"No." Alex whispered back. "But look here," he pointed to another section, "I guess it's a good thing that I made sure that you and Jack both knew how to handle a weapon and were at least minimally trained up. Or the two of you would be looking at some serious 'ow' time getting up to snuff."

Tom winced in agreement as he read about the mandatory fitness levels alone, never mind the minimum self-defense and firearms requirements. Then his eyes bugged out as he got a little further along. "Umm, Alex?" He pointed and Alex swallowed hard.

Meanwhile on the other side of Alex it seemed that Jack had reached the same section as she squeaked out, "Lycanthrope? Vampire? Demons?" She turned to look with very wide eyes at Alex and Tom, "Are you reading this? What in the hell would we be getting into?"

Alex snorted. "What in the *hell* would we be getting into? Literally the *mouth* of it I guess from what it says here." And pointed to where Tom had shown him 'Hellmouth'. Tom couldn't help the snicker that escaped him then, even when he had to duck and cover his head when Jack reached over top of Alex and started to whap him around the head with her rolled up set of papers.

"Ow! Stoppit!"

Jack stopped and resettled herself, opening her papers to start reading again as she muttered. "Serves you right, you wisearse. It's your cousin that's dropped this mess on us."

Tom huffed, but didn't bother to naysay her. Alex shifted in his seat like he was uncomfortable, then he said quietly, "I think we're going to have to ask."

"Ask?" Echoed back to him in slightly out of sync stereo and Alex shrugged.

"Yeah," Alex muttered meeting Tom's and then Jack's eyes in turn. "As in 'what exactly are we getting into here?' Because reading this waiver makes it almost sound like I am walking out of the frying pan into the fire. I personally don't see how that helps me at all."

Xander, it seemed, had been patiently waiting for them to do just as Alex had suggested – ask for clarification. That and to reassure them that Alex really wasn't jumping from the frying pan to the fire – after making sure they had signed the non-disclosure papers first of course. "We aren't going to be asking any of you to be active agents in the IWC," he looked specifically at Tom and Alex as he said, "specially not at your ages, but we do have to recognize that just by being with us you are going to be in danger."

"Why?" Came from Tom and Jack.

"And how?" Came from the more detail oriented Alex.

"Because of who we are, what we deal with, and where we are located. Truthfully the danger isn't really limited to just our organization, it's international, but since we actively fight it we do tend to get targeted more often than not. That's why we put in those minimum requirements for fitness, hand to hand, and firearms. We want to make sure that even our version of a civilian can protect themselves if the worst happened."

Alex gaped. "These are the levels you require of your *non*-combatants? Good lord, what do you want from your active agents? Godhood?"

"Heh, all you need are some glasses to polish there and you have Giles down." Xander said with a chuckle. "And no, we don't require godhood – that would be of the bad – but, in a way you're right. Most of our 'agents' do have more than your average human going for them. Slayers and various kinds of magic-users make up the majority of our forces outside of your run of the mill 'Watcher' like me. Plus we have allies among the lycanthrope tribes as well as with some of the more peacefully inclined demon races that we occasionally work with too." Xander made a face. "Unfortunately, among those demonic allies we also have two 'souled' vampires that also help us, but I should let someone else tell you about them as I don't exactly see eye to eye with either of them – or much of a use for them at all really."

The last was said under his breath but Alex caught it loud and clear. He smirked and glanced over to see if Jack and Tom had caught it too. They had, he could tell from the smirks on their faces that matched his. Xander tried to recover from his slip by ignoring their amusement at his expense. He cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair.

"Anyway, magic-users is pretty self explanatory – only the differing methods used really need explanation and I would rather you just ask them because I don't know anything about it as me and mojo is definitely of the non-mixy kind of thing. Slayers on the other hand I can tell you about, they are all girls who have been 'called' mystically into service. Super strong, super-fast healing, prophetic dreams, instinctive knowledge on how to fight, but downside is that all the ooglies are attracted to them like bees to honey - that part isn't so great."

"That, ladies and gents, is what we call major understatement." Tom muttered sotto voce. Alex and Jack snickered while Xander grinned appreciatively. The man could obviously take a joke. That put him miles above Blunt in Alex's book, a huge plus in the pro-column. His joking manner of answer showed he could dish it out too, which was even better.

"Now, now, be nice, coz." Xander chided in a playfully pompous tone. "An adult was speaking, shush!" Grins were shared all around after that but then Xander got serious again. "Now, as I was saying – about the Slayer – they are the real reason you would never be asked to be an agent at your age. Not by us at any rate. See, the IWC recently underwent a change in management and we've really changed how things are done, and or handled. We really didn't agree with a lot of the policies and whatnot the old council had in place, they weren't exactly good. Case in point is that the old one wouldn't really have seen much wrong with what Blunt was doing to you Alex, I'm sorry to say, since they weren't much different in how they made use of their 'assets'."

"What do you mean?" Alex asked.

Xander grimaced. "Well to explain I am going to have to go into a little bit of history here, okay? In the not so far off past there used to be only one Slayer at a time, an unbroken line going back to the first Slayer, Sineya. She even got saddled with the oh so grand label of being 'the one girl in all the world' – not that any cared for the title since to most it was a death knell – and it didn't matter how old she was when she was called, she would have to fight from that point on until she died. Then the next would be called, and the next, and the next, and the cycle would continue – needless to say, they didn't have much of a life expectancy. And since most are called when they are around fifteen you can see how I say they weren't much different. Though in another way they were worse."

Alex had a feeling he didn't want to know the answer but asked anyway. "How so?"

Xander gave him a grim smile as he answered, "Well I don't think that Blunt was cooking up a way to kill you off if you survived to age eighteen like the old Watchers would do to the Slayers that lived that long. He would probably have just merged you in with the rest of his agents, albeit one with a lot of experience that one shouldn't have had at your age, so with corresponding more difficult missions."

Alex shivered. "Duly noted." He could very easily see Blunt doing just that, but then his infernal curiosity cropped up he had to ask though he was quite sure he wasn't going to like the answer. "Why would they do that though? The old Council I mean. If a Slayer lived to eighteen I would think that that they would value her experience and survival instinct if she managed to make it that long. So why would they throw that away?"

"Do you really have to ask?" Xander said softly as he stared intently at Alex out of his lone eye. "Can't you think of why they did it?"

Alex thought about it for a bit. He thought about how he felt after only a year of going on what felt like mission after mission with only short breathers in between. He thought about being forced to fight with no choice from the time Ian had died constantly, with no breaks at all, and somehow managing to survive until he was eighteen. Oh damn, talk about a bad scene – ah well, at least I can feel a bit better about my own situation now. Guess Jack is right, there is a bright side to any situation if you look hard enough.

Finally he said slowly, "I can think of a few reasons, but none of them are good. Most are fixable with a little time or better management of resources in the first place. The biggest two I think would be the PTSD and being hair-trigger after having to fight for at least three years, and both of those can be helped by therapy."

"Ah, but then their weapon wouldn't be out and about doing what they needed it to do." Xander said cynically. "They couldn't have that. So they took steps – ones that made them more like what they were supposed to be fighting, but sacrifices had to be made. Of course they weren't making the sacrifices, guess that's why it was so easy for the lot of them to pull a Dumbledore."

"A 'Dumbledore'?" Tom said incredulously. "Where did that come from?" He also looked a bit clueless on what it meant, but there was no way he was asking – he knew better. Especially with the way Jack was shaking with barely held back laughter beside him. Alex looked just as blank as Tom and Jack rolled her eyes at the two of them being so out of touch.

Xander, on the other hand, looked mortified. He was sitting slackly in his chair across from them with his single eye looking a bit wild that he'd actually used the word as he had. At the sight of the very disturbed man Jack broke down and started to giggle. She seemed to have guessed that it was an expression he'd picked up from the Slayers (teenaged girls that could talk about nothing endlessly - *and* make it angsty) and not something he thought would slip into his everyday conversation and grinned at him. "Too much time listening to fangirlish squee, Xander?"

He shuddered. "You have *no* idea. None." Was all he said, but it seemed that Jack knew what he was talking about. She pealed briefly with laughter again but spared Xander from the hell of having to revisit the fangirlish squee and explained to Tom and Alex, "Guess the two of you haven't had time to read 'Harry Potter' yet or you would know. Dumbledore was the big cheese of the good guys in the books, except most people agree he wasn't all that good when you looked at his actions alone. He meant well, but he didn't go about it in a good way. Ended up hurting a lot of people for no good reason – honestly, the books had plot holes you could drive a truck through and Dumbledore's actions and motives were just some of them."

Alex smirked. "Well with that rousing review at the end there I am feeling glad I haven't read it." He didn't mention he had read some of one due to MI6 giving him one of the books during one of his missions with built in gadgets.

Tom just pulled a face. "Hey, I just heard it was a really bad rip off of Star Wars mixed with some Merlin and mythology crap. As far as I am concerned, no hokey magic and wands will never beat out the Force and Lightsabers thanks – and aliens beat out mythological critters hands down."

"Whatever," Jack drawled, obviously done with the subject. The others, not wanting to keep it alive any more than she did, followed her lead and dropped it. Which let Jack redirect things, "Back to the important stuff." She turned to Xander and fired some questions off in a rather rapid-fire format. "Old council, new council, what's the difference? Why the change in management? Also you said 'used to be only one Slayer at a time' – why and how did that change? Did that have anything to do with change in the IWC? What do you think we need to know?"

"Oooh, mixed bag there." Xander said with a smile. "Alright, lets see; old council vs new council – big difference, huge really, and yeah the change in management is mixed up with why there is more than one Slayer nowadays. See the IWC used to be run by something of an 'old boys network', and we all know how those types are about change – rather 'lets not and say we didn't', if you know what I mean. Their inflexibility, besides being unhelpful to those of us in the metaphorical trenches, also turned out to be a wee bit fatal in the literal end – for them that is. See the big bad we were facing that time had a bit of a scorched earth policy and we were really scrambling to save as much as we could. After the old council was literally blown up, we did our best to consolidate what was left; which got even more desperate when we found out that potentials and their field watchers were being hunted down and slaughtered. We brought as many of the girls we could find to our base so that we could try and protect them. For the most part it worked, our group fared better than the old council did; I guess that's obvious as we are still alive. We didn't come out totally unscathed and the situation had been dire enough that we were forced to activate all the potentials we had gathered at ground zero. Except our luck was very much running true to form; when Willow, my uber powerful witchy friend, was getting ready to do the spell she asked beforehand to make sure they were okay with it, they were. Only we didn't count on the fact that we hadn't found all the possible potentials and so when Willow's spell went out there were many more girls activated *world* over."

"Ouch." Jack said and was echoed by Tom and Alex. "Guess that was a bit of a mess."

Xander snorted. "That's one way of putting it. Regrettably, there were a lot who accepted that had no idea what they were accepting and so were overwhelmed. We had a bit of a time getting that straightened out, we managed thanks be, but it's not something I want to go through again. We've got a system now and the girls are actually very happy now with how things are set up. They get three choices when we find them; to join the IWC full time, to join part time, or to stop being a slayer. Those that chose to come and join the IWC full time have the Slayer Academy and their teams, along with going to school or College slash University. The girls that opted to stay home and only join part time get their support staff made up of a Watcher, a magic-user, and a senior Slayer trainer. The ones who opt out of being a Slayer are left with our card in case they change their minds in the future, but are otherwise left alone. If you guys come with me you would all come to live at the Slayer Academy in Cleveland - where I am based out of – but you need to be aware that the Slayer Academy is a stone's throw from the biggest active Hellmouth left in the world."

"What does that mean?" Tom asked his cousin. "For us, I mean. Why are you stressing that so much?"

"It means that we aren't going to ask you to fight, but we can't guarantee your safety either. I'm stressing it because just by being there you are going to be risking your lives. To put things in perspective so that you might grasp what I am saying here about the danger level – we actually have a running debate going on at all times about what the plural for apocalypse should be – apocalypses or apocalypi."

Alex snorted. "Hellmouth or here – apocalypses or whatever notwithstanding – I'm thinking it doesn't really matter. I'm risking my life everyday under Blunt's tender mercies, and I know that Jack and Tom aren't all that safe here either when it comes to that bastard. Who knows what he'll do to them if he wants to use them to get me to do what he wants. At least there it would be nothing personal. I'm still in."

"I wouldn't be constantly being threatened with being deported or torn away from Alex." Jack said, then as her eyes caught sight of Tom she added, "or Tom either for that matter. I would kinda like to stick with my boys without the threats, it'll be a novel experience. Still in here too." Tom blushed at being included as one of Jack's boys. Alex bumped his shoulder to help him ground himself again as well as to get him to speak up on what he thought.

Tom, it seemed, couldn't think of something meaningful to say to follow up on what Jack and Alex had said, so he just said, "I'm game so I'm still in as well." Then with the mischievous lop-sided smirk that matched so well to the one that had crossed Xander's face earlier he added, "but fair warning, don't expect Jack to cook anything unless you want to spend time in hospital – she can't cook to save her life. She might end someone else's though – life that is - super-healing or not."

"Hey!" Jack cried out indignantly while everyone else laughed.

-end-

I know it's an odd combination of fandoms, but I couldn't resist the similarities between the two Harris' - not just including the names and bad family lives - since they both were shown as slackers and jokers, but still there for their friends when the chips were down. I just thought that it would be fun to play with the idea, hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing.

Marns