Sunnydale Confidential
by Rob Morris
EARLY JULY, 2002
Xander stood before the twin caskets, and he tried to feel grief. But even without what Giles had just told him, the feelings ran too deep. Everyone had said what nightmares his parents had been at the wedding. The antler-horned kid Dawn had chatted up had some particularly insightful remarks. What only Xander understood was that they had been on their very best behavior that day, reinforced by a subtle 'edge-smoothing' spell from poor Tara, her gift when she couldn't afford a more expensive tangible one. All they had done was glare and proposition younger people. They hadn't punched each other or him. They had always somehow made it to the bathroom in time. Not that it had saved the wedding.
Small pins lay in the coffins with them, almost unseen. Gifts from Anya, declaring that since his parents had made him the louse he was, their deaths so soon after her pain satisfied all the parameters of vengeance. Quietly, Harris swore he would allow her only three more verbal swipes before raising the iffy subject of just whose vengeance victim had played with his head. He loved her still, but her actions had played a part in things. Iffier still and held back as only a last resort was the question of the demonic philanderer's perfect timing, and D'Hoffryn suddenly offering to take her back in the wake of it all. Maybe there was nothing there. But if she didn't even out at some point, he would raise it, if only to show her there was more than just his own weakness at play.
"The first time in twenty years you two drive together anywhere, and you both have a fifth of vodka in hand. Brilliant, Mr. and Mrs. H!"
He resisted the urge to go on about anything, to yell out and moan. This was still Sunnydale, and if his loose suspicions about D'Hoffryn and perhaps even Hallie's role in events were correct, they could be waiting for him to make a wish. Besides, there were enough general demons running about that keeping his mouth shut seemed like a very good idea. Between the Buffy-back demon, the musical one, Will's post-Rack thingy and the Old Xander impostor, Sunnydale seemed to be spouting a whole demonic host no one actively remembered calling up.
"Where's the rest of your family?"
Of course she was there, he thought. Especially now.
"Asking the members of Clan Harris to sober up for more than one social gathering a year is apparently too much, Buffy. With Dawn in summer school and Will and Giles in Merry Ole', we're it."
"That's-sad. Tell me, did you-"
"I staked them and then taped them up, just like the Watcher Book said. No one noticed. They're being cremated after, anyway."
Buffy looked concerned.
"You seem so cold about the whole thing."
Xander decided to avoid his usual dance, and just say it.
"Buffy, I'm not their son. They stole me. These two losers sterilized themselves by way of drink. Long before they had me. One day, they saw a couple with twins, decided it was cosmically unfair in that whiny way they managed to imbue me with, and stole the little boy."
Buffy winced, and pulled back from the coffins.
"Crap! How low can you get?"
Xander sat down, and bid her join him. There were certainly enough chairs.
"Oh, they got low, alright. One day, so Giles now tells me, my birth-mother tracked me down, and confronted them. I had no clue who she was at the time. They apparently threatened to say that I had been molested, as was my-my-Wow- twin. She speaks up, lets me know anything at all, they'd gladly make her life hell. So she never did. How could she? They didn't know much, but they knew how to do that."
"Is she still-"
"No. She died last year. Buffy-this is really hard for me. See, she moved here, in part to keep an eye on me from a remove. I knew her. I even saw my real Dad once, barely."
Buffy nodded. She also noted that his behavior towards her had shifted, almost imperceptibly.
"Do you really wanna talk about this now?"
He almost chuckled.
"Yeah. Lots of Freudian stuff, swimming around my so-called brain. And it's important you know."
So he led her outside, to a spot they both knew in the nearby cemetery, and there they stood. Buffy knew, then. It raised a whole host of concerns, answered a whole host of questions, and even managed to make her angry. After a half an hour, Dawn, out of summer school for the day, came by and saw them standing and staring at the sadly well-known spot. She was confused.
"Xander, I dressed up for your parents' wake. Why are you both standing here at Mom's grave?"
LATE JULY, 2002
Buffy tried like hell to gentle her questions to Giles.
It was a challenge. This one revelation did not change everything. In many respects, it merely solidified an already-existing set of circumstances. Yet it was what it was, the unknown once again finding its way into the heart of their lives, mixed and shaken well with the utterly mundane and petty.
"How could they steal Xander? How could Mom and Dad let them?"
Rupert hadn't wanted to break this particular confidence, ever. But the Harrises sudden passing reminded him anew how quickly people can be made to vanish from their lives. He held back still from telling everything. In particular, he vowed to wait some years before telling Xander of how agonizing it was to watch him shaking off a legacy of hate when a legacy of pure love could easily have been his, merely by walking a few blocks. How much of the boy's potential had been utterly squandered by those wastrels?
"The Harrises were moral microbes. Your parents, I have to imagine, didn't know their son was to be stolen."
Buffy knew all that before she'd even asked, of course. But every journey started somewhere.
"Do we know how it happened?"
Giles nodded.
"The-Horaces-were from the same town as The Summers. Joyce was ebullient that she was to give birth to twins, and had told everyone she could. A friend of hers named Patricia had a feud going with Mrs. Harris. She chose to use Joyce's good news to rub in the Harris couple's barrenness. Mind you, I learned that from the woman herself. Joyce never knew, else that friendship would have needed a zombie spell of its own to exist."
Never Buffy's favorite among her Mom's friends, Buffy found the fact that another big-mouthed Pat had a role in this unsurprising. She wondered if her Mom just sought out annoying women named Pat as BFF's.
"The drinking made them sterile?"
"It can have that effect. But in their case, it was all indirect. To make a long sad story short, in one way or another, their constant inebriation utterly ruined their chances of conceiving."
Buffy rubbed her head.
"I used-I used to reach out for someone, I didn't know who, when I was little. Dawn filled in a lot of that. But sometimes, I catch glimpses of my unspliced memories-and I feel so lonely, till Mom or Dad would pick me up. I can't see the Harrises being quite that way towards Xander."
Giles shook his head.
"They did try. For about three years after fleeing here, they kept themselves well enough, and Xander, according to my sources, was a happy little boy. But eventually, the doll they'd stolen had questions, and needed more than those selfish children were willing to give it. You'd think they'd have taken God's message that they were unfit to conceive, let alone rear a child."
Giles referencing any deity clearly showed his disdain in this matter. He was never usually that direct.
"The theft itself?"
Giles looked down, then up.
"Did you know that you were delivered by my older second cousin, Giles French?"
Buffy had heard the story of a former 'Gentleman's Gentleman' aiding Joyce and Hank in their time of need. That he had later been revealed as a Watcher and Giles's kin was just part of the way she now saw her life.
"The one that named me after the little girl who OD'd?"
Rupert felt this one in his gut. That other Buffy had been Mister French's pride and joy.
"At the snow lodge where the two couples vacationed, he kept watch over the newborns while your weary parents rested. One cried and needed to be held. He asked the waiting Mrs. Harris to hold the other. When he turned back, the boy was gone. The Horaces had paid their bills in advance, for once, and were not stopped. They got out ahead of a blizzard. It was all the lead time they needed."
Buffy now wanted to dig up two bodies.
"Xander had a childhood with those two because I needed cuddling!?"
Giles grabbed and held her.
"This is why Joyce admonished me to keep this a secret, at least till all three Sunnydale residing parents had passed. I had almost planned to take it to my own grave. But recent events had me fearful, not merely for our lives, but for the two of you-wellll-"
Buffy finally managed to smile.
"Giles, he had me under a heavy love spell, his hormones at an all-teen high, and me wearing nothing but a leather jacket. If it didn't happen then, then someone must have been watching out for us."
He looked at a portrait of Joyce.
"Don't either of you hate her. She was in hell, keeping it all in. The Harrises would call her weekly, making their threats if she should speak. She had wanted to make him a special birthday dinner when he was eighteen. But-heh-Joyce became afraid that he would think she was making a pass at him."
Buffy still felt confused.
"I don't hate her. God, it makes her overprotective mode make so much sense. Wait-does this have anything to do with Dad staying away?"
"Your father apparently said that he had three children, not two, and that living a lie was not in him. He passed the Harris house one day, and saw Xander weeping with a black eye. It was more than he could bear."
For the first time in years, Buffy sympathized with the absent Hank.
"So what about all the hormonal stuff? Him for me, Dawn for him-maybe me having a stray thought?"
Giles grinned.
"Buffy, none of you were aware, and the teen is a creature made whole cloth out of stray thoughts. Add in the call of connection all of you have felt, and you have-feelings."
She braced herself.
"Anything else? Is he the world's first boy slayer?"
"No. Don't be absurd. His role in your life is well defined. He's your Carpenter."
Buffy shrugged.
"His destiny is to replace the shingles on my roof?"
Giles sat her down, and then sat near her. This one was big.
"Buffy-why are you alive?"
"Willow's magic."
He almost gulped.
"Let me rephrase. Who is the one person who has been at your side, every time you have entered the land of the living?"
Buffy shrugged again, narrowed her gaze-then felt her eyes go wide, and her throat go dry.
"He's...my Carpenter."
She lay down in her bed, and Giles covered her before making for the door.
"Giles?"
"Yes?"
"Willow?"
He was thrown off, until he realized what she was asking.
"Willow Rosenberg-daughter by blood and by birth of Ira and Sheila Rosenberg."
"Thank God, Giles."
On the other side of the door, Rupert added a whisper.
"Willow Rosenberg-who has yet to be told any of this."
In her room, Dawn repeated a mantra-like phrase.
"I am not a freak. I am not a freak. I am not a freak. I am not a freak...I am soooo a freak!"
LATE JULY, 2002
Dawn looked her brother Xander directly in the eye.
"You had her under a love spell. She was totally naked, except for a coat, astride you. Are you aware of what was sitting on you?"
Xander chuckled.
"Yeah, Dawn. I am. I've taken PE and have a humongous Playboy collection."
Dawn looked at Buffy.
"Are you aware that you were an unzipping away from total Defcon 6 family disaster?"
Buffy raised a finger..
"Well, not just an unzipping. Xander always wears boxer briefs. But I suppose I could've gotten around that."
Xander also raised a finger.
"And Defcon only goes up to four."
Dawn's eyes were growing wilder with each pass.
"Love-spell induced sex with your unknown long-lost twin sister raises it to six!"
Buffy held up her opened palms.
"Dawnie-it didn't happen. Xander did the right thing-well, except for asking Amy-who-we-didn't know-was-a-magic-junkie to cast a misguided love spell. But in keeping us apart, he still scored some points-by not scoring. With me."
In the next room, Giles heard this, and looked about, to see if Willow had come home early.
Dawn in the living room was still upset.
"How-in the heeelll can you two be so cool about what, at least in Xander's case, has been a major bout of the hots?"
Xander looked at his new/old twin, and then at his little sister.
"Well, in my case, I'd kind of finally accepted that B/X was never to be. And I am more than happy to pack away a few 'oh-ah' fantasies in exchange for getting you two as blood family. This is a severe upgrade for me. From riding on the wing straight through to first class."
Buffy nodded.
"Minus a few appropriate revisions-what he said."
Dawn now looked at both of them. She was tearing.
"What about me? Suppose I can't just turn all that stuff off? I'm not a spigot. But I think I might be a freak."
Xander grabbed her hand, and held it firmly.
"You are not a freak. Besides, aren't you and I a done deal? Last I checked, you'd moved on to paler men."
She pulled her hand away.
"God! Like I couldn't like two guys at the same time? Besides, do you think I'm so shallow that what Spike tried to do to Buffy wouldn't make me rethink all that?"
Xander felt like a heel-again.
"Boy, do I get wrapped up in myself quickly, or what? Dawn-I almost thought you despised me."
Now, she was crying.
"Not you. Never-you. I hate that you let Anya slap you around. Yes, you did her wrong. But you have to draw the line, Xander. You let other people tell you you're not wonderful. Well, you are. And I don't know if I can just stop thinking about you one way or the other, just like that."
Buffy sat beside her, and wiped away her tears.
"It's going to be complicated, for a while. And what we have to tell you is going to make it more complicated. Dawnie, Xander's moving in. We need the help, and I want him here. Mom would have wanted him here."
If they expected Dawn to bolt in confused anger, she didn't do anything of the sort. Instead, she ran up and embraced Xander.
"Stay. Just stay. I'll deal. Don't go away again. We'll learn to knock. You'll leave the toilet seat down. I'll stop watching Cinemax at midnight for a while."
He looked down at her.
"You have Cinemax?"
Buffy walked over to them.
"Guys, I've had this really wild fantasy about the three of us. Totally insane. In it-we all manage to live happily ever after."
Xander wiped his own eyes.
"I second that emotion-even if we hit our usual set of mega-bumps."
One by one, they turned and looked at Giles, standing by the door-and not standing at all alone.
"Kids? I know I may not be your favorite person, right here and now. But here I am. Now. Can I come in?"
Buffy bit down. Dawn's jaw dropped. Xander felt faint. Giles responded for them.
"I think that they'll need a few hours to ready themselves for your arrival-Hank."
Giles had told him the news, and requested he come immediately. Buffy had to wonder why the news of his ex-wife's death hadn't been enough to do the same. She would learn why today, and though it would largely exonerate Hank Summers, it would also reopen an old wound.
For now, though, he merely bear-hugged his long-lost son.
"I'm sorry. I just never thought I'd get to hold you like this. I-I don't even know what to call you!"
As bizarre as this whole circumstance had been, the man now called Xander Harris found this an intriguing thought.
"What-what would you and Joyce have called me?"
Hank nodded, grateful to be able to tell such a thing at last.
"Scott. We wanted to call you Scott."
Xander looked over at Buffy. Even though she and Dawn were not the sci-fi fans he was, the name was too known to let pass without comment. Dawn nearly snorted.
"You were going to name him Scott Summers? Suddenly, Willow going Dark Phoenix almost makes sense."
At this, Hank looked at Dawn nervously, and then at Giles. He almost seemed to gulp.
"Dawn? If I gave you a lot of money, could you scare up pizzas and such for everyone? I'm starved."
"Anything we want on them?"
"Anything and everything-kiddo."
Perhaps too put off to recognize what she would normally call a familiar tactic, Dawn did just that. Hank then looked at the reunited twins.
"Well, whatever we would have named you, that rapidly became moot when those freaks took you away. I suppose you'll want to know why we didn't fight to get you back, when we first found you here."
Giles took note of Xander's shift in behavior. Perhaps feeling that he was now part of a healthier family unit, he was using fewer quips, and in general acting more secure.
"What's in a name, indeed."
Xander answered his real father.
"No, sir. I know pretty well why you had to mark me off as lost. If you owe an explanation, it's to Buffy. Like-where the heck you've been all this time."
"Xander! Don't."
He raised an opened palm.
"Buffy, I'm not just climbing up on my high horse, here. In fact, I'll go so far as to apologize to Spike for the beating, provided he ever really understands why I hold the past against him. But the Harrises are all the explanation I need to know why my real parents had to let me go. I hope nobody thinks they were just a catty pair of drunks hitting on young people with crude innuendo. Because I understood demons long before I staked my first. They hide what they are, and they lie. But Hank here left you high and dry. I wanna get to know him, who he is, and all that. But I saw the look in your eyes when you hit the secretarial wall on the phone. Sister or no sister-I'd like to know why."
Hank sat down, and grabbed at his head.
"What if I told you that it's all part of the exact same explanation?"
Not sure how much more she could take, Buffy asked a question.
"Does that include why you suddenly sent Dawn off with a lot more than a quarter in hand?"
The twins now stood together, tone and gesture and mannerism marking them as such far more than mere looks could ever do. Hank both grieved inside and rejoiced to finally see this.
"Buffy-Xander-I have no idea who that young girl is. Did-did Joyce adopt her?"
Again, Buffy was and never would be the sci-fi maven her twin brother was. Yet she still chose to use a known reference of that genre, in response to Hank's pleaded query.
"Oh-Boy!"
The man who had once seemed a giant to Buffy now seemed markedly less so. If anything, he seemed a nervous, now not quite so young man, trying hard to explain why he had been away, and looking inexplicably like the brother she had just found, standing right next to her for six years.
"I left. After I dropped you off that one summer, I left and I never came back."
While this was obvious, Buffy felt compelled to add a dig.
"I know. Not even when I ran away."
Hank looked up.
"When did you run away?"
Buffy mentally pictured Joyce during the summer of 1998, standing with her arms folded in defiant pride, refusing to pick up the phone. Burdened or not, her mother could still push buttons, even now.
"Not important. I came back. Mom invited another Pat."
Xander nodded.
"We gave her a lot of pointless grief."
Hank pointed at his son.
"Don't give your sister grief. And don't ever invite anyone named Pat over."
The twins spoke together.
"She's dead."
Hank looked down.
"How? No-I don't want to know. Magic, right?"
Buffy started to sympathize, at least a little.
"Pretty much."
"Then you have reason one why I stayed away. Magic and me are really uh-uh."
Xander got down to Hank's eye-level.
"A lot of things are falling into place. But I think we need a for-uh-uh."
Their eyes met, and Xander gulped. They were his own eyes, on the day he walked out on the woman he loved. Not the color, or even the exact shape. But the weariness. The shame. The gut feeling that he should have been stronger, that he should not have let himself be buffeted by the unseen forces that founded and truly ran Sunnydale.
"Xander-son-I had a vision of pure hell. In it, I walked up to your sister and I blamed her for the divorce. My God. She had no more to do with it than you. It was me, and it was your mother."
He kept on, seeming less sure as he went. Like son...
"After that, I learned all I could about this place. A seer I hired told me who Buffy was. I learned that unless you really knew magic or could hire someone who did, in Sunnydale you were basically a shmoe looking to have spells cast on him at random."
Buffy whispered to a teeth-gritting Xander.
"Remember-he does love us."
Xander un-gritted, and asked another one.
"Was all the rest on you and Joyce?"
Hank looked over at her picture.
"I loved her. But she wanted control in exchange for all the marvelous wonderful things she did. And her definition of control tended to expand. One day, I gave a flat no and it was over. Please understand- she earned 90% of the control she wanted. Earned it outright. But I wanted that other 10% sacrosanct, and she wanted it negotiable. Maybe-maybe I should have just yielded it up."
Not touching that, Buffy went for an off-topic jugular.
"The clinic. Me. Signed away. Six-six weeks, Daddy."
Hank closed his eyes.
"Please. I'm so sorry. But when you were little, you used to reach out for your brother. We told you that you didn't have one, but you insisted until you were seven. Then you just seemed to forget. A psychiatrist I knew said that twins being separated sometimes had side effects. I guess we were waiting for signs that you'd cracked. I guess we saw the talk of vampires as prime evidence of that."
Xander felt a chill, but said what he felt he had to.
"I know what you said. But did part of you want to avoid me, and what I represented?"
Hank looked up, and smiled.
"Back when your Mister Harris was a bully named George Horace, I used to fight him a lot. And the angrier I got-the stupider I fought. You should have seen me. This skinny geek, jumping on his back, pounding away at his head-getting tossed off like I was nothing. I figured that, since he had stolen my boy from me-I'd prolly be so angry, I'd end up punching myself out."
Giles moved from his perch just outside the living room, and made sure that Xander did not faint upon hearing this. Xander spoke well under his breath.
"He's-my Daddy."
Giles then surprised them both.
"You always deserved far better."
Buffy now tried for the most sensitive subject of all.
"All that is great. But Mom died. And there you weren't. I couldn't even call you."
Hank stood up, and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Buffy, until I met that girl Dawn just now, I thought that everyone back here in Sunnydale was suffering from some kind of killer madness. I thought..."
Buffy raised an open palm.
"Iced Tea Break! And I do mean now."
She was badly overheating, and it wasn't just having their lives explained causing it. Seeking pitchers filled with ice and sun-boiled tea, Buffy left father and son to chat.
"Sorry to ride you, Hank. But I've always cared more what happened to Buffy than what happens to me."
"Xander? Could we work on that Hank part? Maybe?"
Xander shrugged.
"Giles says he did reality-checks, so to speak. But I'm still afraid that you'll turn out not to be the real you, or that you're something else entirely."
Hank grinned.
"Heh. You know what you'd have to do if I were an evil duplicate, and the real me showed up?"
Xander shook his head.
"Uh-no. What would I have to do?"
As Hank chuckled and almost began to Urkel-snort, Xander went to help the emerging Buffy with the pitchers of iced tea and the plastic cups. Hank then spoke in an imitation of actor William Shatner.
"You'd have to-shoot-us-both, Spock! Shoot us both!"
This time, Giles was not fast enough to catch the Slayer and her twin as they fainted dead away. He looked down.
"A great many things are falling into place."
Giles placed the exhausted twins on the couch, and their heads fell against one another. Hank became concerned.
"Isn't that an awkward position for grown siblings to be in?"
Giles pshawed Hank's concerns with an open palm.
"Oh, not at all. They've been in far worse than this. Many more difficult awakenings, collapsing embraces, shredded wardrobe-things I shouldn't even contemplate discussing with their father."
Hank nodded appreciatively.
"You're a good man, Rupert. Joyce always wanted things out in the open. She had no understanding of just how wonderful a thing denial could be. Not like when she was younger-and wild. I had this old roadster, and one day, she just plops herself on the hood and gives me this come-hither look. My God. That woman just loved being taken on the hood of classic vehicles..."
"Hank! Shall we repair to the kitchen?"
Hank pointed, chuckling.
"You want me to ask if its broken, right?"
As he left, still chuckling, Giles looked at the sleeping Xander.
"My boy. I never before truly understood what you were struggling against. You never stood a chance."
A voice from the next room chimed in.
"C'mon, Rupert! Tell me all about Dawn-and Tony Orlando!"
Giles rubbed his glasses.
"No. No chance at all. He's rather like a mainframe mega-Xander."
With that vivid imagery dancing in his head, Giles repaired to the largely unbroken kitchen. In order to avoid any further pop-culture assaults, he moved to hopefully answer Hank's questions before they arose.
As Buffy slept, she dreamed. She saw odd images. She was newly delivered, and she was crying. But when she turned and saw that the other one was still there, she cooed.
Flash forward fifteen years or so, and while a red-haired, dear nervous heart chatted away, Buffy looked over and felt herself breathe easy for the first time since her parents had put her away. Something she couldn't define had been restored. Something stolen from her had been given back. And this something had a great interest in her chest and her butt. Yet that prurient interest lent her a form of validation she couldn't explain.
*My brother thinks I'm pretty.*
Her life had been wrested from her, by the thing that looked like the creature from the old David Bowie/Queen video. But she was drawn back, by being fed the same air that had fed her in the womb.
*Are you sure you want me doing this?*
Her one great romance, destined or doomed, was heard through her haze.
*You're the only one who can.*
Had Angel known? Had he scented it? Had Oz? Spike prolly didn't. She had broken his nose often enough. But now, another haze, another threat of death, and now her romance and her brother were at war, as a soul erased by a moment of bliss sought its loathsome revenge.
*Think you can get past me?*
*You're still in love with her, aren't you?*
She could feel his power, then, the kind that didn't express itself in magic bolts or freakish strength. Angelus had no more chance of seeing past Xander than he would have had confronting that goofy guy in Xander's cartoons, the one whose hair turned gold when he fought.
Still later, as she fought the hellgod gone mad, the single best blow she herself did not land came from the man she knew and loved well yet she had not truly known at all.
The last visions were the oddest of all. Her friends stood before her grave. Willow made her odd gestures-and then made one unseen by all except one who stood outside. The red-head whispered.
*Romulus to Remus. One reaches back into Hades; One is pulled back and is freed.*
Now, she saw Xander carry her to the hospital with a bullet-wound that siphoned even her strength. Willow appeared again, to heal the wound. Again, only an outsider could see that the first healing bolt was a sham. The one the angry girl passed through Xander did the healing.
*Astor is reflamed by Pollux. Astor is made whole. Pollux grows dim, for a time.*
Xander's moping had never been worse than just before he talked Willow down. But that was hardly the biggest implication involved.
"Xander? Wake up?"
He shook himself.
"Tell me my hand didn't forget the new rules. OH, geez. I groped you when you were invisible."
She rubbed her head.
"S'okay. You were sexy when you were engaged. I...didn't say that. No. Your hands are fine. But Xander? I think that Willow knew about the two of us. I mean, who we really are."
Xander shook his head.
"No, no. For Will to know we were long-lost etc., and for her not to tell us would be..."
He raised a finger as he finished.
"...completely in character with how she's been acting, this past year."
Buffy stared out at the nearby kitchen, where the two older men were talking.
"I always used to wonder why Mom would ride Dad so much about his behaviors. Now I know. Xander-our Dad's a geek."
Xander shook his head.
"Buffy-I'm a geek. There may be not be a word for what Hank is. Except whatever it is, it probably describes Jonathan, too."
Inside, Giles was covering a lot of familiar territory.
"...Rosenberg, daughter by blood and by birth of Ira and Sheila Rosenberg. She's not one of yours."
So far, Rupert had nailed down the exact nature of Slayers. The running away. Angel before, after, after and after that. The Mayor, although he'd had to re-explain Slayers, more than one at a time. Adam and the whole Initiative business Hank seemed to have understood rather easily, for some reason, though he declared it too Chris Carter-derivative. Then came Glory-and her Key.
"So Dawn is The Key?"
"Yes. But that only matters when cosmic events allow for her usage as such. Since that moment has passed, she is as she appears, a teenage girl."
"So when did Joyce and I have her? And why can't I remember it?"
Giles tried to map this minefield, an ear cocked for the house's front door. He wasn't going to allow what he had to say to travel, just yet.
"You didn't have her. The spell that crafted her was hastily cast. Likely it was dependent on the most deeply affected parties having had recent contact with Buffy. You had not. Probably the effort to fill in the spell's gaps was turned instead towards creating government records and such. Wholly understandable."
Hank tried to grasp this.
"So she's just a spell? The product of one, I mean? She's not related to me?"
Giles listened again. Hearing no one enter or walk nearby, he kept on.
"She has your blood, and any DNA test would show the relationship. But only the memories are false. Dawn is real. Very real."
Hank seized upon some wordage.
"You said a DNA test would show the relationship. You didn't say it would show she was my daughter."
Perhaps, Giles thought, this man was not quite as far gone as he had seemed.
"That's because she is not, precisely, your daughter. Crafted as she is from Buffy's own genetic material-we know this because the spell focused on the Slayer by name-Dawn could be called your granddaughter."
Hank shook his head.
"She's no Buffy-clone. You said the spell was rushed, but while a lot of the looks are there, her hair is a full shade darker than Buffy's natural color. How'd they have time for that kind of detail?"
Here it comes, thought the Watcher.
"As I said, they clearly did not. They needed Dawn to look dissimilar enough not to raise suspicions of duplicating spells. There are those who could have noted a mere 'Buffy-clone' as you put it. So the DNA drawn in was not merely from Buffy, but from that person closest to her by birth. Magic allows that normal concerns about this sort of consanguine DNA combination such as insanity or hemophilia can be bypassed."
"Buffy and Joyce?"
"No. Not Buffy and Joyce."
Hank snapped his fingers.
"Oh, I get it! You're telling me that via magic, Dawn is actually Buffy and Xander's daughter!"
Giles put his fingers to his forehead. A dropping of boxes was heard, as was the sound of a young body hitting the floor. Hank shrugged.
"What's that?"
The thing he had been trying to avoid so soon had happened, thanks to Hank's lack of...simply, his lack of. So Giles just said the obvious.
"Well, given the high volume of your voice as you just spoke, her nigh-impeccable timing, my own bad luck, the fact that this is Sunnydale, and Murphy's Law, I'd say that it was Dawn, returning with the food."
Giles got up to aid the fainted teen.
"Of course, that's merely my opinion."
Dawn was helped over to the couch, and Hank asked a question that might once have been considered Xander-ish, but was now quite firmly Hank-ish.
"Uh, is it me, or do people just faint a lot, here in Sunnydale?"
Xander glared, wishing that Joyce were there to really glare at Hank.
"Hank? Fainted Dawnie? Priorities?"
The older man pointed.
"It's Dad. Okay? Can we agree on that, pal?"
Buffy raised Dawn's head, and Xander her feet. Each placed a pillow underneath as Xander responded.
"Not now. To me, the word Dad still has four-letter connotations. 'Sides, you still need to get reacquainted with Buffy and Dawnie."
The would-be father figure shrugged.
"Well, with Buffy and you, anyway. I'll always love Dawn, though, since she came from you two. What will you tell people about her parentage?"
Buffy stared over at Hank in near-horror as understanding crept into her overworked brains.
*Oh-my God. In Mom, I often saw my very best and very worst qualities in undiluted form. Now, Dad has come back. Xander is my brother. So is this the explanation, as in THE explanation? Dad is Xander at his whiniest, mopiest, least coherent, and most clueless? If Mom was the bulldozer, was Dad the pile of mud she tried but couldn't move?*
"Dad? The story is what it has always been. Dawn Summers, second daughter and third child of Hank and Joyce Summers. End of story."
Xander, faced with his nerdiness squared and then cubed a generation back, literally bit his tongue to avoid asking how the first and second children would be counted. Instead, he tried a helpful suggestion.
"Can I suggest that Giles talk to Dawn while Buffy, me and-Dad-go to the kitchen?"
Hank shook his head.
"Why should Mister Giles talk to her alone?"
Xander shrugged.
"Well, Dad, it just seems that you-have this unfortunate tendency to make people faint. I realize it's not your intention."
Hank nodded and headed back for the kitchen.
"Ok."
Giles looked up at Xander. He smiled.
"You handled that rather well."
Xander stroked Dawn's forehead, and half-smiled.
"Well, you know, Rupert. A man's got to pick his father-figures wisely."
"Even though I've called you a stupid boy?"
"Hey, it kept me away from further magick, didn't it? Except for the musical-demon."
Giles held up an opened palm, which he then shook.
"Xander. The demon was lying. Neither Dawn's touchiness nor your attempted truth-spell had aught to do with his arrival. He lied to make it seem as though one of us was responsible, so as to avoid being summarily slain. He merely searched till one of us confessed to something that could conceivably have called him. The coven made me aware of this. A trait of his breed."
"The demon lied to us?"
"Well, yes. They have been known to do that."
Perhaps feeling just a little less like a complete fool, Xander continued the back-and-forth with Hank while Giles saw Dawn's eyes slowly open. She looked not so much bitter as she looked resigned to dwell in a world where identity itself was under eternal assault.
"They're my parents. My real parents."
"They are very much not your parents."
Dawn sat up, at least partway.
"I have their DNA. I was created from them. I knew Mom for all of six months, maybe. I never met Dad until today. Buffy was my first role model. Xander was my first crush. Do the math."
Giles sighed, rolled his eyes, and looked upward.
"Says the girl who barely saw her way through algebra. Dawn, Joyce saw you as real. She treasured you."
"Hank doesn't know me. The spell didn't affect his memories."
Giles pointed at the kitchen.
"I am not entirely sure that man would remember you if the spell had affected him."
Dawn looked over.
"He is kinda clueless. But Xander's less so, and I'm less clueless than he can get. Tell me, doesn't that indicate a generational remove?"
Giles mind strained with each twist of her logic. He recalled an abominable effort at animating Tolkien.
"Using that thinking, we should all check our lineage for traces of Hobbit. Dawn, your DNA came from their DNA, which came in turn from Joyce and Hank. The other components of your existence resulted from the spell's use of their common affection for one another. That is all."
Dawn folded her arms.
"Mommy and Daddy loved each other very much, and a piece of each of them was used to make me."
Giles was about to counter her, when he realized that, at least in some respects, she was correct.
His mouth opened, then closed, and then finally he spoke.
"Well, if you want to look at it in that way, I suppose an argument could be made for..."
Giles walked over to the recliner, and sat back, quite wearied.
"This sort of thing never happens to John Constantine."
Xander was trying hard in the kitchen, and Buffy had to give him that. She had to hope, though, that he wouldn't try too hard to be Alexander Summers. Reality had taken its path, and she loved Xander as he was.
"Dad-something doesn't sit right with me, now that I've had a chance to think about it."
Hank seemed to appreciate Xander's effort, as well.
"I imagine that quite a few things don't, son."
Buffy wondered where her twin was leading, and then she saw an image of a loud, swaggering man in a courtroom, issuing a denial. It was the late, unlamented Mister Harris. Xander continued.
"Yeah, well, it's about the Harrises. Dad, they were like Pi to the Nth factor more vulnerable to charges of molestation than you and Joy-than you and Mom ever were. That was the one thing they never got around to with me. But as abusive drunks, I seriously doubt their phony charges would ever have held up. You could have had me back in a minute-and I would have been glad to leave there."
His voice began to break, as he spoke those last words. Hank's awkwardness was now nowhere in evidence as he responded.
"Yet we were still vulnerable, if they brought those charges up in court."
Xander felt a rush as those words were spoken. He felt Buffy's rush. He fell through a flood of her memories, as she searched for something grisly. He thanked Heaven when she found-nothing. But now he also wondered why he saw what he saw. Buffy's words drowned this out, though.
"Daddy? You totally weren't. What the hell are you talking about? You wouldn't even watch me bathe after my fourth birthday."
Hank got up, and made himself some ice water. He shook his head as he did.
"When your mother and I found Sunnydale, and failed to make the Harrises cough Xander up, and then they made their threat, we went the smart route. At least we thought it was the smart route."
He sat back down.
"We talked to our attorneys. They seemed certain we could annihilate the Harrises in court. Then, we mentioned Buffy's stay at the clinic. The lawyers asked if it had been a voluntary stay."
"Which it hadn't been."
Xander again didn't need to look at Buffy to feel her pure rage about this subject. Hank gulped, perhaps remembering that his lithe daughter had twenty or more times his strength.
"No, no, it wasn't. And that was our problem. The attorneys said that people who molest their children and wish to keep it quiet sometimes commit the accusing child to a mental institution. Buffy's talk of vampires was documented, and apparently some children who have been used in that way do have delusions about vampires, werewolves and demons. It's-it's a defense mechanism, apparently."
Buffy was fuming. Her face was a mixture of hurt and incomprehension.
"So-what you're saying is, your mistake in locking me away at the drop of a hat not only cost me six long, HUMILIATING weeks out of my life..."
"Honey, please try and under..."
"...BUT, it also cost me six years knowing my brother. My *twin*, Daddy. He wasted time mooning after me. That hurt Willow. Do you have any idea how much pointless hurt evolved from the cowardice shown by two people who so often lectured me on taking responsibility?"
Hank got up, pointing a finger in her face.
"I AM YOUR FATHER!"
Her eyes began to tear up, and she nodded.
"Yeah. You sure are. You ran off, just like me. You got scared and you let it drive you, just like
Xander. You wanted things a certain way and couldn't handle it when they weren't, just like Dawn. Why don't you just try and destroy the world, so you can adopt Willow, too?"
His slap came across her unguarded face, and Hank immediately regretted it. Buffy's face choked in anger and her hand began to ball into a fist. She hurled it forward, and she would have regretted it, but for the man who stepped in between. Her fist met Xander's cheek.
"My God! NO!"
Xander rubbed his now-sore cheek.
"Ow!"
Buffy looked at her brother. His face wasn't shattered, nor any of his teeth loosened. He had notably not flown back tens of feet. She caressed his cheek. The Slayer was confused.
"That wasn't supposed to happen. Xander-punch the table."
But while the table shook, it didn't shatter or crack. Buffy's punch shook one of the legs loose, which Xander recovered quickly. So her strength was not in question. At least apart from this odd occurrence. Xander took the opportunity to end this initial reunion. He threw Hank a set of keys.
"I haven't cancelled the lease on my apartment yet. Go. We'll talk tomorrow."
Hank nodded, and quietly withdrew. Buffy looked up at Xander.
"We-have some things to figure out."
With the address on the keys, Hank arrived quickly at Xander's soon to-be former apartment. He felt as angry with himself as Buffy did. Bringing up how much of the clinic choice had been Joyce's was not going to help him, right then.
"Wow-this is a nice place."
Unpacking one small case, he got into his pajamas, and then into Xander's bed. He felt an odd buzz in the air, smelled booze, and then heard drunken words.
"You bastard-I can't stay away from you. You have what I want-even if I tried to wish it away, or have it fall off. I couldn't-it's too good where it is."
Wholly overwhelmed by the ardor of the intruding young-woman-sort-of, Hank would go to sleep a happy being.
And so would his long-lost son's ex-fiancée. The next morning would prove considerably less blissful.
Back at the Summers' house, Rupert Giles slept. In his dream, Joyce slid off the car hood, a happy side effect of Ethan's vile spell.
*You didn't use protection. Creep.*
*Would've ruined it. But I'll keep you honest.*
So they found the courthouse, signed the papers, and said the words. All of it was forgotten in the chaos that followed.
Till now, as Giles woke with a start. He looked at the sleeping Dawn, and at the twins in the kitchen. A word formed, but refused to be spoken. He kept his reserve at some cost.
"Well, this surely complicates matters."
NORWAY, EARLY AUGUST, 2002
The redone vampire got who he didn't want to speak to on the line, but made the best of it.
"Harris? Bloody grief. Look-don't hang up-you're not going to hang up. Oh. Buffy-Buffy said that you should let her deal with me, in her own way. That's- that's good. Is she there? Oh. Lil Bit's Summer School Grad Ceremony. Only one ticket? For the best. Dawnie's prolly got nerves to spare. Err-she talk to you about her and me and errr-she did. That's why she made you promise to scamper off, if I show. Will you? Well, pally, you beat the holy crap outta-OK, if it had been you and Dru somehow, yeah. You're-sorry?"
Spike put down the receiver. He breathed in, quite deliberately, despite not needing to.
"Yeah-I'm here. I just never expected to hear...Look, how's every little...she did? But you lot stopped her, right? Yeah, I guess the world is still here and all. Dumb question. So what else gives, cause' you seem like a whole different..."
For the next ten minutes, Spike heard Xander explain the incredible revelations of the month prior. Every up and down. Every change. Everything. Spike then reacted.
"Look, you stupid git! If you didn't want to tell me what's going on there, just tell me to bugger off and have done! Don't waste my time yanking it for all I'm worth. I thought you'd changed!"
Spike hung up, angrily.
"Wonder what dime-store romance he lifted all that from?"
ENGLAND
She heard the hello on the other end. Buffy. She probably thought it was Angel.
She heard the hello on the other end. Dawnie. She sounded very, very happy.
She heard the hello on the other end. Xander. He'd moved in with them. Like a shot.
She heard the hello on the other end. Giles, who'd ruined everything.
Her phone-time up, she walked back into the disguised hostel that was the coven's HQ. She was muttering as she went, and looking very pouty.
"It's me! I and I alone am the one-truly true sister-person!"
A nightmare she'd hadn't created but had tried to hold back was now ascendant. For that nightmare was the truth. No spell. No curse. Just petty people who stole a baby that happened to be the Slayer's twin brother. Now that theft was all undone, and the truth known. Eventually, they would find out how she had known, but hadn't told them.
Willow cried herself to sleep that night.
A MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC NEAR THE OREGON STATE BORDER
The supervisor frowned.
"We have to release her. Today?"
The lawyer nodded.
"We hold her any past this, her attorneys will have us all on a platter. We're already facing a humongous settlement, and we've had to absorb all her long-term care costs. Don't even mention making her disappear. I am not facing inquiries twenty years from now, or whenever."
The supervisor stared at the patient's records in disgust.
"How could this happen twice? I mean, bad enough we made this mistake in the spring of 98, and didn't even catch it till late September of that year. But she comes to visit two years later, and our late friend manages to pull it off again!? Didn't the doctors think that the sudden vanishing of an inoperable brain tumor was a clue? Thank God she's finally dead, that's all I can say."
The lawyer shrugged.
"But she did her damage. And she'll do it again, despite being in the ground. When her family learns of all this-oy."
"Yeah-oy. The one daughter will go ballistic. She's not a fan of our services."
Walking together, they saw that the former patient had been cleaned up, and was wearing clothes that looked like those she'd arrived in, almost exactly two years ago.
The rather attractive middle-aged woman had her arms folded. She spoke her impatience with a single word.
"Well?"
The supervisor then said words that rivaled Giles talk with Xander, a month before, in terms of what it would do to the family of Buffy Summers.
"Joyce, you're free to go."
LATE AUGUST
Xander smiled as he hung up the phone.
"Dawnie, how many Harris relatives absolutely refused to help me clean out the old house?"
Dawn checked her ledger.
"All of them."
"And how many of these actually owed The Harrises money?"
"All of them?"
Xander stretched, then picked up his little sister.
"That house was sold sooo fast. With this market, on that street? It'd go for 4 easy, and I only asked 3. We can finally make a dent in Casa Del Summers."
Dawn looked around them.
"A flat-screen TV. Roof repairs. Reinforced doors. Copper pipes!"
Buffy came back from the nightly patrols. She shrugged.
"Same as it always is, after a big event like Willow's tantrum. They're taking their own sweet time building back up the squiggly things. It'll get there, have no doubt. Any phone calls, from Willow, or-ya know?"
Even before the revelation, Buffy had made it very clear to Xander that she and she alone would decide how to handle Spike, should he return. Now, it was more than a mere agreement between friends.
"Yeah, Spike called while you two were at the grad ceremony. But get this-he didn't believe me about us. Giles is packing up to go back to Willow, now that he's said his piece about all of us."
At the top of the stairs, the Watcher's voice was plainly heard.
"No, Xander. My peace is, I fear-a terribly fragile one."
He walked down, looking like the gentleman's gentleman his cousin Giles French had been, in another time, another place, and with another Buffy, who also died far too soon. Rupert hoped he would be able to see some of the new television program that was based on his cousin's memoirs. Xander held out a package, which he then offered to Rupert.
"This is for playing grownup when we weren't grown up enough to do it ourselves."
Thrown off, Giles handled the gift with care, opening it as though it were a talisman that needed to be revealed in stages.
"I can't imagine...oh my."
He held what was obviously a compact disc, and his fingers shook, just a bit. Buffy saw the group indicated, and asked a question.
"Who are The Chieftains?"
Giles looked at her.
"They are a very good Irish musical group, utilizing both modern rhythms and ancient approaches to their art. Other more notable artists often record with them."
He looked at Xander, and smiled.
"Artists like Roger Daltrey, singing 'Behind Blue Eyes'. I imagine it must be a very stirring version."
Xander nodded.
"The guy at the record store called it the best alternative version he'd heard. Course', that started an argument with his co-workers and customers..."
Giles still held his gift as though it were a facsimile of the Grail itself.
"Yes. Record stores and bookstores. Like the plant kingdom, they seem so very harmonious on the surface. But every blade of grass fights every other for the right to exist. Sorry. You see, I have something to tell all of you, and I've no idea where to begin."
One by one, the Summers' siblings crossed over into the living room, sat down on the couch, and grabbed one another's hands as they braced their backs against the cushions. Giles took note of this.
"As I said before-you are all learning."
She drove for an hour, then stopped for a sausage sandwich. After two years of a controlled diet, she no longer cared about what was in it or how it was made. It was from a roadside vendor, exactly the kind of place she always made Hank drive well past, even when they were all famished. Yet health codes and cholesterol slid well out of her vision. Joyce Summers could only see her childhood.
*Joyce, your sister has special needs. She's a part of you. Twins run in families, you know. Do you want to turn away one of your twins, when you're a mother someday?*
She drove for another hour after that, and passed an ice cream stand built on the spot of the original McDonald's. A double-thick chocolate shake would not make her fat. Her nerves were eating her calories before she ingested them. But when she bumped her face on the glass container, the cause of some of those nerves kicked back again.
*Joyce, we know she has troubles. But we need you to work with us, honey. Your father won't hear of giving her-long-term-care. I'll try and get her to apologize for throwing the glass at you. Just don't push.*
Starting. Stopping. Sleeping. She had the 'courtesy card' those idiots at the clinic had given her, and she was going to use it. It had seemed so simple a solution, after her father and then her mother died.
*Doctor, I am getting married. And I am tired of her making plays for Hank, when she's not severing the fuel line in his car. The malpractice from that quack's misdiagnosis will pay for this. I'm starting a new life, and in it, I don't have a twin sister.*
It was a cruel thing to say, but if their parents hadn't always indulged Jane to such a degree, it wouldn't have been necessary. Even sociopaths can be taught right and wrong as survival rules, if never as an abstract. But Jane was merely cruel, by that point. And she was good at being cruel.
*I thought you were going to have twins, Joyce. Or did you throw one of them away? That's all you're good for, you know. Pushing people off into oblivion.*
Never once mentioning, of course, her ever-more frequent psychotic episodes, before and after her committal. All Joyce's fault. Always Joyce's fault. And that made anything allowable and anyone a target.
"Honey, I wanted to tell you. Tell you how fearful we were that losing your brother had broken you."
For the moment refusing to talk to herself any further, she instead saw and heard 15-year-old Buffy sobbing gently, begging to know why talk of demons had placed her in that cold, sterile clinic.
*Mommy, you came to me one night. You said I was right where I belonged. That I would be there forever.*
Joyce lied and cajoled until Buffy believed that she had never done such a thing. Which she hadn't. Damn the doctors. Buffy had been placed in a low-security wing. So how had someone from the super-max wing gotten to her, the one person she should have never seen?
Yet that swipe was hardly the last. Joyce remembered well as a Jane who had not been sedated as she was supposed to be stood in Joyce's clothes, taunting as she went.
*Your little girl's out of control, Joyce. When I saw her here, that was evident. You've been a rotten mother. To her-and to Xander. Oh, yes. I know all about him. You could never keep a secret from me. I am you.*
As she lay in her hotel-not motel, for those rat bastards were going to pay-room, Joyce bitterly remembered her next coherent thoughts. It was now late September of 1998. She saw the maniac with her face being dragged back in, literally kicking and screaming. The doctor tried to sound calm about the unthinkable.
*From here on, we'll absorb the complete costs of her care, in exchange for your agreement not to sue. But there is a complication. It seems that Jane, while posing as you, provoked your daughter in some fashion. Mrs. Summers, she was accused of murder, though she since has been cleared. She was also expelled from school-and then apparently left home. She's not been heard from since.*
Joyce arrived home almost as Buffy did. Joyce cursed herself for letting the Slayer business go for so long. *Honey, I know*, would have deflated some of Jane's ability to make war on her life. So she called Pat, not because Pat was ideal, but because Pat would agree with her, and life felt very disagreeable towards her. Yet for all the multiple levels of pain that day and the day of the near-burnings, a form of peace entered their lives for over a year.
Yes, there were demons and allies and strangeness galore, but things began to settle, in their odd way. Angel proved his love for Buffy both by moving on and by still checking in. Xander, the sweet son she could never acknowledge, found a girl named Anya. Yet shadows began to gather anew.
*The First Slayer? Well, what kind of odd dreams did you have?*
Dreams of Joyce, shut away inside a wall, almost hidden from view. An inadvertently Oedipal dream confessed to by a very nervous Xander, who then ominously relayed how he went from her room to an odd zone that led back to the Harrises basement.
"If ever two people needed a stake..."
For she would have let him dream that same dream and ones far more carnal, so long as he did it from the room that should have been his, safe in his real mother's house.
She saw the sign that said 'Sunnydale-40 Miles' and knew that home was just an hour away. A diner was found quickly, and stayed at for three hours. yet still September of 2000 played back again. Buffy had just mentioned that the real Dracula was in town, and that sounded like a damned good reason to check on Jane, and be well out of town for the day.
"But she was waiting for me. Again. And-I'm talking to myself. Also Again."
It was like a storyline out of All My Children, with the two brothers and the more ruthless twin playing as the gentler one. Of course, Joyce had stopped watching that when she had learned that Lucci had reportedly conspired to fire a young actress who reportedly upstaged her. Jane couldn't be fired. She was dying, and her psychosis, exacerbated by her brain tumor, led her back once again into her sister's life and place.
"More pie, please. Wrap a couple of pieces, while you're at it."
The doctors at the clinic proclaimed the miracle of 'Jane's' recovery from the tumor. They gently tried to break the news of how 'Joyce' had died. They got very good at explaining how she herself wasn't and could not possibly be Joyce. After all, they could hardly make the same mistake twice. Then, a more advanced catscan finally revealed the secret of her remitted tumor. She'd never had a tumor, and never had been Jane. She was freed, and was now and forever through with secrets.
"Buffy-Xander-I'm coming home."
Yet one question remained. How had a psychotic like Jane kept up appearances till her death?
"Did someone cast a spell and not tell me?"
Joyce wondered about this, and practiced hard not talking to herself. It mostly worked.
He was bound, mostly nude and hanging upside down in the apartment of a son he had only just met.
"I'm sorry?"
She was snarling, feral, and really very close to tears, having slept with a man who was very nearly her biological father-in-law.
"You're sorry?"
Hank Summers felt the blood rushing to his head. Oddly, this made it easier for him to think.
"Anya, I didn't mean to let you jump my bones last night. But when you entered my bed and jumped my bones, I really wasn't of a mind to turn you out."
Anya considered the story he had told.
"God, you really are Xander's father, aren't you?"
She let him down, and shook her head.
"Your son broke my heart, and an agreement to marry me, Hank. I take that very personally."
He gasped for air getting up, and tried again to apologize.
"It isn't his fault! Its mine and Joyce's. We should have challenged the Harrises, taken Xander back. They destroyed him."
Anya smiled. The ultimate vengeance against Xander was now at hand.
"If it's your fault, Hank, are you prepared to engage in an old-world solution to redress what your son did?"
"Errrr..."
He whispered a question. She nodded.
"Sure. You keeping it is a large part of what I have in mind."
Giles began what he hoped would be the last great revelation of the past incredible month. This would prove a vain hope.
"You may recall the vile little spell Ethan cast."
Buffy shrugged.
"Which one?"
"The one cast that made adults act as teenagers, the better to allow his employers to kidnap infants."
Buffy nodded again.
"ohhhh...you mean the one where, after you and Mom spent all week trying to run every last second of my life, you then turned into teeners-twenty times more immature than any of us have ever been-and then acted like I should treat it as a lesson?"
Giles rolled his eyes.
"As always, you have your own unique spin on matters, self-serving though it may be. You may recall what *else* occurred twixt Joyce and myself, that night."
Dawn looked confused, Buffy bit her lip, and Xander's eyes went wide as an image flooded his brain.
"You did our Mom on the hood of your car?"
Buffy pointed at her twin.
"He's been doing that, and I wanna know why."
Dawn's response was simpler, and more succinct.
"OOH-ICK!"
Giles raised an opened palm.
"Yes. Ick. As to the how of Xander, let's give that a moment. Suffice it to say, that's not all that occurred that night."
Xander had an image of the carnalized pair. Joyce smiled as her stomach now rested on the hood... and then Buffy slapped him.
"Ow!"
"Xander, stop that! That's gross. I don't think he meant..."
"Buffy, don't slap me!"
"I'll slap you if you think of things like..ow!"
"See how you like it, Little Miss Threepeat!"
Giles shook his finger at Buffy.
"You are the Slayer! You could have shattered his jaw with that blow."
The two calmed down, while Dawn got out from between them. Buffy punched Xander's arm.
"Not a chance. He's immune to me."
Their palms met, and Xander succeeded in pushing Buffy back a bit.
"I'm not any stronger. But around me-it's like Buffy's strength is normal."
Giles sighed, and interrupted his secret telling for the moment.
"I can safely enhance my own strength for about ten seconds. Its horribly unreliable, but it should prove my point."
Taking a garbage bag and an empty thick glass container. Giles whispered some words, and a glow overtook him. He crushed the container without effort with one uninjured hand into the garbage bag. He then punched Xander in the stomach. Having braced himself, Xander felt almost nothing.
"What's up with that?"
Giles poked the wall, and seeing a small but definite hole, gladly let the glow expire.
"In case any of you are wondering, that spell is potentially toxic and easily negated. Hence its non-use. But it proves my point. As the fully acknowledged twin of the Slayer, Xander is proof against most magicks. Magically-derived strength such as Buffy's will no longer have an effect on him. Conversely, his blows will strike at magically-based beings as though both were equal. The telepathy is likely a simple extension of a known phenomenon between twins. So keep them pure, people."
Buffy closed her eyes on reflex, and giggled. Xander yelped.
"Whoa, twinny! Just where did that come from?"
She merely chuckled.
"You so owed me, you perv. Remember?"
Dawn rolled her eyes.
"You are guys are pathetic and creepy both."
The twins smiled and nodded at one another, and Dawn became nervous.
"I don't like where this is headed."
Giles shook his head.
"If I told you not to jump off a bridge...no. I'd best not."
Xander sobered up quickly.
"How is it that this 'magic-seal' of mine has like, ya know, NEVER come up before? I mean, haven't I always been Buffy's brother?"
Giles shrugged.
"Because, while you have always been the twin sibling of The Slayer, you have only just this past month become acknowledged as such. In magic, acknowledgement has huge power. Before this, you were almost a magic lightning rod. For example, when the dividing spell meant for Buffy struck you instead. Or when your stupidly-cast love spell randomized. Or when the Indian's syphilitic revenge..."
Xander held up a hand.
"Okay. Hypothetical. Let's say I'm driving around, and these non-vamp undead guys with an evil scheme are looking to scam a ride, and I'm vaguely in the area."
Giles considered.
"Well, yes. You would be very likely to be the one they'd pick on. When did this happen?"
"Nah, I was just being hypothetical. That never happen..."
Buffy saw the truth.
"Was that when the Hellmouth-thingie was rising, and we read the prophecy about it eating our heart, and Willow took that to mean you..."
Xander gave off a familiar glare. Buffy winced.
"Well, if you were being chased, you should have said something!"
"I TRIED to! You and Angel were doing your shipper-angst thing, and no one got in the way of that."
Giles and Dawn nodded.
"No."
"Not if one was wise."
Buffy was prepared to take the ribbing, until she realized it wasn't ribbing.
"Giles? What was your big revelation?"
Rupert took a moment to sort it all again.
"Ah, yes. It seems that Joyce and I married that evening."
Dawn's eyes rolled up.
"That's it?"
Xander shrugged.
"We thought it was something, ya know, huge."
Buffy shook her head.
"Giles, try and understand. Spell-induced quickies and quickie visits to the Justice Of The Peace compares not at all to the great case of the Slayer stolen-twins-now-best-friends."
Dawn looked down.
"Or finding out your family tree has no branches."
Xander sat down by her, looking lost himself.
"Or going from a fear of intractable genetic alcoholism to a fear of inevitable middle-aged dorkism."
Giles pulled back.
"Aren't any of you taking this in? I am your stepfather!"
Buffy gave him a brief hug, then looked into his eyes.
"Well, when haven't you been?"
The warmth in their eyes told Rupert the rest. As he at last left to leave, he also made a suggestion.
"The Coven has reliably informed me that August and early September will be free of the need for direct intervention. This is not the city of Townsville. Anaheim has a noted theme park or two. Go. Be a family, before Autumn brings its usual nonsense."
Xander shrugged.
"I've got a week while the city council finds the funds for finishing the new high school. I'm for the House Of Mouse-if my sisters are."
Buffy looked at a briefcase.
"That case has some serious E-Tickets printed up. I found it one of the nerd-lairs. We'd even be able to stay at the hotel you enter by monorail. But should we use it?"
Dawn picked up the case.
"Without you saving the world-world, there wouldn't be a Disney-world. Sleazy, yes. But we all need this. Besides-I'm going to be two years old, next month, and you two are my pa-"
Giles covered her mouth.
"Go. We've all sorted out deeper moral quandaries than this."
Xander looked the tickets over.
"These are not counterfeit. Where the money came from...eh. C'mon, Buff."
Buffy smiled.
"Away goes the stake. On go the ears. Should we call Hank? Or...Anya?"
Dawn shook her head.
"No way. Those two might get lost, then who knows where they'd end up?"
THAT SAME MOMENT, LAS VEGAS
"...And do you, Henry, take this woman Anya to be your lawful wedded wife?"
Hank whispered.
"Do we get to have sex like we did last night all the time?"
Anya almost didn't whisper.
"Oh, I'll be expecting that."
Hank grinned.
"I can handle it."
"No, dear. I'll be handling it. If you handle it, it'll be soft before long."
Hank said the words.
"I do."
Later, in the honeymoon suite, as Hank slept off his duties, Anya called on a friend. Hallifrek appeared, and reacted.
"You did what?"
"I got my best revenge on Xander, and on Buffy and Dawn for blindly supporting him. I am their stepmommy!"
Hallie grabbed her head.
"Honey, you totally didn't. Oh, how we tried to protect you."
Anya shrugged.
"Protect me? From what?"
Hallie looked up.
"When you became human again, you also became vulnerable to vengeance. Anya, you did some incredible things as a vengeance demon. But you also cut some corners. You almost never verified that all your targets had it coming. Most did. Some you overdid, but who doesn't? Some few, though, were total innocents. Stalkers and schemers used to call you down, because you were such an easy mark."
Anya turned away.
"Vengeance is blind, right? It often backfires on the wishmakers, like that nice man with the cigarette said on Xander's show where Jed Clampett's daughter was ugly."
Hallie raised a finger.
"Wrong! Vengeance is focused. We punish actual wrongs. We're not justice, true. But if you turn Abuser X into a fork, you don't also turn his brother who took Abusee X and her kids in, and got Abuser arrested. We're all of us a bit scattershot, dear. You, however, had no aim at all, sometimes. As long as you were a vengeance demon, though, you were immune to being 'prosecuted'. That's why D'Hoffryn and I told that idiot about your wedding. You have to admire Xander, though. He held on until he saw himself kill you."
Anya's face turned demon.
"Get out!"
Hallie did the same.
"Not before you hear me out! We saved your life, Anyanka. Because Xander would have killed you. Not intentionally, or in anger. But a boatload of angry spirits and wrongly transformed demons were going to be on your ass, for eternity. Most of them are controllers or possessors. So thank us for keeping a nice but nervous guy from being dragged off one morning, crying over your corpse."
Anya sat down, feeling very friendless.
"thank you."
Hallie shifted back.
"Yeah, well. There's more. I have to go now and kill most of the Harrises. They knew, and they helped, in your new stepson's kidnapping. He is a very wronged child. So wronged, I can go at the Harrises without being asked to. But Anya, within six months, Buffy, Xander or Dawn are going to wish high holy vengeance on your groom. Be ready, honey. Because they have been wronged, and I'll be coming for both of you. Spouses are a loophole in our immunity. And he is now always going to be your spouse."
Hallie vanished, and a weeping Anya got back into bed with Hank.
"Hey, don't cry. Anya, I need a woman like you. I'm kind of a lost soul. My kids-they don't like me very much."
Anya looked at him.
"You do need me, don't you? Xander wanted me, but you need me. I need to be needed, Hank. I'll protect you."
The wish, Anya thought. All she had to do was avert the wish. But for then and there, she handled what was now hers alone.
"Awww, hun? Now?"
ENGLAND
Having gathered up the scattered remains of the Coven's power in Sunnydale, Giles teleported back. Willow stood there, waiting.
"Isn't it amazing how England looks nothing at all like Southern California?"
Rupert pulled out a Polaroid of Buffy and Xander.
"When?"
She seemed nearly unremorseful, but this was mostly an act.
"When I probed Buffy's deepest darkest memories. I had to go through her real ones to get to her ones about Dawn."
Giles shook his head.
"Why?"
"Why didn't I tell them? Why, when I wasn't bound like you were? I'll tell you why."
She produced her own picture, of herself with the Summers twins.
"Before Dawn. Before Buffy. Before Tara-"
She broke down in tears.
"I was his sister! I could have been more, but I was at least that! We were each other, and we held each other, and we blocked out parents that scream, and parents that lecture! He didn't need them, but now he doesn't need me!"
Rupert held her, and did not reveal until much later how grateful he was that so mundane a factor as jealousy was the culprit.
JUST OUTSIDE SUNNYDALE
"I'm not out of my mind. It's the soul. Its new, and its giving me visions. That's all."
Spike saw a woman in a car slow down. She looked at him.
"William?!"
She drove off at top speed. Spike pointed.
"That looked like...that woman looked just like.."
He knocked the side of his head, and turned around.
"Sod this. I'm going to Toronto. At least the vamps there are a stable kind of crazy."
Their bags were packed. The Scoobies were leaving Sunnydale, however briefly. Then the car pulled up. The face that couldn't be there spoke.
"Buffy?"
The Slayer made a choice. Possibly having a shapeshifting demon traveling with them versus leaving it alone in their home. Because this was not stopping their visit to the House Of Mouse.
"Get in. Explain the whys and wherefores on our way to Anaheim. And expect one hell of a lot of skepticism."
Joyce nodded, grateful to breathe free and be so close.
"Expected."
Buffy grabbed a shaking Dawn. She whispered.
"Whatever she says, good or bad, be ready. You're strong. Got your holy water spray-mist bottle?"
Dawn looked over again, but stopped shaking.
"Gotten."
A thunderstruck Xander was next.
"If she's a fake, her strength won't work on you. Can you handle it?"
"If-if she's a fake, sure. If she's for real, though?"
Buffy shook her head.
"We'll deal. I'm not sure how, but we will deal."
Buffy turned to her mother.
"You'll be riding in front."
( *Where I can keep an eye on you* )
"With Xander?"
Buffy tried for an advantage against the unknown quantity.
"With your son."
The eyes of mother and son met, and Joyce gulped. She got in, explanations waiting till they were on the road. Trying not to think about it all, Dawn whispered to Buffy.
"Think we'll meet any cute guys there?"
"Dawn, please don't tell me all this has you thinking about boys."
Xander heard Dawn's retort, adding one more layer to the discomfort.
"I'm sixteen. Staring at the linoleum makes me think about boys."
Joyce caught some of this, and wondered to herself just who this younger girl was.
The couple pulled up to the Summers' home. It was a last resort, but three of their missing friends had ties to this town. The woman knocked, and knocked.
"Um, Buffy? Errr-Willow? Hey-Xander?"
She turned back to her boyfriend.
"There's no one here, either."
Charles Gunn shrugged.
"Let's go home, Fred. I'm sure these people have enough on their plate without our grief."
-