A/N: Yeah, I know this one is short…but the next one will be longer.
Willow was pacing. It had started with impatience, slid toward annoyance, followed by some minor makings of anger which quickly bled into worry, and then shortly thereafter took a sharp turn and rocketed straight toward mind-numbing panic. And now, Willow was pacing.
She glanced at the clock on the wall again. Only seconds had ticked by, but in a town like Sunnydale, every second could be the difference between life and death. Night had already fallen outside, and still Xander wasn't there. And they had rules; if you were going to be late, you called.
Her mind was currently running the gamut of various explanations: he'd gotten lost (unlikely, he'd known the way to her house since kindergarten), he was stuck in traffic (also unlikely, pedestrians don't usually experience heavy traffic), he'd been eaten by a vampire (unfortunately, this last explanation was a distinct possibility). She glanced at the clock again, another minute gone by. Still no Xander. Still no phone call.
Willow was somewhere between wearing a hole in the living-room carpet and calling out the troops, Buffy, and the National Guard to do a city-wide search for Xander when the doorbell finally rang. Willow made a sprint for door, nearly knocking over a vase and two lamps in the process. She jerked the door open and was mowed over by Xander (a very alive and healthy Xander) as he barged into the house without waiting for an invitation. After all, in a town like Sunnydale, invitations were only used for special occasions.
Mind-numbing panic was quickly swinging back toward anger, and Willow could feel a stern lecture coming on as she followed his quick steps into the living room. "Xander! Where have you been? I thought something terrible might have happened. I thought you might have been killed and left for dead in a ditch somewhere, or a dark alley, or-or a gutter even! For all I knew you could have been eviscerated by some giant, scaly, purple demon, and I never would have known, and I didn't know what to do, if I should call Buffy, and why didn't YOU call. We were supposed to study, and you were late, and you didn't call; we ALWAYS call if we're late, and you didn't even bring your books; how are we supposed to study if you don't bring your books, and-" Willow stopped her righteous ramble, suddenly noticing that Xander was pacing back and forth in an uncanny echo of the pacing Willow herself had been doing only moments before. "Xander? You are okay, right?"
Xander stopped abruptly and turned to face her, "She should have told me."
"Who should have told you what?" Willow asked, confused.
"I mean, she did tell me," he said, before returning to his frantic pacing, "but she should have told me sooner. She knew all this time, and she never said anything. And this is information I need to know; I have a right to know this kind of thing. I mean, you go through life thinking you know. You've got 'A' plus 'B' and that equals 'C'. And then someone just replaces 'B' with 'Z', and then what do you have? You can't just pull the rug out from under someone like that, you know?" Xander stopped again and turned to her, waiting for her response.
Willow blinked in confusion, "Um…I think you lost me somewhere in the alphabet. Does this have something to do with the math homework?"
"What?" Xander asked, now just as confused as Willow.
She didn't know what this was about, but Willow could tell Xander was upset, and she hated seeing any of her friends in pain. "Why don't you just start at the beginning, Xander?" she urged gently.
Xander nodded and sat down on the couch, hunching over so that his arms rested on his legs. His gaze fell on his shoes as he tried to gather his racing thoughts. "My dad's not my dad." He raised his eyes to look at her, and, noticing she looked confused again, tried to explain, "I mean, the guy I've always thought of as my father, Tony Harris…isn't really my father."
"Oh," Willow said quietly as Xander's words started to sink in, and then the meaning of them really hit her, and her eyes widened in surprise and concern, "Oh!"
She quickly moved to his side, sitting down next to him on the couch and placing a comforting hand on his back, "Are you okay? How did you find out?"
Xander gave a half shrug in answer to the first question, and then said, "My dad-" he bit his lip then amended, "Tony let it slip. Actually, I think he's probably been dying to throw that in my face since the day I was born."
"I'm sorry," Willow whispered, rubbing his back soothingly. "Do you…do you know who your real father is?" she asked carefully.
"Yeah," Xander said. "Or I have a name at least."
Willow wished she knew what to do for him, but she didn't think a pint of ice cream would fix this one. "I can't imagine what this must be like for you."
"It's just," Xander paused then started again, "there are some things you think you know for sure, right? Things that are absolutely certain. And then suddenly they're not true anymore, and you can't help but wonder what else might not be true. I mean…I didn't even know who my father is; what else don't I know about me? It's like finding out vampires are real all over again. I guess this is why I never measured up to the Tony Harris standard. I'm not really a Harris." Xander said bitterly. "I don't know what I am now."
"Hey," Willow broke in, shaking his shoulder gently. "This doesn't change who you are. You're still the same Xander you were yesterday. The same Xander who hates math and loves those jelly-filled doughnuts from the Expresso-Pump and helps Buffy fight demons OH-and does the Snoopy dance every Christmas." Willow was gratified to see a small smile curve Xander's lips. "And if Tony Harris can't see how great you are just because he didn't have a hand in your DNA, then he's just a big poopy-head."
Xander really did smile then, "You pulled out the big guns there, didn't you."
"Well, he is," she told him seriously.
"Yeah," Xander nodded, but his gaze fell to the floor again.
"So you found out something different about yourself. I still know who you are."
Xander looked up at her, "Even if I don't."
"Even," Willow smiled and nudged his shoulder with her own. "You're my best friend, Xander. Nothing will ever change that."
Xander gave her a genuine smile, "Thanks. I think I needed that."
"So, you're okay? Or…feeling better I mean? 'Cause for a second there, I thought I was going to go all Willow-Babble-Fest on you, and, well, that wouldn't have been very comforting."
"Babble Willow or Lifetime-Movie Willow, you still would have found a way to get through to me."
"Well, I also had a back-up plan involving copious amounts of ice cream," she confessed.
Xander's eyebrows raised, "Rocky Road?"
"And mint chocolate chip." Willow turned serious again, "Really, is there anything I can do?"
"Actually," Xander rubbed his hands nervously on the pants legs of his jeans, "there might, sort of, be something you could do. I mean…I'm not saying I'm going to go and find this guy, but…"
"But you want to know where your father is?" When Xander nodded, Willow asked, "What do you know about him?"
Xander stood and moved anxiously about the room a bit. "Well, his name is John Winchester…like the rifle. He might be somewhere in Kansas…possibly near Kansas City. He has sons, and his wife died sometime before he met up with my mom. That pretty much sums it up. Mom wasn't exactly bursting with the details."
"Well, it's a start." Willow's brow was furrowed in thought; her mind was already racing with the best places to start looking. "Winchester's not a terribly common surname, and I can start in Kansas to begin with, that should narrow the search down considerably, and even if they're not there anymore I can find out where they used to live, and from there-"
"Hey Will?" Xander cut in. He smiled when Willow glanced questioningly at him, "Thanks for this."
Willow smiled and nodded, "That's what friends are for." She stood up, immediately wanting to get started searching. Once Willow got into her research mode it was difficult to get her out of it. She briefly considered that Xander probably still need some help with his math homework, but all things considered, she thought he probably needed this more, so she pushed the pouting inner-academic aside and made for the stairs to her room, "I'm just going to get online, I'm sure I'll have something for you in no time."
Willow was already on the first steps of the stairs when Xander called out again, "Oh, and Willow?"
She turned around grinning and didn't even wait for him to ask, "The ice cream's in the top of the freezer…you know where the bowls are."
Xander blinked for a moment, but then returned her grin, "Do you ever think that maybe you know me a little too well?"
"It's the best friend prerogative," she told him stoically. "One day, there may even be telepathy involved."
They shared a smile before each turned and walked off in their own directions, Xander to raid the fridge for Rocky Road ice cream and Willow to find a long lost father.
