Standard Disclaimer Applies
AN: I apologize for the heinously long break between chapters but I went away for a month and made the assumption that I would have ready access to a PC and the Internet, this was not however the case. So this is just a short update to let you know I'm still alive, still writing and still passionate about this fic.
Thanks to the Wolf
Chapter 9
It was a dream that had started late one night after thwarting another half-breed demon intent on taking over a chunk of Sunnydale and reigning evil down upon it. A dream so vivid that when he awoke with a start he couldn't be sure that he'd been asleep at all and put it down to a delusion brought about by a lack of sleep and another blow to the head.
Then the dream had turned into dreams and they would come to him most nights, images of Sara, images of the swing set in the back yard, the feeling of being hugged close to a woman who would whisper loving nothings into the top of his head.
The dreams kept him awake unable to resume sleep once he had woken from the visions and finally he had gone to Willow for help. Willow, whose magical was increasing steadily had concocted a spell to make Xander remember past lives. After all they both believed that what Xander was actually experiencing, was the memory of a prior existence.
The spell had worked in a flash of confusing images of house, garden, bedroom and a woman screaming a name, "Charlie!"
Now when the dream kept him awake at night he would scroll through the 24 million search results he had gotten from typing Charlie into a search engine, whittling them away by discarding references to Charlie and Chocolate Factory, Charlie Chaplin and the musician Charlie Parker he had then started at the top and started to open the remaining 11 million pages.
It had taken a while, a lot of long nights clicking, scanning, and discarding, until one page he opened was an old newspaper article detailing the accidental shooting of a boy called Charlie O'Neill resulting in his death. There was a picture attached to the article that had made his heart miss a beat. A picture of Xander as a child.
Willow had been enlisted to help hack into every record existing on the O'Neill family until Willow was just as confused as Xander not only by the lack of information she could find but by the content. How could this be? If Xander was adopted then why didn't he remember this previous family? Why hadn't anyone ever mentioned this to him before? Xander approached the subject with his Mother, who recanted a previously told tale of her lengthy labour and rebuffed his half-joking announcement that he had been adopted.
The confusion grew and grew until it began to consume Xander, to invade his every thought, to become an obsession until he had to take the next step and go to Colorado Springs and investigate further.
The quest had lead him to his Mother's door and lead him to where he was now, standing on the porch in the dusk of night two days after being rejected by his Father. After two days of answering important questions with inconsequential answers, of lying about his happy up bringing, of soothing Sara's frazzled nerves.
A car door in the street slams shut and Xander breaks from his reverie to smile at Sara as she approaches the house,
" You send it off all right?" He asks referring to the home DNA kit the pair had completed that afternoon.
" Yeah, it said average four weeks for the results, then we can take them to Jack and he should ah…" Sara trails off because she can't predict with any real certainty, what Jack's reaction will be to proof his son is alive.
" I finished the seat." Xander says and looks up at the few stars that have collected in the sky.
"Want to take it for a test run?" Xander asks Sara who nods with a smile.
" I went by the morgue." Sara says as they stroll through the house,
" By yourself?" Xander asks sharply and Sara nods,
" It is the middle of the day and it was crowded with lots of potential witness's." Sara says with a smile and Xander rolls his eyes,
" And?" He asks
" Dr. Burstein is out of the office and the receptionist doesn't know when he'll be back." Sara says and Xander sighs.
" Dr. Burstein is gone, taking along with him any information that we could have gotten out of him." Xander says with a sigh and the pair settle into the seat.
Sara gazes out on her backyard.
" What?"
" I don't know, I was thinking that maybe we need to go to the police with all this. I mean they kidnapped you, didn't they? Someone should be held accountable." Sara states seriously looking back into the eyes of Xander.
" The police?" Xander says with a quick grimace, because his few experiences with Sunnydale's finest never went particularly well.
" Yeah, they have resources we couldn't possibly use, they could track down Dr. Burstein and arrest him or make him come back."
" They can't make him come back without proof and what proof do we have, I mean other then that photo of the little boy?" Xander questions.
" I'd say that's pretty substantial, they could trace who the boy really is, exhume Charlie's ... I mean the grave and prove that you were never buried." Sara is excited now and she smiles at Xander who is trying to smile back but can't because he couldn't be less excited in the thought of involving the authorities.
" What?" She asks.
" Nothing. Nothing I think it's a great idea but maybe we should wait for the DNA results to come back so they have some more proof? Xander reasoned now thinking of the long interviews he had as one of the prime suspects of the Sunnydale high bombings. A formality but nevertheless unnerving.
" We should go down to the station tomorrow, are you free?" Sara asks and Xander chews his lip in thought as if checking a mental schedule.
" Yup, I'm as free as a bird ... for now." He mutters and Sara smiles at him,
" Great, you want dinner? I was going to make pork chops you used to love them when you were little." Sara says obviously picking up Xander's change in mood and making an effort to change the topic.
Xander nods.
" I'll eat anything." He grins as Sara stands in the near darkness of the new night and Xander smiles at her before she heads back inside.
Xander stretches out on the garden seat and stares up at the sky absently drawing patterns between the stars in his mind. He can feel a tension building up inside of him and not for the first time since he's been in Colorado wishes he could take his anger and frustrationout on a vamp.
Sara was moving quickly and Xander didn't know how to slow her down.
It wasn't just the wanting to take their 'case' to the police; she wanted him to move into the house back into his old bedroom. To help him set up his carpentry business, worst of all she wanted to travel back to Sunnydale with him when he went back to collect his belongings and see the place he'd been brought up.
He couldn't help but feel a little overwhelmed as she talked of plans to include him in her life and as the days moved past she talked as well of the past and what he was like as Charlie. At times he wanted to take her and shake her and yell, ' I'm not Charlie anymore!' and other times he couldn't get enough information, asking question after question about what he liked to do and eat and see and play. How long it had taken him to crawl, walk and talk.
Sara pokes her head out of the screen door.
" I forgot, I pulled out a couple of old photo albums if you want to flick through them." She calls out and Xander swings his legs over the side of the garden seat.
" That'd be great!" He calls out as he joins Sara inside.
"They're on the table." Sara explains as she heads back towards the kitchen.
Xander folds himself under the table top and grabs a thick plastic covered album and flicks it open to the first page. Sara and Jack are smiling as they both half hold a baby, as Xander flicks through the pages the baby gets bigger and becomes a toddler and then on a page alongside pictures of a rambunctious three year old is a picture that causes Xander to freeze.
A collection of men stand dressed in full Air-force uniform obviously posing for a team photo. Somehow Charlie is in the photo as well and Jack has him perched on his shoulders. Of the eight or so men in the photo Xander recognises two. Jack and Anthony Harris.
Anthony Harris was in the Air-force, Xander's eyes opened wide as the next thought followed.
Anthony Harris knew Jack O'Neill. Anthony Harris knew Charlie O'Neill. Anthony Harris stole Charlie O'Neill
end chapter
AN: Did you see it coming? What do you want to happen now? Personally I think it's time Xander kicked someone's butt.
Thanks for those of you that reviewed to make sure I wasn't dead. It was very touching.