Seeing with a Father's Love
by Teri

Chapter 5: Avoiding Merrick


"So you are saying that the dreams started when Buffy was conceived?" Giles asked trying to once again pull Xander from his memories.

Joyce had been too good to be true and yet for some odd reason she loved him. Something he doubted he would ever understand. "Yeah."

He looked over to Giles finally pulling himself away from the past. "It wasn't long before Joyce and I realized that the blonde girl in my dreams was our baby. Can you imagine how odd that is? Seeing your little girl before she is even born. I can so empathize with Piper and Leo."

"Who?" Giles was confused.

"Piper and Leo - television show called 'Charmed'. Piper is pregnant with her son, who came back from the future and his helping to baby-sit his older brother because he is actually twenty something. He and Dawn would make a cute couple though if he was, you know, real. Did you know Cordelia had auditioned for the role Paige, but for some reason she didn't get the role? Can you believe that? The white-lighter deal would be so handy. The orbing and the healing would be so useful. And . . . " Xander looked up at Giles and saw that he was totally lost. "I'm rambling and you're still not good with the cultural and entertainment references are you G- man?"

Giles just looked at him like he was from another planet.

"Right, where were we? Oh, yeah. We were determined not to let our little girl die like that. We began researching vampires trying to figure out what was going on. We also researched my gift a bit more. I had never had dreams like these. Sure I had visions all my life, always made a point of helping when I could, but the intensity and frequency of these were entirely different."

"Joyce was about 7 months pregnant when, I got home one day and found a strange man sitting in the living room talking with Joyce. . . . "

"Joyce?" Hank called out as he entered the house.

"In the living room." She replied

Hank walked in and saw there was a tall man in a long trench coat. He presented the appearance of being unkempt. What was worse, he was sitting on the couch with Hank's very pregnant wife.

"Hank, this is Mr. Merrick. Mr. Merrick, my husband Hank Summers." Joyce made the introduction.

Hank gave Joyce an odd look but shook the stranger's hand. "Mr. Merrick."

"Just Merrick." He smiled before coughing slightly into his handkerchief.

"Merrick is here to talk to us about the baby." Joyce offered.

"Yes, Mr. Summers. Do you believe in vampires?"

"He then went on to give us the world is older than you know it speech. You know the one you use to like to give, Giles. He then went on to tell us about Slayers, their role, and the mark of the covenant that a true slayer bares. He told us about the council. How he was independent from them and that it was his job to find and train special slayers."

"Then how come Merrick didn't find Buffy until she was in High School?" Giles asked confused by what he was being told.

"Well," Xander smiled the way a child does when he is about to tell you something he shouldn't have done, but was proud of himself for doing anyway. "Joyce and I weren't about to hand our little girl over to this guy. We learned over the next few weeks that he had the best of intentions, but it was still a big 'no way'. In those days, hospital security wasn't what it is now. So I took Merrick to the hospital to see the baby and Joyce. When he was talking with Joyce I slipped down to the nursery switched a few nametags. I then brought him down to show him my son. He was disappointed, went back up to say goodbye to Joyce. I switched back the nametags and he went off in search of his slayer. After that to be on the safe side Joyce and I moved to Los Angeles which was a continent away since we had been living in Boston."

"Amazing." Giles shook his head.

Xander attempted to mimic Giles' accent. "Quite."


Just a quickie to prove than I am capable of maintaining updates, despite whatever anyone has implied about me in the past. LOL! :D (Oh, a surprise for those who read my other stories. "Jack?" is done and being proof-read.)

Teri