Disclaimer: I own no one and
nothing, especially the characters in this story. I'm merely borrowing them for
the pure pleasure of messing with their lives.
**************************************
This time Xander felt like
he was floating under water. Above
him he could hear small frightened voices and warm motherly tones, but he
couldn't make out the words. Then
he heard Anya and Tara calling his name, but he couldn't respond. The pungent scent of ammonia suddenly brought him rushing
back to consciousness, and once he was done sputtering he found himself looking
into Cordelia's eyes. She seemed
annoyed, but he remembered that was Cordelia for concern. Another head appeared in his line of sight.
The boy that had run to him first. Xander
realized with a shock what had been familiar about him.
The resemblance between the two faces looking at him was striking.
"Mom, I brought the wet
cloth like you said," he said to her, his voice high pitched with
excitement. Her expression softened
as she turned to her son.
"That's good, Frankie.
Go on, you can put it on your father's head."
The boy gently placed the washcloth across Xander's forehead, his eyes
filled with fear. Xander felt his
mouth go dry. *Father...Cordelia's
his mom and I'm his...what the...* His
headache chose that moment to come rushing back and he closed his eyes against
the pain.
"You gonna be okay,
Dad? You're not gonna die, are
you?" the frightened boy asked. Before
Xander could even think to respond, Cordelia put her hands on Frankie's
shoulders and pulled him away.
"Your dad's just fine,
Frankie. He did too much too soon,
like I said. Why don't we go help
Aunt Buffy. You know the other kids
are really scared, and you need to help them.
Be my big boy." The boy
nodded once and squared his shoulders, heading back towards Buffy and the herd
of children. Cordelia stared at
Xander for another long moment, then traipsed after her son. Xander turned his head to watch them go and blinked
wonderingly at the throng of tiny bodies. Anya's
feet blocked his view, and he looked up at her.
"Xander, what are you
doing here? Doc told you it would
be a few more days till you had your strength back, and here you are scaring us
all half to death!" She
removed the cloth from his forehead and felt his face and cheeks worriedly.
Sagging in relief, she continued to speak.
"There's no fever, thank God. You
looked so much better when I saw you at first, and then you got all
pale..." Her hand traced his cheek lovingly, and Xander could see she
was still worried.
"Anya, I have to
ask..." Xander croaked, his mouth and throat still dry.
Tara approached with a small paper cup of water, and Anya and Willow
helped him sit up slowly. He sipped the water gratefully.
"Those kids...they called me daddy..."
"Yes." Anya's eyes
showed her confusion.
"Why?" Xander
asked and was immediately hit by both Willow and Anya. He was so surprised he dropped the nearly empty cup, small
droplets of water splashing on the three of them.
"That's not funny,
Xander," Willow chided him.
"I can't believe you'd
joke like that now!" Anya sputtered.
"First let me just say,
ow! Look girls, joking I'm not.
Not being funny. I'm totally serious, as strange as that may seem.
I think something of the wacky only-on-the-Hellmouth variety is going on
here, and I don't get it. And the
way my head is throbbing, I can't think too well, so I'm not going to be
understanding it anytime soon." He
winced, putting his hand to his temple. It
occurred to him that he had seen no marks or bruising from the accident when he
had looked in the mirror. The way
his head hurt, his whole face should be black and blue.
"Your head hurts?"
Tara asked softly. Xander had
almost forgotten she was there, and now noticed that her hair was much shorter
than he had ever seen it, curling up just below her ears. He was going to nod in response, but decided against it.
"Yes, my head hurts.
Being hit by a cross beam has that effect.
Most people don't know that, because they lack the personal
experience." He stopped
talking as Anya suddenly began feeling his forehead again in agitation.
At the same time Tara backed away, one hand curved across her stomach.
Anya looked at Tara beseechingly.
"What's going on?
He's not feverish, but he's definitely delusional.
And the headache, what does that mean?"
Willow stood up and moved towards Tara, frowning.
Xander saw that she was holding her right sleeve and muttering to
herself.
"I'm not sure...Willow,
did you..." Tara looked at Willow questioningly. Willow gave Xander a concerned and fearful glance, then
nodded to Tara.
"I explained.
They're going to meet us back at the house.
You shouldn't come with us." This was directed to Tara who nodded
slowly.
"What's going on?"
Xander asked, feeling completely out of the loop. His headache was growing worse by the second.
They were ignoring him, so apparently some things hadn't changed.
"I'll stay with Buffy
and the kids, we'll go to her house. Spike
can help with the entertaining until you get us word."
Tara gave Xander a nervous smile then walked towards Buffy and Cordy.
"Spike can help with
the..." Xander repeated numbly to himself.
"Send Cordy back over
here, we might need the extra hand," Anya called after Tara, and Xander
winced at the volume. She and
Willow helped him shakily to his feet as Cordy trotted back over.
"Please tell me he
isn't dying, I just told Frankie..." Cordy started. She trailed off as Anya glared at her icily.
"We need to get him
back to the house. Doc's meeting us
there," Willow said softly. She
and Anya maintained their grip on Xander even though he was walking fine without
their support.
"There's something
wrong with him. He thinks he was
hit by a beam," Anya said curtly as they made their way back to the street.
"I was hit by
a..." Xander protested weakly.
"And he doesn't
remember the kids," Willow finished, her tone clipped and worried.
Cordy gave no response, but fell in silently behind them.
They were making their way back to the house he had come from, he noted.
"I can walk on my own.
I may be more than a little confused, but I'm not an invalid,"
Xander said finally, but neither of the women loosened their grip.
"I don't see why you
needed me to come," Cordy grumbled from behind them.
"Cordy, we needed
another pair of hands in case..." Willow trailed off as Xander stopped
suddenly, causing Cordelia to nearly bump into them. He was staring at the car that was passing them on the
street. It looked much like the
other cars he'd seen earlier, except this one had four flat tires.
The car was floating in the air, much like a landspeeder from the Star
Wars movies. Xander gaped at it as
Anya patted his arm, smiling indulgently.
"He's been wanting one
of these since they came out last year, but they're priced way out of our
league. I keep telling him, we'll
never get the kids through grad school if we buy one of those things - my
God!" The last part was
screamed as Xander once again blacked out.
The two women tumbled to the ground with him as he fell, Willow grabbing
his head to keep it from hitting the pavement.
Cradling Xander's head gently, Willow looked up at Cordelia, whose mouth
was open in shock.
"We needed another pair
of hands in case he did this again. Is
what I was going to say, earlier."
**************************************
Xander could feel a cool
cloth on his forehead, and gentle hands massaging his temples.
The pain in his head had once again gone back to the dull ache stage.
He opened one eye, then the other, and focused on the person next to him.
Willow smiled at him brightly, but the fear was still in her eyes.
"Welcome back,"
she said softly. "You've got
to stop doing that. I had to use
magick to help get you up the stairs, you were too heavy for the three of
us," she added, head bowed guiltily. He
tried to smile back at her. He had
begun to hope that he was just having a remarkably vivid dream, but everything
felt a bit too real for that to be true.
"I promise to try, if
everything would just go back to normal and stop freaking me out," he
responded, eyeing her seriously, all traces of a smile gone. "Will, there's
something really wrong here. We
need Giles."
"He's on his way,"
she soothed. "And the doctor
will be here soon, too. Hopefully,
we'll get some answers." They
sat for a moment in silence, each lost in worried thoughts. Xander finally was able to connect recent events in his
aching head, and was electrified by a sudden notion.
"This house, the kids,
and that car...Will, what year is it?" She laughed in surprise.
"Xander, don't be
silly. It's 2011, of course."
Xander sat up in bed so fast she made a small startled squeak.
The sudden movement made the pain in his head roar to life, but he
ignored it.
"Okay, that's not
possible. When I woke up this
morning, it was December 9, 2000. I
left for work at the construction site..."
"...and you got hit by
a crossbeam! I remember!
You were unconscious for two days, we were really scared, but then you
woke up and you were fine...but that was ten and a half years ago, Xander.
That's the last thing you remember?"
"Until I woke up in
this room. I got dressed, found you
guys with the munchkins, heard them call me daddy and fainted like a girl.
No offense. And the rest you
know." Xander sank back
against the pillows as Willow's brow furrowed in concentration.
"I've never...but maybe
Doc has. When she gets here,
hopefully she'll be able to explain. Or
Giles will."
"Tell me about the
kids," Xander said softly. "They
aren't really all mine, right?" Willow
frowned at him.
"You've got to remember
them. You're such a great dad to
all of them, and they love you so. Of
course, for Buffy's kids you're one of two 'Daddys' but that's not nearly as
confusing as it sounds..."
"Who's the other
daddy?" At Willow's obvious
discomfort, Xander groaned. "Please
don't say Spike," he muttered. Willow
giggled.
"Not Spike!
He's good old Uncle Spike to all our kids.
There's nothing he wouldn't do for them, but he's not daddy.
And he hasn't felt that way about Buffy for a while, not since...wait,
I'm babbling, and you asked about the kids, so let's talk about the kids, okay?
My favorite subject, and yours too, at least it used to be.
You really did good, Mr. Harris. Here,
look." Willow held up a
well-worn pocket-sized photo album triumphantly.
"This is yours, so you can keep the pictures with you constantly.
It's so old-fashioned and sweet."
"That's mine?"
Xander repeated uncertainly. He
knew he'd never seen it before in his life.
Willow nodded with great enthusiasm as she opened it to the first
picture. It was obviously a recent
school picture. In it was the
grinning face of the boy Cordelia had called Frankie.
When he smiled he looked even more like his mother.
"That's Frankie, he's
the oldest. He's eight."
Xander wanted to ask how he came to be the father of Cordelia's son, but it was
clear from the way Willow was not looking at him that she didn't want to be the
one to address that subject. She
flipped to the next picture, a candid shot.
Xander recognized the front of the house he was now in, and smiled at
Anya happily posing with three dark-haired children, two boys and a girl.
"That's Jesse, he's seven, and Ross, he's five, and Melissa, she's two.
They're yours and Anya's, but you probably already guessed that."
"Jesse," Xander
repeated, and Willow smiled sadly.
"Yeah, you
insisted." She flipped to the
next photo, a studio shot. As they
gazed at the posed grouping of three children, Willow's smile became so bright
it could probably have lit the room. She
pointed proudly at the red-haired girl and the small dark-haired boy.
"That's Jenny, she's six, and Danny is four.
They're both mine." At Xander's shock, she started to giggle.
"Artificial insemination, Xan.
Tara and I wanted to start a family and you volunteered for daddy duty.
It's the best gift anyone has ever given me."
"I'm glad I could help.
I'd do anything for you, Will," Xander said, surprised at the rush
of emotion that ran through him at the thought of fathering his best friend's
children. Willow smiled at him,
blinking away sudden tears. She
pointed to the youngest girl in the picture, blonde and the spitting image of
Tara.
"You can probably guess
that Savannah is Tara's. She turns
three next week. And Tara's
pregnant again thanks to you. Four
months along. Another girl, thank
the goddess. Danny is quite the
handful, takes after his daddy." She
turned to next picture, still grinning. It
was another candid shot, this time at the Magic Box.
Buffy and a little girl smiled prettily matching smiles in matching
dresses.
"She looks exactly like
Buffy!" Xander exclaimed. "Except
for the hair," he added, gesturing towards the dark blonde curls on the
little girl. Willow nodded.
"Joyce.
We all call her Joy, 'cause that's what she is.
She'll be four next month." She
turned to the last picture, and both were momentarily stunned.
Xander saw himself in the candid shot, grinning like an idiot while
crouched on one side of a bassinet containing a red-faced newborn with thick
black hair. Xander's disbelief came
from the smiling face standing on the other side of the bassinet.
Willow's surprise stemmed from the presence of the picture altogether.
"Goddess, I can't believe that you were able to put this in there.
Maybe Anya did. She must have. I
know she took this picture, but two days later..." Xander wasn't listening,
still transfixed by the image of the other man.
He pointed at the photo with a shaky hand.
"Will, correct me if
I'm wrong, but that's Angel. Are
Buffy and Angel...together?" he asked.
Willow nodded silently. Xander
looked confused. "I didn't
think you could take pictures of vampires."
"Actually, that's a
common misconception...but in this case it wouldn't have mattered.
Xander, Angel, he's not a vampire anymore.
Angel's human. He's been
human for five years now."
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