Chapter Five

The door flew open and Xander found himself the recipient of a lap full of smiling, shrieking, babbling, crying Dawn. He wrapped his arms tightly around her slight frame and buried his face in her shiny brown hair. After several long minutes she began to struggle, so he let her go. She sat up on his knees and braced her feet on either side of his legs on the couch. Her hands came up to caress his face, her thumbs wiping the few tears from his cheeks. She leaned forward and planted a hard kiss on his lips, then sat back and blushed furiously as he smiled at her.

“OK, so I swore to myself that if I ever saw you again I’d kiss you, so what?” She ducked her head and returned to exploring Xander’s face with her fingers. “Look at you! You’re so …. hot! When did this all happen? How have you been? Where have you been? Where’s Spike?”

Xander took her hands in his and ignored the stream of questions. “It’s good to see you Dawn. I missed you. Stand up – let me get a look at you as an adult.” She obediently hopped off of his knees and he stood in front of her. She was still thin and coltish, but she’d matured and gotten a little curvier. Her face was still dominated by her big eyes and even bigger smile. Her hair was shaped into a shoulder-length bob, the front held back with a little clip. She was wearing a tee shirt and jeans and had sandals on her feet. She didn’t look a day over eighteen to Xander.

They both turned as they heard a commotion at the door. Xander smiled and stepped forward as a young man entered the house, leading a little girl by the hand. The child was asking questions in a steady stream, and the man was trying to answer them as fast as possible. He flashed Dawn a look of relief as she stepped forward and swept the little girl up in a hug, carrying her over to Xander. Shifting her daughter to one hip, Dawn introduced them. “Sara, this is Xander – he’s an old friend of Mommy’s. Xander, this is Sara.” Xander could hear the happiness and pride in Dawn’s voice as she presented her child.

The little girl had her mother’s dark hair, broad smile and big eyes, except hers were as crystal blue as Spike’s, instead of being dark blue like her mother’s. Xander reached out to Sara as if to shake hands and was gratified when she gingerly grasped one of his fingers in her tiny hand and said, “Bander” at him. Dawn giggled. The little girl looked across the room and dropped Xander’s finger as she raised both arms in the air and shrieked, “Uncle Will!” at Spike, who was just coming out of the kitchen. Dawn placed the struggling girl on the ground and Xander watched open-mouthed as she ran into Spike’s outstretched arms as he knelt on the floor. The vampire pulled the tiny girl up to sit on his knee, and she showered his face with kisses. “Hey there, Littlest, how are you today?” He stood up, holding the child easily as he closed the distance between himself and Dawn, giving her a one armed hug. He turned to the door. “Come on in, Jase – don’t mind the family reunion.” He gestured at the young man, bringing him into the small group. Dawn linked her arm through his and introduced him to Xander as her husband.

Xander shook hands with Jase and really looked at him for the first time. The younger man was slight in build. He had a shy smile, sandy hair that fell in loose waves around his face, and startling blue eyes behind gold wire-rimmed glasses. Xander’s smile brightened even further as he made a quick observation and filed it away for later reflection. The two men exchanged small talk as Dawn and Spike got Sara settled on the floor with some toys and then rejoined the group.

“I ordered pizza, we’ve got beer and wine and soda and juice, and there’s a chocolate cake for later. I’ve got a Disney DVD for the Bitty to watch and then some old favorites for us for later,” Spike announced. He punched Xander on the arm as the other man mouthed “Martha,” at him. Xander hissed as Spike’s fist connected with his bruise from earlier. Dawn turned quickly toward him and rolled up the sleeve of his black silk tee shirt, exposing the bruise.

“Um, wow,” she breathed.

“Is it bad?” Xander twisted his neck to try and see the damage.

Dawn blushed. “Um, no … I was wowing at the arm; the bruise is nothing special.” Xander flexed his arm and Dawn squeaked. She quickly rolled his sleeve back down and let go, glancing guiltily at her husband, who surprised them all by laughing out loud.

“OK,” Jase said ruefully, “I guess it’s time to get Will to whip me into shape so Dawn can squeak at me like that.” They all laughed companionably.

After they polished off three large pizzas, including the pineapple and ham monstrosity that Dawn had insisted on, the four adults lay sprawled out comfortably in the living room. Jase was on the floor, his head resting on a couch pillow, drifting in and out of a post-dinner nap. Spike was draped bonelessly over an easy chair with Sara draped equally bonelessly across his chest, fast asleep. Xander and Dawn shared the couch, each propped at an end with their legs mingling in the middle. The Disney DVD was finishing up. Xander pushed Dawn with a foot to make sure she was awake and gestured to the pizza boxes and crumpled napkins when she raised an eyebrow at him. She nodded, and they untangled themselves and began clearing the debris.

In the kitchen they bagged everything up and stepped outside to place the bags in the trash can. Xander put the lid back on the receptacle and sat down next to Dawn on the back step. Hoping he was out of the range of vampire hearing, he turned to Dawn.

“Why do Jase and Sara call Spike Will?” he asked.

She looked at him for a moment and then replied. “Yeah, it was after you left. He started going by Will again after he started getting used to the soul. You knew that his name was William when he was alive, right?” When Xander nodded, she continued. “That’s how he kept the two personalities separate. Will was the soul and Spike was the demon. He had a lot of trouble getting the two sides balanced. Once he did, he realized that Spike wasn’t the demon; Spike was the “real” him – the combination of the two. The demon doesn’t really need its own name – not like it cares. So, those of us who knew him before call him Spike, and people who met him in the “Will” phase call him Will. We thought that Sara screaming “Uncle Spike” would be too strange, so she calls him Will. He answers to either.” She hesitated. “My turn. Why did you leave?”

Xander leaned his head down on her shoulder, and she raised a hand to brush through his hair. He felt her smile against his head when he made a happy noise and leaned into the contact. “I forgot how much you like to be petted.” She giggled. “You and Spike are alike that way – all touchy-feely. Like big cats. It’s nice.” She hesitated again. “Xander …..”

“I was exhausted. I didn’t have any more fight left in me. I thought there was nothing for me here, and I was miserable.” He drew in a deep breath. “Can you forgive me for leaving like that, Dawnie?”

She continued to pet him, twining her fingers through his hair. “I already did, Xander – a long time ago. We all understood. You couldn’t be anything here. You were always going to be the one to fix the broken window or go get stuff for Buffy if you stayed, and you needed to find your own life. Even I understood that and I was practically a child.”

They sat silently for a while, and Xander put his arm around Dawn’s slender waist, snuggling in closer. “I missed you. I missed all of you,” he said quietly. “You’ve changed so much. Spike, too.”

Dawn laughed. “Did you notice his accent?” Xander thought for a moment and then shook his head. She continued, “Over the last few years he’s lost that tough-guy accent, and he sounds way more like Giles than he used to. He also stopped calling everyone ‘luv’ and ‘mate.’” He mostly calls people by their actual names now, except for Sara and me. He’s also so much steadier than he used to be. It’s nice.”

Xander lifted his head and looked at Dawn. “He’s been great to me since I got here. I could hardly believe it. Well, except for the bruise.”

“Spike hit you?” she asked incredulously.

Xander laughed. “We sparred this afternoon, it’s no big deal.”

“What were you doing sparring with him – he’s super strong. You’re lucky all you got was a bruise!” her eyes flashed at him.

Xander ducked his head. “Give me some credit, Dawn, I actually managed to give him a black eye and bust his lip. Already healed though.”

Dawn’s eyes widened. “Oh, so those muscles aren’t just for show, then? I guess you’ll have to help Spike train Jase, too!”

Xander smiled. “Jase is great – so’s Sara. You have a beautiful family.”

She nodded, “I never thought I’d be so lucky.”

They were still smiling at each other when the door opened behind them and Jase stepped out onto the porch. He dropped a hand to the top of his wife’s head. “Will went to put Sara down – he says we should come in and have cake.”

Before the last word was out of his mouth the dark haired man and woman were on their feet, heading for the door. Jase laughed and followed.



Sara was sleeping peacefully upstairs and cake and cocoa had been consumed. Spike, Dawn and Jase all sat around the kitchen table, looking at Xander. He stood nervously in front of them, clutching a medium-sized black book. Spike pushed the fourth chair toward him with his foot, and he sank into it gratefully. He laid the book on the table in front of Dawn, who sat in the middle. He cleared his throat.

“OK. This book sort of answers the million-dollar question: What has Xander been doing for the past eight years? You guys ready for this?” He looked around the table and into two sets of ice blue eyes and one set of navy ones. Seeing nothing but support and curiosity, he opened the book. All three laughed out loud. The first page was an enlarged picture of a mug shot.

“Ah, yes,” Xander began “My short-lived life of crime. A bar brawl in Albuquerque. I’d been out of Sunnydale for a month. I guess I’d gotten used to fighting. I got the living crap beaten out of me in jail.”

The next page showed the “Welcome To …” signs of various small towns across the West. Xander continued with his narration. “I traveled the world, or at least the parts that weren’t too terribly far. I slung many exotic kinds of hash and built many substandard structures.”

The next pages showed Xander with other people. In most of the pictures he looked drawn and haunted, but in one he was actually smiling. In the photo he was sitting at what looked like a restaurant table between two other young men. The one on his left had curly red hair and a huge grin, but was looking at something outside the frame. The man on Xander’s right had close-cropped dark hair and a goatee. His green eyes stood out in the photo. He had his arm around Xander’s shoulders and they were both smiling widely at the camera. Dawn reached out to touch the photo and said, “You look happy here.”

Xander looked down at the photo, and his finger joined Dawn’s on the photo, his touching the green-eyed young man. He swallowed.

“That’s Danny. We … dated, for a while. We had a lot of fun, but the relationship was stormy at best. He left me for Julian.” Xander’s finger moved across the photo to point at the redhead. Dawn met Xander’s eyes and smiled at him sympathetically. “That stinks,” she said. “It’s OK,” Xander replied. “I broke them up in the first place.”

Dawn snorted. Xander couldn’t bring himself to meet Spike’s eyes. He knew that he could have skipped over the story of Danny, or just said they were buddies. He also knew himself well enough to know that he’d told the story for a reason, and that the reason had something to do with Spike.

The next few pages of the book showed scenery shots. Xander explained that he’d taken them on the cross-country drive that had landed him in Atlanta. A page of photos showed a bright, clean-looking city under a sunny blue sky. There was one photo of Xander, sitting on the hood of his crappy car looking exhausted. Dawn frowned when she saw this one.

“You can say it.” Xander spoke quietly. “I looked like Hell. I call that the ‘rock bottom picture’. I had a drug problem, I was broke, and I couldn’t sleep without having nightmares about demons. I hated my life and myself. I was even more miserable than when I left Sunnydale. You can turn the page – it gets better from there.” He smiled at Dawn encouragingly, and she flipped the page. Again, all three of his audience members burst out laughing. The next page was a photo of Xander in a white martial arts uniform, sprawled on the floor looking pissed. A tiny Japanese woman stood over him with an inscrutable expression on her face, one hand reaching down to help him up. Xander swallowed audibly. “That’s Shari.”

Xander sat with his head bowed for a moment, and he felt a light touch as Spike’s hand brushed over his own, which rested on his knee under the table. On impulse, he captured Spike’s hand and clasped it hard, fighting to remain in control. Spike’s cool hand squeezed his back strongly, his attention never leaving the photo album page.

In a measured tone, using the photos, he told the story of how he and Shari had met at the martial arts school. He explained how they had become friends, teacher and student, and then lovers. How Shari had encouraged him to go to school and get a good job. There were pictures of his graduation, their first apartment, their first “good” car, Shari receiving her black belt, and Xander doing the same. There was an engagement photo, with Xander looking absolutely dumbstruck at the tiny woman at his side. His fingers brushed the photo.

“I couldn’t believe she wanted to marry me. Hell, I couldn’t believe she wanted to date me. She was so incredible.” He clutched Spike’s hand even harder; glad that there was no way he could hurt the vampire.

Dawn turned the page and said “Wow”. The left page showed Xander, barefoot and shirtless, wearing a pair of black drawstring pants. Shari stood in front of him in a black sports bra and similar pants. They were both holding a stylized pose with their arms stretched above their heads and intertwined. Shari’s eyes were closed, her head tilted back. Xander was looking down at her with a breathtaking expression of love and longing on his face. Dawn drew her finger down the black and white portrait. “This is awesome,” she said.

The right-hand page was another posed portrait, this one of Xander alone. He faced the camera at an angle. He was holding the handle of a jointed metal strand that flowed across his bare shoulders. The handle had yellow and red silk scarves tied to it that trailed down his side. His muscles stood out in sharp relief, and he stared out of the frame.

Spike spoke for the first time since they had settled at the table. He traced his fingers across the weapon in the picture and asked, “What’s that?”

Xander chuckled and replied, “It’s a chain whip – I’ll show you sometime. It’s incredibly destructive; you’ll love it.” They shared a smile and Xander felt Spike’s hand tighten on his. Reluctantly, Xander released Spike’s cool hand from his sweaty one and turned the next page of the book himself. As the others took in the image, Xander started twisting the two platinum bands on his left ring finger. It was his and Shari’s wedding portrait. In the photo, she stood directly in front of him. She was wearing a long, white silk sheath with delicate straps. Her black hair spilled out from under a pure white veil that was attached to her hair with tiny white roses. She carried a bouquet of white calla lilies. Xander’s arms were around her tiny waist, and he towered over her as she was tucked neatly under his chin. His black tuxedo and gleaming white shirt emphasized his dark coloring and deep tan. They looked ecstatically happy.

The next few pages showed typical wedding shots, the last one was of their hands crossed over Shari’s bouquet, emphasizing their rings. Shari wore a diamond solitaire and platinum band that matched the thick one on Xander’s hand. Spike wondered for a moment about the thinner band that Xander also wore. He looked up and realized that Xander had removed both bands from his hand and was holding them out to him. Meeting Xander’s eyes with a questioning look, he took the two rings and turned them over in his hands. They were both engraved on the inside. The thicker one said “Shari”, the thinner one “Lex”. As Dawn turned the page, all three voices asked as one “Who’s Lex?”

Xander touched the photo on the last page of the book. It was a 3-D sonogram photo. Under the picture was scrawled the name Lex. Three pairs of blue eyes searched for brown ones, but Xander chose to look deeply into Spike’s.

“Lex was my son,” he said quietly. “He was never born. When Shari was murdered he died with her.”