• SPOILERS : Heroes, Lost City
  Stargate sometime early season 7 before the main story arc. And Buffy post Chosen. For the purposes of this story, Spike is completely dead.
• SUMMARY : Crossover with Buffy the Vampire Slayer: After the collapse of Sunnydale, Jack gets a call about a woman he knew over twenty years ago . . . and the son he never knew he had.
• PG [D] [Hu] [CR]

Jack scowled at the ringing phone. He was on leave. SG1 had finally gotten some downtime and the phone was not supposed to be ringing. The only people who called him were his teammates and he had just seen them out of his house. That only left the base, which was unfair on so many levels.

The phone rang again, and he contemplated not answering. Unfortunately, a niggling little voice in his head wouldn’t let him turn his back on what could be the end of the world. Stupid conscience.

"O’Neill," he said just sharply enough to let whoever was calling that he was not happy.

"Jonathon O’Neill?" a cautious female voice queried.

"Is this a solicitation?" Jack asked suspiciously at the use of his first name.

"No!" said the woman quickly. "Sorry. I’m Elena Acosta with the Sunnydale County Clerk’s Office."

"Sunnydale?" Where had he heard that name before?

"Yes," the woman sighed heavily, tiredly. And then it clicked – the earthquake. Sinkholes underground had leveled a town in California last spring, about six months ago.

"What can I do for you?" asked Jack, softly now. The poor woman didn’t need anymore crap after her hometown had sunk into the Earth.

"I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this," said Elena. "Jessica Harris died not long after the earthquake. You’re in her Will."

"Wait," Jack interrupted, his mind running over the unfamiliar name in his head. Who was Jessica Harris? He didn’t know any Jessicas, did he?

"I’m sorry. I’m so bad at this," Elena apologized, which made Jack wonder how many people before him she had called to tell that their loved ones were dead and that there was a will with their name in it. He felt both guilty and puzzled that he didn’t know this Jessica Harris, and he was about to tell Elena that when it clicked.

The beach house, LA. A two week leave before he headed out on maneuvers in South America. He’d met Sarah after he got back home, but lanky, dark Jessica was before all that. He’d known her barely two weeks. Why was he in her last Will?

"What?" asked Elena, and Jack realized he had mumbled that last allowed.

"Nothing, sorry, go on," he said.

"In order to claim your inheritance, you need to come to our offices in Los Angeles with two government proofs of identity," Elena explained. "Mrs. Harris managed to leave Sunnydale before the earthquake with her husband. I’m afraid I can’t disclose more than that until I have proof you are Jonathan O’Neill."

"How did she die?" asked Jack.

"There was a riot in the neighborhood they were staying in. Neither she nor her husband made it." Again, Elena sounded apologetic and tired.

Jack was silent for a moment, taking it all in. He wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, or how to cope with suddenly hearing about Jessica again, especially at her death. Guess he was going on vacation after all. "I’ll be there Friday."

Elena gave him the address and a complete list of all the documentation he would need to satisfy the government that yes, he had been born. Just when he thought he had everything, Elena added a startled, "oh!" as if she had forgotten something. "Do you know where your son is, Mr. O’Neill?"

Jack suddenly sat up straight. "You mean Jessica’s son?" Sure she had made a mistake. She had had a son? Well, it only stood to reason since she had had a husband, he mentally berated himself.

"Yes," he heard Elena smile. "Mrs. Harris’s and yours."

"What?" That couldn’t be possible. How could he have a son and not know about him? She must have read it wrong. "We don’t have a son."

"Oh," Elena was clearly surprised. "You didn’t know?" she ventured, her tone telling him not to be mad at her about it.

Jack sighed. "No," he said. He paused, thinking about this new possibility. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," said Elena. "I’m looking at the birth certificate now. Well, once you get here, I’ll give you his information so you can look him up if you want. I doubt we would find him any faster."

"Yeah." Jack felt stunned, shocked, whammied. How could he have a son and not know about him? Because Special Ops didn’t leave a forwarding address. And it had never crossed his youthful brain that a couple of nights on leave would leave him with a son he didn’t know. "Thanks," he said absently. He barely registered Elena say good-bye and hang up.

He had a son. Maybe alive, somewhere. Out in the world. He looked at his hands counting the years. He would be twenty-two or twenty-three by now, a couple years older than Charlie. Grown up. He probably had a job somewhere, maybe a girlfriend. Jack wondered what he was like.

********************************************************

The next day Jack called Daniel and trusted that word would get to Teal’c and Sam when they returned from their respective worlds of Chulak and the lab. The day after that, he was in the temporary clerk’s office in LA waiting in line with hundreds of other people. The place was small for the masses and it smelled of smoke and too many bodies. Four hours later he had a shoebox of memorabilia from that long ago leave, a small check for a couple thousand dollars, and a name: Alexander Lavell Harris.

When he got back to Colorado he gave Carter what he knew and let her work her magic while life settled back into its normal routine of missions and near death experiences. In her spare time, what little of it there was, Carter searched every file she could get her hands on, but with hard records destroyed and internet ones secure and often out of date, it was very slow going.

Jack spent the time he wasn’t yelling at Daniel wondering what Alexander, or Alex as he’d nicknamed him in his head, was like.

Six months later, Carter found an address.

*******************************************************

"Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?" Daniel asked for the thousandth time as he watched Jack pack for his trip to Cleveland.

And for the thousandth time, Jack shook his head. "I’m sure," he said with finality, hoping Danny would get the point this time. But he didn’t.

"Jack, it’s no problem. And you might want to have a friend around for this." Daniel’s eyes caught his and held them. "It’s not going to be easy."

"I know, Daniel," Jack sighed and scrubbed his face. "But the General needs you here for the . . ." he floundered his hand around searching for the name of their latest diplomatic crises.

"Yibbites. Jack, just be careful, okay?" said Daniel. "Don’t be all . . ." This time Daniel searched for words.

"Be what?"

Daniel sighed. "Just remember your going to be telling Alex that his mother and the man he thought was his father are dead. And that you are his biological father from a one night stand with his mom."

Jack focused on packing. "It wasn’t one night," he grumbled, not liking what his friend was telling him, but knowing Daniel was right. He couldn’t just waltz in and expect Alex to welcome him with open arms. And that’s what he was afraid of, being rejected and cast away. That’s why Daniel wanted to come and why Jack didn’t want him there. If that happened, he wanted time to mourn. He looked back at Daniel. "I’ll be careful," he promised.

Daniel nodded and followed him out the door to the car.

**********************************************************

Jack was nervous. He stared at the house in front of him wondering just what the hell he was doing there. It was an old house that was tucked away in a nice quiet older neighborhood of Cleveland. But it looked how a nice house should. Was Alex married? Did he have kids? Oh God, did he have kids? Jack didn’t think he could cope with grandkids on top of everything.

No. He didn’t know anything. That’s why he was here, to find out about his son. Six months and he still wasn’t completely used to the idea. Shaking off whatever paralysis had come over him, Jack got out of his rental and made his way up the drive. Noise came from the backyard but it sounded harmless enough that he ignored it for the moment and just went up the steps to the ring the bell, listening as it echoed inside. A dozen sets of footsteps followed with overlapping cries of "I’ll get it," and suddenly the door was pulled open and Jack found himself faced with three teenage girls.

Surprised, he took a light step back. This was not what he had been expecting. All three had brown hair and were waiting for him to speak, clearly as surprised as he was to see him standing there. "Hi," Jack kind of waved, off balance. He had double-checked the address twice.

"No pizza?" the girl in the middle asked with a slight lift of her eyebrows that quickly settled into a disappointed frown when Jack shook his head.

"Ah, no. Actually I’m here to see Mr. Harris," he told them.

"What for?" demanded the one on the right. Jack looked from her to the others and saw that they all had narrowed their eyes at him. Over their shoulders Jack saw two more girls poke their heads around a doorjamb. What was going on here?

"Uh, I’m actually here with news about his parents," he focused back on the rightside girl. She gave him a quick once over then stepped back, the other girls also moving aside for him to enter.

"XANDER!!!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, making Jack startle back at the noise.

"What?" a voice floated down from the second floor. His son’s voice he realized. Alex – wait, the girl had called him Xander. His name was Xander. The girl yelled again before he could process that thought further.

"SOMEONE’S HERE TO SEE YOU!!!"

"Coming!" Xander called down. Jack watched the upper rail of the second floor that showed the upper hallway above him, barely noticing as the girls drifted back to whatever it was girls did here. He didn’t have to wait long. He recognized him from the picture Carter had found as the tall young man slowly descended the stairs. Except he had an eyepatch over his left eye. And his hair was longer. Why did he have an eyepatch over his left eye?

"Hey," said Xander as he reached the last step. He was wearing blue jeans and a green t-shirt under a workman’s vest. His son was a construction worker, a foreman, he remembered. Jack clasped the offered hand with a smile, suddenly feeling like he’d been given too much air to breathe. "I’m Xander Harris. What can I do for you?"

It was only then that Jack noticed the wary look in his single eye, the way he stepped back slightly after their handshake ended. It was disappointing that he was a stranger to his own son, but Jack knew better than to have hoped otherwise.

"Jack O’Neill," he introduced himself. "I’ve got news about your parents."

"My parents, huh?" Xander blinked. "They’re dead, aren’t they?" He was not surprised. It was as if Jack had only confirmed what he’d known all along. Jack noticed a blond head this time listening at the doorjamb.

"Can we talk somewhere?" he asked, motioning toward their eavesdropper. Xander turned his whole head so he could see where Jack meant, then nodded and turned to an open sitting room on the right. He closed the doors and motioned for Jack to sit, settling on the beat up couch opposite him. Jack just watched him for a moment, taking him in, trying to readjust his image to fit this calm young man with one eye in working clothes. He didn’t know what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. "You knew about your parents?" he heard himself ask cautiously.

Xander looked away, to the right, to the floor. "I was in LA during the riots. They were in my uncle’s neighborhood. I didn’t know for sure . . ."

"You were there?" Jack asked surprised.

But Xander shook his head. "I was staying with some friends downtown. So do you work for the city or something? You could have just called."

"No," said Jack looking down at his hands. Oh, God, how was he going to do this? "The, uh, Clerk’s Office called me. I knew your mother a long time ago, and I was mentioned in the Will."

"Huh?" His son’s calm face broke in surprise, but he waited for Jack to go on.

"I knew her before you were born," Jack repeated. "The Clerk’s Office couldn’t find you so they gave me your name when I said I could track you down."

"They did?" Xander still looked confused, but then his mouth clicked shut and his eyes single eye bore into Jack’s. "Why? They don’t usually release that kind if information to strangers. Who are you?" This last was said with suspicion. He had tensed up, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation, and though Jack knew the kid wouldn’t be able to touch him, it still hurt.

He reached into his pocket and offered his son his birth certificate. Xander glanced at it, back at Jack, then really read it. His hands started to shake and Jack wondered what would happen next. Wondered if he was going to get thrown out.

When Xander looked up at him again there was only anger. "What is this?" he demanded, low and dangerous.

"I just found out about it, too," said Jack, looking away from that one terrible eye.

"These can be forged, you know."

"It was in her Will for you to know." He reached into his pocket again for the pictures. There were only two, both of him and Jessica standing together in front of the beach house. Xander looked at them closely, his index finger brushing over the young faces as if her could reach out and bring them back. He sniffed and stood, and when he glanced at Jack on his way to the door, his eye was brighter than it should have been.

"DAWN!" he shouted and not two seconds later the brunette who had challenged Jack at the door stuck her head in the door.

"Yeah?" she chirped, eyes slipping past him to land on Jack.

"Go check if these are real," Xander handed her the birth certificate and the pictures.

"What?" Dawn looked at them then his son in confusion before reading the birth certificate. "Xander!"

"Dawn, just do it. Please," his son asked tiredly. The girl looked at Jack again before nodding and leaving them to an uncomfortable silence.

Jack wondered how she would know if they were real or not and was suddenly angered by the whole situation. Angry at Jessica for not telling him about Xander, angry at Xander for not trusting him or even his evidence. How the hell was a fifteen-year-old going to verify that they were real anyway?

"She’s seventeen," said Xander sharply, turning to glare at him. Had he said that out loud?

"Sorry, seventeen," said Jack sarcastically. As if it made a difference. "You’re just going to take the word of a seventeen-year-old that that birth certificate is real?"

"Or forged," said Xander coldly.

"It’s not forged."

"We’ll see."

"How? Is she going to wave her little magic wand?"

"Something like that."

They stared at each other, neither one willing to back down for several minutes. His son’s arms were crossed across his chest almost like Daniel’s protective stance but somehow more dangerous. Maybe it was the eyepatch, or the shaggy head of hair.

"You look a little like my uncle when he was young," Jack surprised them both by saying. Xander blinked and the hard expression melted to something like curiosity. Maybe if he could accept it, they could be friends. "I’m sorry for . . ." Jack paused looking for what he was sorry for. Not being there, not loving him, not playing ball, or meeting his girl, and for all of a sudden dropping this on his shoulders after he found out his parents were dead. Daniel was right; this was far from easy. "For, you know, everything," he finished lamely.

"Xander?" Dawn’s quiet voice interrupted the tense silence. They both turned and she looked from one to the other, eyes slightly wide. "They’re real." She held out the pictures and birth certificate. After a stunned moment, Xander took them.

"Thanks, Dawnie," he said staring at them, processing. Dawn looked at Jack again before ducking out and closing the door.

Jack waited for Xander to acknowledge him, and when he finally looked up there were tears in his eye. He smiled weakly. "Sorry. I guess it’s just hitting me that I’m never going to see Mom again."

"I’m sorry," Jack said again.

Xander smiled tightly. "Thanks." They stared at each other again but this time his son was studying him. "So I guess we should do the bonding thing," Xander finally broke the silence.

Jack smiled in relief. He wasn’t going to be kicked out of the house after all. He had a chance here to make it work with this child he didn’t know. Once they resettled into chairs and the sofa, Xander began.

"So you married?"

He didn’t waste any time with the easy stuff. "Divorced," said Jack. "I got married about a year after I left your mom," he went on. It felt weird to explain something that he normally kept close to his heart. But if anyone deserved to know it was the young man before him.

"Any kids?"

Jack closed his eyes and nodded. "Charlie." He opened them and gazed at Xander’s work boots. "He accidentally shot himself with my gun when he was ten. Sarah and I couldn’t make it through his death." He could still remember that day as if it were yesterday. He’d never forgive himself.

"I’m sorry," Xander almost whispered. There was no anger, no judgement, only pain when Jack met his eye, though he had a feeling that Xander wasn’t seeing him.

"What about you?" asked Jack. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No, no girlfriend," Xander came back from wherever he had gone. "She . . .she’s gone."

"And all these girls around here?" Jack felt the need to lighten the mood. How had they managed to pick the one subject that left them both depressed?

"Are unfortunately not my personal harem," Xander grinned suddenly. "They’d all kick my ass from here to England."

Jack smiled at the thought. "So what do you do here?"

"Me and a couple of friends are running a self-defense program for girls for the summer," Xander waved his hand at the house in general. "After Sunnydale, we needed to get out of California. So we ended up here, with no money, and one hair-brained idea." He shrugged. "My friends do the teaching. I’m more of the fix-whatever-gets-broken-guy."

The doorbell rang and a stampede of footsteps rushed to the door followed soon after by the smell of pizza, which made Xander grin hesitantly, his hands rubbing against his legs with nervous energy. "Food’s here. You want?"

Jack followed his son to the kitchen where thirty girls were attacking as many pizza boxes on the counter. Most of them were dressed in workout clothes and all of them were talking. As Jack watched his son melt into the rush of youth he couldn’t help but notice that he was more than Mr. Fix-it.

"Xander! Allison took two pieces of cheese and I didn’t get any!"

"Allison, give one to Vi!"

"’S not fair!" the girl in question grumbled as Xander fixed his eye on her.

"Hey, who took my drink?"

"Xander, where are the napkins?"

"Ask Ellie and Veronica, they’re on kitchen duty for lunch."

"No we’re not!" two girls protested with matching looks of innocence. Jack watched as Xander simply raised his eyebrow.

"Do I have to check the list?"

"Fine, we’ll find them," one of the girls grumbled stomping off to the cabinets.

"Hey, Xander, is this your dad?" Jack suddenly found thirty pairs of eyes fixed on him. He felt like he was facing a squad of piranhas that would tear him to pieces at any second.

"I thought your dad died."

"That was his mom’s husband who he grew up with. This is his biological dad."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Dawn said so."

"Hey, all I said was the papers were for real."

"Hey!" Xander's voice cut through all the speculation. He didn’t seem too surprised or bothered that word had gotten out in the span of ten minutes, though Jack had a feeling he himself looked shell-shocked. Who wouldn’t? He was used to handling only one teenage girl at a time, not thirty, for cryin’ out loud.

"Everyone, this is Jack O’Neill. Jack, this is almost everyone." He leaned in close and whispered, "Don’t let them scare you," in his ear and handed him a paper plate with two slices of pepperoni. Xander shouldered room for them at the counter and then the interrogation began.

"So where you from?" Dawn was the first to ask, squeezing in next to him at the counter.

"Colorado," said Jack, feeling a little bit better once he took a bite of pizza.

"Colorado? Isn’t Terry from Colorado?" someone asked, but since Terry wasn’t there to confirm this, Dawn moved on.

"What do you do?"

"I’m in the Air Force."

"Really?" several girls asked. "Do you fly planes?"

Jack turned to the waiting crowd. "Sometimes. Not as much anymore."

"Air Force, huh?" Dawn poked his arm to get his attention. "Name, rank, and serial number."

Jack grinned at the narrow look she was giving him and rattled off the information. There was an impressed collected gasp when he said ‘Colonel,’ but when he glanced at Xander, his son had that wary look back in his eye. Jack sighed internally, frustrated that whatever ground he had gained seemed to have been lost.

"You don’t happen to work on any top secret projects, do you?" asked Xander. And from the way he said it, Jack knew he was only half-joking. And that scared him.

"Deep space radar telemetry," the practiced lie rolled off his lips. What did Xander know about top secret projects? He was just a kid! His kid. Oh God, his kid! Jack wanted to grab his shoulder and demand answers, but he couldn’t, not here in front of all these little girls. Not with a son he wanted a chance with.

Feeling dazed he turned back to the questions the girls kept asking. Do you have a gun? Have you been in a war? Have any of your friends died? Vaguely he recognized something strange in the questions, but preoccupied by what had prompted Xander’s question, he couldn’t tell what. It took him five minutes to notice that Dawn had disappeared.

Finally, Xander shooed the girls away and they went back to the sitting room and the dilapidated couch. His son regarded him strangely before speaking. "I didn’t mean to wig you out," he said. "It’s just . . .this guy one of my friends dated was in the Army. It was a bad break up."

He didn’t say anymore, but Jack got the feeling that bad was an understatement. "I’m sorry to hear that."

Xander shrugged again. "So deep space radar telemetry? That sounds . . .fun."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, if you’re asleep. And you’re a construction worker?" he asked to change the subject away from issues of national security.

"Used to be. Now I’m an out of work, one-eyed carpenter." Jack could tell he wasn’t happy about it.

"What about this?" he asked, gesturing to the house.

"It’s more my friends’ stuff than mine," Xander smiled sadly. "Being a carpenter was all mine, you know?"

"Yeah," Jack found himself smiling too, understanding the need to have something that you alone were good at. "So . . . can I ask what happened? To your eye?" Jack almost held his breath, waiting to see if Xander would let him in.

"You know how they say ‘never run with scissors’?" Xander finally said. "It’s good advice."

"Oh," Jack looked away. Something was missing. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew a recent wound when he saw one. Xander just wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. At least he hoped that was the case, and that one day his son would feel comfortable talking about it with him.

"How long are you staying?"

"Till Saturday." It was Thursday today, so two more days. He wondered if he would be seeing more of Xander. "Id like to get to know you though. See you again," he added, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate. "If I had known, I would have come."

"Really?" Xander sounded like he didn’t believe him. "You barely knew my mother."

"Wouldn’t matter." Jack held his gaze, willing the words to sink in. Xander sat there, still skeptical. "Will you give me a chance?"

"I’ve got to go check on the girls." Xander didn’t answer the question. "Do you have a place to stay?"

Jack nodded. "Hampton Inn." They both stood up no longer sure what to say to each other. "So I’ll see you tomorrow?" asked Jack hopefully.

"Yeah," Xander nodded. "I’ve got to pick up Buffy and Giles from the airport. They’ll want to meet you. If you can come around four? That way they’ll have time to interrogate you before dinner."

"Four then," said Jack. He didn’t like the sound of interrogation. There would probably be questions about his intentions toward Xander, death threats, that sort of thing. And Jack realized as Xander awkwardly shook his hand at the door that in an odd way he was looking forward to it.

**************************** Second Time Through ************************

Xander stared at the closed door, listening as Jack’s car started up and drove off. It all felt so surreal, like he was watching someone else’s life. Because how could this be happening?

With a sigh, Xander turned and headed out back to check on the girls in the yard. They were talking and laughing as Vi led them through their stretches, the novelty of their calling not yet worn away. Xander let them be and went inside, back upstairs to his room. His unfinished email to Willow was still on the screen where he had left it. He’d have to rewrite it now, he thought. Add that his parents were dead.

Turning away from the computer, he sat instead on his bed, elbows on knees as he gazed at the pictures Jack had given him. He had lost all his pictures when they closed the Hellmouth, not that he’d had many of his parents.

Dead. His parents were dead. He felt his eye prick and a tear slide down his cheek. They were gone. It was one thing to look at the carnage from the riots and guess, another to hear the words that cemented it into reality. His mom had been so beautiful. Young, free. She couldn’t have been much older in the picture than Xander was now, but he had never felt as young as she looked. At least not in a long, long time. And she was gone now. Like Anya. And as much as he had sometimes hated his parents, he wanted nothing more than to see them one last time. But he couldn’t. Xander’s head fell into his hands and silent sobs accompanied the pictures falling to the floor.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but after a while he felt someone sit on the bed next to him and an arm snake around his waist. Sighing he sat up and hugged Dawn back, glad of the simple comfort she offered. Neither of them said anything; they didn’t have to.

"I’m sorry about your parents," Dawn said softly after a while.

Xander let out a soft, sad huff of air and wiped the tears from his cheeks. "Yeah. I never would have thought I’d be crying over them."

"They were still your parents," Dawn replied. Xander caught the note of longing in her voice. Their dad still hadn’t contacted them. Not like Jack.

"And now there’s this guy who says he’s my real dad." Xander still didn’t know if he believed it or not.

"I googled him," said Dawn. "He’s who he says he is. We’ll have to get Willow to do the deep dark secret search. And a paternity test if you want."

"Yeah," he absently agreed, thinking back over the man who had flown from Colorado just to see him.

For an old guy, Jack was in shape and actually looked pretty good over all. Also not horribly out of fashion, he noted remembering the casual khakis, shirt, and leather jacket he had worn. Xander couldn’t decide if that bothered him or not. Then he wondered why he was focusing on something so entirely irrelevant.

"He’s coming back tomorrow," he told Dawn. "He says he wants to get to know me."

"Is that good?" asked Dawn hesitantly. "I mean, do you really think he’s your dad?"

Xander shrugged not wanting to think about it but unable not to. He’d lost his original birth certificate with everything else in Sunnydale. Regardless, having someone else call him son wasn’t really going to change anything. Dad hadn’t really been his dad since high school anyway. "He thinks so. Said I looked like his uncle."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothing really. I asked about his family, he asked if I had a girlfriend." But she was gone too. "He asked about my eye." Dawn nodded and silence settled over them again.

Xander wondered where this was going to go. He wondered why he had told Jack he could come back. With his current luck he would probably turn out to be another demon trying to get to them through him. His eye found the pictures on the floor. Mom and Jack. Jack and Mom. "Are they really real?" he half-whispered.

"Willow’s all-purpose truth spell came up positive."

So maybe not a demon. He hadn’t even gotten to the Colonel thing yet. Those were scabs best left alone for now.

"Can I come with you to pick up Buffy and Giles?" asked Dawn, breaking the quiet.

"Yeah," he turned and smiled at her, for real this time. "Thanks. I could use the company."

"Anytime." And they both knew it was about more than a ride to the airport. Dawn gave him a final squeeze then left to get back to whatever translation she was working on for Giles. Xander stared after her for a minute before going back to the email to Willow who was somewhere on the East Coast. He deleted the last few lines then started a new paragraph.

************************************************

The next day after overseeing the usual chaos that was cooking for and feeding over thirty slayers and making sure the veterans had the newbies under control, Xander and Dawn headed for the airport with Dawn in the driver’s seat. They hadn’t told Buffy yet that she’d gotten her license, deciding that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. She’d become better about letting Dawn grow up but still had the tendency to be overprotective. So when she was gone, Xander let Dawn drive. And if she found out he had his lack of depth perception as an excuse.

The airport was noisy but not too crowded. They waited in the baggage claim area passing the time by filling in the words to other peoples conversations as they greeted each other. It was nice to just sit and people-watch with Dawn, see how the other side lived. Xander hadn’t done this since working construction.

They had been waiting for about twenty minutes when two familiar figures finally came down the escalator. Beside him, Dawn shrieked and bounded over to tackle her sister and Giles, Xander trailing in her wake. Having just come from London, they both looked tired and unkempt, but happy to be back. Giles smiled at him and gave him a hug when he reached them. Dawn was already chattering a mile a minute at Buffy with no sign of stopping, so Xander took his life into his own hands and commandeered the slayer for a hug, which she laughingly returned. Dawn’s commentary on life at the house never stopped.

By the time they got their bags and were on the way home Dawn had caught them up since their last phone call four days ago. While the news about Xander’s parents didn’t surprised them, the news about his possible father did. But Dawn, bless her, wouldn’t let them ask questions, saying they could get the details after they got home. She wanted to hear about London while she had them to herself. So they pushed aside talk of Jack in favor of making fun of the Land of Tweed. Even Giles had a thing or two to say about British drivers.

As far as work went, the rebuilding of the Council was progressing slowly, but progressing nonetheless. Though Xander got the impression that Buffy had spent most of their time dragging Giles to see the sights. She looked good. She looked like she’d finally had some badly needed rest.

Xander smiled as he watched the girls go on in the back seat about all the crazy things Buffy had tried in order to get the guards at Buckingham Palace to quit their statue routine. Beside him, Giles shook his head, silently denying any part in the escapade. Just like normal. It was good to have everyone home.

******************************************

At precisely four o’clock, Jack rang the doorbell to the nice, old house where Xander lived with a bunch of girls. It was simply too odd to contemplate at the moment, so Jack wisely chose not to as he listened to the stampede heading for the door. This time two brunettes, a blond, and one faded blue met him cheerfully at the door.

"Hi," Jack smiled more sure of himself today.

The girls giggled and said, "Hi, Jack," as they let him in.

"XANDER!!!" two of them shouted together, this time toward the back of the house, and once again Jack winced at the noise. He figured it wasn’t often quiet around here.

Xander emerged from the back hallway followed by another, much older man. He had gray hair and glasses and wore a blue pullover, managing to look both casual and distinguished at the same time. Jack wondered who he was, maybe a parent dropping off his daughter?

"Hey!" another girl shouted from the kitchen. "Buffy says break’s over," she called to the teenagers who had let him in. With a chorus of disappointed ‘awe’s, the four reluctantly retreated casting wishful looks over their shoulders.

"They never give up," said Xander by way of greeting, watching the girls leave. "Of course I don’t blame ‘em for wanting to avoid Buffy." He turned back to Jack and the parent who hadn’t left yet. "So Jack, this is Rupert Giles. He’s helping us out for the summer. Giles, Jack O’Neill."

"A pleasure to meet you," said Mr. Giles in a soft British accent.

To say Jack was surprised would have been a gross understatement. This was Giles? Xander’s friend that he was running this place with? He had expected Giles to be some dumb kid, another refugee from Sunnydale with no money and a stupid idea. One old man, one young one and thirty teenage girls did not paint a pretty picture. And he was British! Just what had this guy gotten his son wrapped up in?

Hiding his surprise and suspicion with a neutral smile, Jack shook the offered hand. Mr. Giles had a firm handshake that almost hurt, but his mild expression suggested he wasn’t aware of it. "Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?"

"Uh, coffee would be great," said Jack, the civil custom bringing him up short and reminding him of his manners. This was Xander’s ‘friend’ after all, good or not, and for once he didn’t want to pick a fight.

Xander disappeared into the kitchen to get the drinks while Mr. Giles led Jack into the sitting room. Mr. Giles didn’t say anything to him, instead seeming to prefer to let Jack make the first move. It was all very uncomfortable. Jack wasn’t quite sure what was going on but he wanted to find out. Now.

"So how do you know Xander?" he asked as innocuously as possible.

Mr. Giles didn’t flinch. "I’ve known him since he was in high school. Yourself?"

"I, uh." Suddenly thrown on the defensive when he knew Mr. Giles was aware of who he was made Jack take a strong dislike to the man. He was being tested and he really didn’t like it. "I’m his father. His biological father anyway. But you knew that."

"I know that’s what you claim," Mr. Giles met his challenging gaze. "A birth certificate and a picture are hardly concluding evidence."

"Xander seems to think so."

"Does he?" Mr. Giles lifted a skeptical eyebrow. And suddenly Jack wasn’t sure. Yesterday, after Dawn had confirmed the birth certificate they had talked . . . it hadn’t been the most stellar conversation he’d ever had, but he thought they had made progress.

"It was in his mother’s will," said Jack, needing something solid to hold onto. He remembered reading it. "I didn’t find out until they called me about it."

"Again, all we have is your word on that," Mr. Giles replied. "But I suppose that is neither here nor there at the moment since it can easily be cleared up at the hospital."

"What?"

"You know, your DNA, my DNA. Seeing if it’s all happy little DNA," said Xander joining them with the drinks. "It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just that, well . . . we don’t." He handed Jack a Snoopy mug. "Milk or sugar?"

Jack shook his head, sighed and pushed the hurt away. To be honest he had anticipated doing a paternity test sometime. He just didn’t know if he could handle it if it came out negative. He watched as Xander handed Mr. Giles a Kiss the Librarian mug and settled beside him on the couch with his own that said ‘We heart Snow’.

His son, because he knew he was, looked better today, more relaxed than yesterday to be sure. And he looked comfortable sitting next to Mr. Giles, which rankled Jack a bit because it wasn’t him. Who was this guy anyway? And what was he doing here? How did he know Xander? Yesterday’s challenge of impressing the friends wasn’t so fun anymore when confronted with this man.

"So when do you want to do the test?" he asked. "I’ve got to get back tomorrow."

"I already set up an appointment at the clinic in town in the morning," said Xander. "And it wasn’t easy getting a spot on such short notice."

"Oh." Jack wasn’t sure what to say to that. "That’s good." And awfully fast. Jack tried not to think about what would happen if it came back negative. He’d been dreaming of this meeting for six months. Of course the reality of it was far from anything he had expected, but at least there was still hope.

"So," said Mr. Giles. "You work at NORAD, Colonel?"

Jack glanced up sharply at the man, wondering just why he asked that. He’d never said anything about where he worked yesterday. And he didn’t like that look of mild curiosity either. "And you teach teenaged girls . . . self defense?" he shot back, letting him know exactly what he thought of the situation.

To his surprise, Mr. Giles actually blushed. "Yes, actually," he sputtered. "It’s not what you’re implying."

"I wasn’t implying anything," Jack denied, happy he’d finally scored a hit. "Just wondering what you’ve got my son doing here."

"Hey! Why should you care?" Xander snapped. "You don’t live here. And even if you are my biological father, so what? You haven’t been a part of my life. You don’t know the first thing about us."

"I wasn’t there because I didn’t know about you. I’m here now," said Jack a little too desperately. This wasn’t happening, was it? "I want to get to know you. Why do you think I came here?"

"I don’t know!" Xander suddenly shouted back. "You just showed up, all ‘Luke I am your father’ and you’re not like him and I don’t even know you."

"Xander," Mr. Giles put a calming hand on the young man’s shoulder while Jack looked on in shock. Did that even make sense? "Xander, why don’t you go check on Andrew in the kitchen," said Mr. Giles.

Xander ignored him. "What, you tell me my parents are dead and expect to take their place protecting me? I’m not a kid."

"I’m not expecting anything!" Jack yelled back, feeling like he’d been kicked in the teeth. He’s was going to lose him! The thought seared through his mind like fire, burning so deep it was all he could think of.

"Xander," Mr. Giles repeated sharply.

"Yeah. Fine, whatever." Without sparing a glance for Jack, his son stormed out of the room leaving Jack with the older man. Mildness replaced by ruthless hostility.

Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. Shit. This wasn’t going right. "Look, I’m sorry," he said not quite sure what had just happened. "Whatever I said – "

"I daresay you called me a pervert," Mr. Giles interrupted coldly.

Jack bristled. "I – "

"I don’t want to hear it," Mr. Giles cut him off again. "You want to make sure he’s all right, I can see that. You can say anything you want to about me; I honestly don’t care, but I highly doubt that insulting his friends will garner you his good will, however well intentioned."

"I’m sorry," Jack repeated with a sigh. "I’ll admit I’m probably jumping to conclusions, but frankly I don’t like you," he bit out. "Whatever you’re doing here doesn’t look good from where I’m sitting. I know it’s a little late, but I just want what’s best for him."

"As do I Colonel O’Neill," said Mr. Giles. "Even if that means getting rid of you."

Jack caught his breath. He must have heard wrong. "Did you just threaten me?" he asked, eyebrows lifted at the audacity. Mr. Giles continued to calmly stare him down.

"I’ll leave the threats to the girls. They have a much more colorful way of putting things," said Mr. Giles, and Jack knew he wasn’t talking about the girls he’d met yesterday. "But let me make one thing perfectly clear: neither your rank nor your government will be able to protect you from me if you have one ill thought toward Xander." Now Jack was used to being threatened, in fact he often felt that in his old age he was getting rather immune to it. But at the moment he got the feeling that he was treading on very thin ice. Mr. Giles’s tone was clear, crisp, and deadly, his accent only chilling Jack more as eyes full of mortal promise bored into him.

Whatever he had thought before about Mr. Giles being mild mannered when right out the window. "You have my word," Jack murmured seriously.

"Good." And like that, the spell was broken so quickly Jack wondered if it had really happened. "Then you can stay for supper." Mr. Giles smiled at him with only a hint of his earlier menace and took a sip of his tea. "So, Colonel, how do you like Cleveland?"

Jack tried to smile back and hoped he would make it out of this conversation intact.

*************************************************

The constant sound of knife against cutting board pounded like the blood through Xander’s head. He could feel Andrew watching him from across the island counter and wished he could say something reassuring but he didn’t know what. Hell, he couldn’t even sort out why he was mad. Yesterday Jack had been okay and today he and Giles were at each other’s throats.

Xander cleared the chopped carrots into the waiting pot and grabbed another handful. Something about Jack scared him. He was so . . . certain about being his dad. And he cared. And Xander didn’t know how to handle that, not from some stranger he met yesterday who was fifty years old and in the damn army.

But there was a niggling voice in the back of mind whispering "what if . . ." What if Mom had told Jack? What if he stuck around like he said he would have? As a kid in middle school, when things had really started to go downhill in the Harris household, Xander had sometimes imagined having different parents. Parents who didn’t drink, didn’t yell at him, and didn’t make him want to sleep outside on Christmas Eve.

Xander dumped the carrots in with the others, grabbing the last handful, but his hands were shaking so badly now, he cut his finger, red blood spilling over and clashing with the orange to make a nice vampire rabbit snack. His blood, Jack’s blood. They’d find out tomorrow. They still didn’t know for sure. Would Jack still care even if he wasn’t his father?

Taking the carrots with him to the sink, Xander ran cold water over the wound and ignored Andrew’s fussing as the blood washed away. It didn’t matter. Blood didn’t make you family, it only gave you a place to start. And Xander had a family. He didn’t need someone who didn’t know the first thing about him or Giles or anyone to come in making assumptions. Tomorrow they’d know for sure, then Jack would go back to his army and life would get back to normal on the Cleveland Hellmouth. Maybe he’d get a Christmas card like Buffy used to get from her dad. Whatever. It didn’t matter.

***************************************************

Jack was impressed that he and Mr. Giles had managed to find safe ground in seventies music. Granted it had taken Cleveland’s weather, England’s weather, Colorado’s weather, and an aborted attempt at sports to get there, but they did manage to have a civilized conversation without mentioning Xander or what anyone actually did for a living. Nevertheless, Jack was relieved when the sitting room door opened and put an end to the conversation.

Unsurprisingly, it was a girl, a blonde this time and fairly short. She was wearing a tank top and sweat pants, obviously just having come in from a workout session.

"Hey, Giles," she practically bubbled though her eyes never left Jack as both he and Mr. Giles stood. "This him?" she asked, giving him a professional once over.

"Uh, yes. Colonel, may I introduce Buffy Summers, one of our instructors here. Buffy, Jack O’Neill."

"Ms. Summers," Jack used his best smile for Xander’s other friend. By the way she was eyeing him this must be one of the girls Mr. Giles had mentioned. She took his offered hand with a firm grasp, leaving a sheen of sweat behind.

"So you’re the dad, huh?" She didn’t seem too impressed.

"That would be me," Jack affirmed.

"So if this pans out, you planning on becoming a fixture or is this a nice-to-meet-ya-I’m-going-off-to-Spain-with-my-secretary kinda deal?"

"Uh . . ." Unsure just what she had asked, Jack suddenly wished Daniel were there to translate.

"Well?" Her sharp gaze just sharpened even more while he stood there like an idiot.

"What Buffy is asking is if you plan on being a part of Xander’s life if you are indeed his father," Mr. Giles helped him out, though Jack swore that the two questions didn’t share a word.

"What he said," reiterated Buffy impatiently.

Feeling like he was caught between a rock and a hard place with one in front of him and one behind, Jack nodded. "Yeah. If he’ll let me."

"Good," said Buffy taking a step closer and staring into his eyes. "Because if you back out I’ll rip off your arms, shove one down your throat and the other up your ass so you can twiddle you thumbs in your stomach. Do I make myself clear?"

"Uh, yeah," said Jack fighting the urge to laugh in her face. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. Only the crazy intensity in her eyes kept his lips from twitching. She meant what she said, and even if she couldn’t hurt him physically, he respected that she wanted to keep her friend from getting hurt.

"Good. I’ll see you at dinner then." She looked past him at Mr. Giles then left as quickly as she had come.

Jack turned to Mr. Giles and grinned. "That was one of the girls?" he asked. "I see what you mean about colorful."

"Yes, quite," said Mr. Giles offering a short, polite smile in return. "I’m surprised she went easy on you."

"Threatening to rip my arms off was easy?" Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise. Not that he felt very threatened. What more could she do?

"Well, with Dawn’s boyfriends, she brings a knife and threatens to make them eunuchs." The evil glint was back in Mr. Giles’s eye, which made Jack shift uncomfortably from foot to foot, just to make sure everything was all there.

"So what’s for dinner?" asked Jack to change the subject to healthier matters.

"You if you’re not careful," Mr. Giles replied, picking up the mugs. "I don’t think Buffy was done with you."

"Great, just what I need. Another hostile woman drooling over me." Jack stopped short at the look Mr. Giles leveled at him. He winced. "I did it again, didn’t I?" When would he learn to keep all those random thoughts in is head. Must be the stress.

*************************************************

Xander was waiting for him by the back door. Jack looked a little surprised to see him there offering him a beer, but he took it nonetheless with a gentle smile and followed him outside to the back steps.

"I figured you could use one after being cooped up with Giles," said Xander, putting his plate on his knees. It was sunset and the evening was cool. It would be dark soon. He looked up and saw Jack watching him with an unreadable expression on his face. He didn’t know what he wanted to talk about, but he felt like the poor guy needed a break from the third degree.

"Thanks," Jack said without looking away. "Listen, about earlier, I’m sorry for what I said. It was uncalled for."

The unexpected apology made Xander grin. "Giles scared the living shit out you, didn’t he?"

Jack smiled and let out a chuckle. "Maybe a little. I don’t think he likes me too much."

"Probably not," Xander agreed. You could be the First for all we know, he added in his head. But they had shaken hands so Xander knew he wasn’t. He was putting his money on his being a demon though. It would make everything easier if he was.

"So," Jack said into the silence that followed, as at a loss as Xander for conversation. "Are we just going to sit here and be awkward?" he finally asked.

The question made Xander smile again. "You could go sit with Buffy. I know she’s just dying to meet you." A grimace etched its way onto Jack’s face.

"We’ve actually already met," he said. "She seems like a pleasant person – threatened to rip my arms off and everything." Jack smiled and shook his head. "It was kind of touching actually."

"Dismemberment?" asked Xander surprised by the comment.

"She loves you enough to threaten me. Mr. Giles too."

Xander didn’t know what to say to that stark observation. He knew it was true, but usually he was one of the ones dealing out the threats and not on the receiving side, or however it worked.

"Well, tomorrow we’ll find out if you need to make funeral arrangement," he joked, but Jack only cracked a small smile. Okay, so it wasn’t a great joke but damn it, he was nervous about all this too.

"Xander," hearing his name for the first time made him look up sharply at the older man, "I meant what I said. I want to get to know you." Jack looked away searching for words in the darkening sky. "I know I can’t replace your parents," he finally said. "But I’d like to be your friend." He turned back and Xander saw the pleading in his eyes that he would never say. "Even if tomorrow doesn’t work out . . . Jessica would have wanted it that way." And he meant it, Xander saw. He really meant it. Xander didn’t know what to say. "Xander?" Jack was waiting for an answer, hoping, dreading.

"Jack," he started then stopped. "You’re leaving tomorrow," Xander continued. "Whether you’re my father or not. You’ll live your life, I’ll live mine."

"I can visit you," said Jack looking hurt. He really wanted to do this father-son thing, Xander realized. "You can come visit me." And he wasn’t going to give it up easily.

"Can we get a dog, too?" asked Xander.

"Yeah, we can get a dog," said Jack enthusiastically. "Any kind you want."

"So now it’s bribery," Xander raised his eyebrows. Jack grinned.

"If that’s what it takes to get me a chance with you."

"You know, I could use a new car," suggested Xander, beginning to enjoy this a little.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. "Watch it, junior. I’m not that rich." Nonetheless, he seemed pleased by the suggestion. They settled into a light conversation about cars until dark fell and Xander insisted that Jack get back to his hotel. He’d ask whoever was on patrol to make sure he got there safely.

As he watched Jack’s rental car pull away down the street he smiled quietly to himself. The dad thing still weirded him out, but maybe being friends would work.

********************* Three Minutes Late *********************

Saturday morning Xander was late to the clinic. Jack had of course arrived early and then spent twenty minutes not reading some article in *People* and glancing at his watch. He wasn’t worried. Really. After all his son was the one who had set up the appointment, but nonetheless he let out a sigh of relief when Xander banged through the door.

"Sorry, I’m late," he flashed a quick yet harried smile. "Small crisis in Girlville."

Jack stood, his earlier irritation quenched now that he was here. "What happened?" he asked as they went to the desk to check in. Xander greeted the nurse by name as she handed him the forms they needed to fill out with a coy smile. Looked like someone had a crush, mused Jack, though Xander merely thanked her politely and went to sit down, oblivious.

"Oh, you know, the usual ‘she looked at me funny’ thing," said Xander, frowning at his pen that refused to write. "Does yours work?" he asked.

Jack tried it and nodded, wondering instead what Xander was talking about while his son asked the shy nurse for another pen. "So what thing is that?" he asked when the young man rejoined him.

"Huh?" Xander looked up, the confusion on his face quickly dissipating as he caught up. "Oh, there’s this whole . . . thing. You know, where one girl looks at another and makes her cry." He must not have look convinced because Xander added, "Yeah, I don’t get it either," before turning back to his form.

The paperwork didn’t take long to complete, and before Jack knew it, they were being led into an examination room where another nurse Xander knew named Cathy scraped the insides of their cheeks with a half dozen Q-tips.

"Is that it?" he asked in surprise as she took off her gloves.

"That’s it," Cathy smiled. "Now we just send it off to the lab on Monday and we’ll mail you the results by Friday." It seemed too simple for it to be legit. Janet was always shining lights and poking and prodding, and now the inside of his cheek would tell them what they need to know? He and the Doc were going to have a serious conversation when he got back.

"Xander, how’s Lydia doing?" asked Cathy over her shoulder as she led them back to the waiting room.

"She’s good now," Xander told her. "Not much keeps them down. Like Energizers. The batteries, I mean," he tripped over this last, making Jack smile.

"That’s good to hear," Cathy held the door for them as they left. "And I hope everything works out for you guys."

"Thanks."

The door closed, leaving the two of them alone in the sunshine, another awkward pause filling the space between them. "So you come here often?" Jack’s curiosity finally got the better of him.

Xander shrugged, his face devoid of anything readable. "The girls sometimes get hurt. And being in the very scary position of responsibility, guess who gets to drive." Jack didn’t have anything he cared to say aloud to that. "So when’s your plane leaving?"

"One-seventeen," said Jack, looking at his watch. It was almost eleven now. He’d have to leave soon to make it through security. When he looked back up, Xander was watching him closely out of his single eye. Jack wondered suddenly what he looked like without the eyepatch.

"So I guess this is it, huh?" said Xander.

"Oh, I hope not," said Jack with a grin trying to dispel the sudden seriousness of the conversation. He knew it was a defense mechanism, but hey, it worked. "Now that you got me, I don’t intend on leaving you alone. Besides, your little Buffy will rip my arms off if I don’t come back."

That startled a laugh out of Xander. "You really shouldn’t underestimate Buffy," he said, shaking his head and grinning wryly. "And you really, really shouldn’t call her little."

"Touchy?"

"Very."

"Sounds like other short people I know."

"But this one can rip your arms off."

"Well, we can’t have that now, can we? So I guess I better keep in touch?" Jack turned this last into a hopeful question, slightly rocking on his heels. Xander didn’t respond for a moment.

"You’re that sure?" he asked softly, doubt coloring his voice. "About me? I mean, I could be an axe murderer for all you know." And underneath the sarcasm Jack heard a scared young man wondering why he cared.

Jack smiled and shook his head, a little taken aback by the emotion in the gaze that bored into his soul. "You’re not an axe murderer," said Jack solemnly, for once not hiding behind humor. "You’re my son. And I know you don’t really trust me right now," he let out a breath of cynical laughter, glancing at his shoes, "especially since I messed up this whole meeting you thing." He looked up. "But all I’m asking for is a chance."

"Yeah, well," Xander didn’t seem to know what to say. "To save your arms, I guess you can call me. And if you’ll, you know, still buy me a dog." A teasing smile snuck its way into the conversation and Jack’s heart.

"It’s a deal." And when Jack offered his hand and Xander took it, he felt like he’d been given the world.

************************************************

Xander closed the door with a heartfelt sigh when he got home. Around him the bubbly sounds of teenagers on their free day bounced off the walls around him. Over to the right of the entranceway, the sitting room door wide open with one of the newbie cliques giggling over the rustle of magazines and newspapers. They paused when they heard him come in, several arching their necks to see who it was.

"Xander!" called Melissa, a tall ganlgy brunette that reminded him of a stork with freckles. "How’d it go?"

He smiled for them as he ambled over to the doorframe. "Fine," he shrugged, though he still didn’t know how he felt about it. "Cathy says hi."

"Cool, she was there?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, we’re going to see a movie today," spoke up Ashley. "You wanna come?"

"What movie?"

A half a dozen titles cluttered the air as soon as he asked. Xander recognized a few of them and knew he definitely wasn’t in the mood for the chick flicks. He needed something brainless and full of hitting people over the head with big guns. And a good chase scene. He’d probably end up watching *Wrath of Khan* again with Andrew and a few of the girls. Man, he really needed to get some guy friends to watch real guy movies with that didn’t involve men in jumpsuits, he thought as the girls continued to squabble. "Let me know when you decide," he interrupted the movie debate, turning toward the kitchen. "And don’t forget to put it on the board so we can get you a ride."

With a chorus of, "we won’t s" with regard to the activity board, also affectionately known as the Where-the-Hell-is-she? board, Xander left them for the kitchen where he found Andrew complaining loudly to pair of hungry slayers. "Xander!" Andrew whined as soon as he saw him. "Tell them they can’t just come in here when I’m trying to get lunch together and pick at the Cardassian egg salad!"

"It’s good salad!" Veronica tried appeasing Andrew looking for the world like a regretful eight-year-old, which wasn’t hard considering she was barely over five feet tall.

"Well, eat something else," said Xander shaking his head and wondering as he always did how he had ended up as the peacemaker around here. It still surprised him more than Andrews Star Trek dishes. He wondered if the egg salad would get voted onto the make-it-again-and-die list that was stuck to the pantry door with a dagger. "Andrew," he got back to his original purpose for being in the kitchen at all, "do you have your shopping list ready?"

"No, because *some* people keep coming in and just eating the lunch I’ve spent the last two hours slaving over without a . . . a can-I-please?" The house chef glared at the two girls who didn’t look the least bit ashamed, which of course only made Andrew pout harder. Damn. Xander was going to have to get him another Hallmark card. He so did not need a rebellious cook on his hands again.

"After lunch then?" he asked.

"Fine," said Andrew sullenly.

"All right, come on," Xander shooed the two girls out of the kitchen. "Let’s let his Cardassianness work." They left with Andrew muttering something gargly about proper titles. While the two girls headed out back to do girl things, Xander passed into the dining room and plopped down at the table. Dawn, Giles, and their piles of books looked up and smiled. Well, the books would have if books smiled, but then they were books. And Xander didn’t like books. They were one of the sure signs of the apocalypse. "So what’s all this?" he waved a vague hand at the ill-omened tomes.

"One of the patrols last night ran into an unknown demon," said Giles who had just returned his nose to the page. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and a pencil twitched between his fingers as he read whatever it was he was reading. "Redish brown, five horns, and a rather large . . . ‘squick’ factor."

"Nope, not ringing any bells," said Xander. "So what happened to the research-your-own-stupid-demons policy?" It was, hands down, his favorite policy.

"It’s Saturday," said Dawn who hadn’t yet gone back to her work. "Most of this stuff is my bastardized Sumerian." Her face crinkled at the evil books that were tying up *her* Saturday. Or at least her morning. Last night’s entertainment had been watching her and Giles go head to head over what constituted a day off. Unfortunately prophesies were time-critical, and they had ended in this compromise with the argument that she got to sleep in during the rest of the week anyway.

Absently Xander grabbed Argyle’s Compendium off the top of the much smaller stack of demon books before remembering he hated these books with a passion and for once didn’t have to do the research. So there, he tossed the book back with a light thud as it slid to a stop. He grinned at Dawn who brightly returned the smile while Giles appeared not to have noticed at all. "So who’s the lucky group?" he asked.

"We-Love-Orlando-Bloom," Dawn told him. "I think they’re holed up with *Pirates* right now."

"Ahh," Xander nodded, not surprised in the least.

"So how did it go?" she asked.

"Fine," Xander shrugged as he had before. "He went straight to the airport after. And Cathy’s gonna send a couple samples to Fred."

"And how are you with all this?" Giles spoke up, his attention now focused on Xander who shrugged again.

"What’s there to feel? Everything’s back to normal." He stared at the tabletop, the emotions that had subsided with his return home bubbling back to the surface. Confusion, hope, dread, and a little anger at Jack for doing this to him. His life was crazy enough without some stranger trying to be a part of it. One he couldn’t share. And yet, Xander found himself wondering what it would be like to have a parent that cared all to himself.

"Xander?" Giles prompted softly.

He looked up at the older man and suddenly wondered if Jack would ever measure up to him. "I don’t know," said Xander, the indifferent façade slipping. "It’s all just so . . ."

"Hellmouthy?" Dawn finished as he struggled for words.

"Yeah, but also in a big kinda not way."

"You mean it is so un-hellmouth-like that it must be hellmouthy?" asked Giles who then frowned to himself, both trying to understand his own sentence and appalled that he had said ‘hellmouthy.’

"Something like that," Xander agreed. Honestly, he could do without all this emotional stuff right now. The last couple of days had been exhausting, and he was tired of feeling all mixed up. He’d just lost his real parents for good and now Jack was there being the parent he had always wanted. It was a like a parent market, one for two deal. "I told him he could call me."

"Do you think he will?" asked Dawn.

"Yeah, actually," Xander let out a huff of laughter. "I think he might."

"I guess that’s cool."

"Yeah." Their eyes met and Xander slowly grinned. It would be cool. As long as he wasn’t a slimy creature of the dark or an asshole, that is, the cynical voice in his head chirped. But he just mentally shrugged it away. After all, there were good demons like Clem around.

For a few moments the three of them sat silently, sharing the quiet. In the background, Xander heard gaggles of girls talking and laughing. Giles was the first to turn back to his work with Dawn following soon after, her light smile remaining. Xander watched them, so different and so alike in their work.

"Honestly!" Giles suddenly broke the silence with an exasperated sigh, whipping off his glasses and polishing them on his shirt. " ‘And he shall smite him down with pink sandals,’ Dawn?"

"It says ‘pink’!" Dawn protested with an angry jab at the original text before her.

As the two of them broke into an argument over their Sumerian bastard, Xander chuckled to himself before slipping quietly away.

***************************************************

Jack stifled a yawn as he made his way through the crowded terminal to the baggage claim. He hated flying commercial; there were too many people and not enough space for half of them. And it was noisy and so incredibly, mind numbingly boring, and right now he just wanted to get out of the airport. The doors were nearby but unfortunately so were about a million other people jostling for their bags. As he was pushing and shoving his way through the masses, he heard someone call his name.

The someone turned out to be Daniel who was there to pick him up. Jack grinned, happy to finally see a friendly face after his long trip. "How was your flight?" asked Daniel when Jack finally reached his side.

"Very long and dull," said Jack, adjusting his grip up his single bag that he had thankfully carried-on with him. "Next time I’m gonna claim there’s a dangerous pot or something in Cleveland so I can fly myself."

Daniel smiled and shook his head at him. "Car’s this way," he said turning toward the sign that said East Parking Deck. "So your trip was good?" he asked.

Jack shrugged. "I met him. Can’t say it went like I planned." Daniel gave him an inquisitive look asking for an explanation. "He goes by Xander. And yes, you were right," Jack cut his eyes at his friend, hating to admit it and feeling petty for it at the same time. "He didn’t believe me at first. Had one of the girls at the house check if the birth certificate was real though I don’t know how." It had been awfully quick too, now that he thought about it.

"Girl?" Daniel interrupted his thoughts. Jack shook himself back to the present. He’d get Carter to look into it later, along with that Giles character and the camp.

"Yeah. He and a couple of friends run a summer self defense camp for teenage girls."

"And?"

"I don’t know," said Jack, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He felt sticky and gross all over. "I mean, it didn’t look like anything was really going on; the kids all liked him. It’s just set up in a house in the suburbs."

"Well, they did just lose their town a year ago," Daniel reasoned as they reached the car. He unlocked it, and Jack threw his bag in the back before clambering into the front passenger seat. "It’s not a cult is it?" he asked suddenly.

"No," Jack shook his head. Definitely not a cult from how talkative the girls were, but it just seemed so odd. But then the whole experience had been odd, even for him. "You know, I was expecting a carpenter. A man with a nine to five job, maybe a girlfriend. Definitely not kids. And definitely not a denmother for a bunch of girls."

"A bit of a shock?" Daniel smiled.

"Like a hurricane. But maybe that was just seeing him." His son. The idea still gave him chills. Things had gone so wrong with Charlie. He hadn’t been there enough, hadn’t been there when Charlie had found his gun. Now, Xander was giving him a chance to be there for him.

"Jack?"

"Yeah, sorry. What was that?" He realized Daniel had just asked him a question.

"I asked what he’s like?"

Jack thought back, trying to capture what he had seen on that first meeting. "He lost his left eye recently," he said quietly after a moment. "I asked about it, probably shouldn’t have." He could still remember his son’s good eye challenging him to push harder and see how far it got him. "The kids like him," he went on. He didn’t know what else to say. How do you describe someone you had barely met? They hadn’t talked much, just that first stilted conversation, then the one over dinner. "He’s got a sense of humor," he added with a smile. "And he rescued me from his friends that threatened to kill me."

"What?" That brought Daniel up short, and Jack pointed to the road his friend was suddenly ignoring. "They threatened you?" Daniel returned his eyes to the front.

"This girl, Buffy, threatened to rip my arms off if I dropped out of Xander’s life, and his good buddy Mr. Giles outright told me he’d kill me if I hurt him."

"That speaks highly of him," said Daniel. "Xander, I mean."

"Yeah," Jack couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. "And he said he’d give me a chance."

"Just like that?"

"Well," Jack didn’t meet his friend’s eyes. "There may have been some shouting and apologizing and a paternity test. He was wondering why I would even care about him. Makes me wonder . . ." he trailed off. Daniel didn’t say anything, but the glance they shared said it all. The thought of a not so happy home had only occurred to Jack on the flight back. "So what have you been up to while I was away feeling awkward?"

Daniel gave him another look, but decided not to protest the change in subject. "Negotiations," he replied sourly. "The Yibbites are almost as stubborn as you."

"Hey! I’m not the only stubborn one on the team."

"Yeah, but Sam’s at least nice about it," Daniel shot back with a quick grin. Jack mock glared at the neat derailment of his teasing.

"Our next mission’s on Monday?"

Daniel grinned even wider at his ungraceful attempt to change the subject, but again, he went with it, nodding. "Though I’m still behind on my paperwork from our last mission because of the Yibbite negotiations."

"Yeah, me too," Jack sighed. His unexpected trip had foiled his procrastination technique. Now he would be writing reports all day tomorrow. God, he hated paperwork.

"So when do you find out?" asked Daniel.

"Find out what?"

"The results of the paternity test." Oh. That.

"Friday or thereabouts." But he had already decided that it didn’t matter. Jessica said Xander was his, so Xander was his as far as he was concerned, and he wasn’t going to back out of it. "It was more for their peace of mind."

"I know," said Daniel quietly, a million reassurances in those soft words. The little doubts that had popped up their ugly heads every so often shuffled away. "So pizza?" Daniel asked as they arrived in Jack’s neighborhood.

"Pizza sounds great," Jack agreed. They rode in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to Jack’s house. The conversation wasn’t over, just paused for later. Jack found himself wondering what Xander would think of his house and his friends. Maybe one day he’d get the chance to find out.

************************* Four Phone Calls ******************************

The first thing Jack did when he got home after Friday’s mission was make a bee line for the kitchen and the first beer he could lay his hands on. It had been one hell of a week. Three days of boredom listening to Daniel sweet talk the semi-civilized locals of some tree-infested planet followed by two days of sheer adrenaline when the non-Goa’uld priesthood decided to roast them for a barbecue. He hadn’t slept since before the attack and was now under Janet’s strict orders to get some rest. But he needed to unwind first, do something meaningless and mundane like watch TV.

So grabbing the mail that had accumulated over the past week, Jack stretched out on the couch with the remote and surfed through the channels till *Trading Spaces* caught his eye. Calm and domestic, it resonated in counterpoint to the noise, violence, and uncertainty of the mission and allowed his thoughts drift away.

Only when the ads came on did he look at his mail, separating the bills from the outright junk and finding one letter from the Munroe Health Clinic, Cleveland that brought him up short. The test results. Jack stared at the envelope for a second. He hadn’t even thought about Xander for the past two days, life-threatening events taking precedent. Being reminded of it now made him smile. Quickly, he opened the letter and read the confirmation that he was Xander’s father. He hadn’t doubted it . . . well, maybe a little, but here it was. Father and son. It sent both chills and a wave of joy through him.

*Trading Spaces* came back on, but Jack muted it, instead glancing at the phone. He suddenly wanted to call everybody. But first . . . what the hell. He’d said he could call. Jack grabbed the phone and after rooting around for it, dialed Xander’s number. It rang twice before unsurprisingly a girl answered.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hi. It’s Jack O’Neill. Can I speak to Xander?"

"Jack? Yeah, just a minute." She pulled away from the mouthpiece, but Jack still heard her shout for Xander. Noisy kids, he smiled, not bothered by it this time. At the moment, he didn’t think anything could bother him.

"Hello? Jack?" Xander came on the line.

"Hey. How you doin’?" said Jack.

"Fine. You?"

"Good, good." There was a pause. The superficial nature of the conversation suddenly made Jack nervous. "I hope you don’t mind me calling," he began. "But I got the letter from the clinic today."

"Yeah, mine came yesterday."

"So I just thought I’d call," Jack repeated, feeling kind of silly now that he had nothing to say.

"Yeah, no it’s cool!" Xander pulled himself out of whatever funk he’d been in. "I guess you weren’t really surprised."

"Were you?" Jack asked.

"Well, no. Yeah. I don’t know." Xander paused. "I guess yeah. Because, hey, how could this be happening? Suddenly I’ve got a parent out of nowhere."

"Yeah, well, I’m – "

"Hey." Xander cut him off. "It’s no big. I mean, you called, right?"

"Right," Jack agreed though he wasn’t sure what Xander meant. Just that it was good he had called. Right? God, he hoped so.

"So how’s life out in Whoville?"

"Whoville?" Jack wasn’t sure, but wasn’t that Dr. Seuss? He grinned, the comment pleasing him for some reason, but maybe it was because Xander had asked.

"You know, Colorado," Xander clarified.

Well as far as he knew, Colorado was fine, it was the rest of the galaxy that was giving him a hard time. "It’s good," he sighed.

"That bad, huh?’" commented Xander, again both surprising and pleasing Jack that he had noticed.

"Yeah, well. The last couple of days have just reminded me why I hate organized religion," he said. "It’s useless, manipulative, and annoying." Not to mention dangerous.

"Oh, I don’t know," said Xander easily. "It’s got some pretty good uses."

"Like what?" Jack challenged. He bet he could shoot down anything his son said, but what Xander did say surprised him.

"Crosses, holy water. I mean, come on, how can you not love a blessed refreshment?"

Jack chuckled. "Cool yes; useful no."

"It all in how you look at it," said Xander. "If you’re dying of thirst . . ."

"So I take it you’re not very religious?" asked Jack at this humorous sign of disrespect. He was even a little relieved in light of his own atheism.

"You mean, do I believe in the Christian God? Don’t know, haven’t met him." Jack could practically hear him shrug. "I don’t believe there is anyone as powerful as they say he is."

"It’s called faith, Xander," he smiled.

"Well there’s faith and there’s faith, and the kind I got in my friends is the only faith I need."

"That’s . . ." Jack didn’t know quite what to say to that, though he knew exactly what his son meant. Jack’s own faith in his team and the SGC was all he needed to keep fighting. No all-powerful beings to help out or give them easy answers, just humans against the Goa’uld.

"Pretty lame? " Xander ventured, an unsure note in his voice.

"No," said Jack immediately. "Not lame." He paused searching for words. "As a soldier . . . well, what little faith I had when I started out, it became like you said. Your friends, your team, they’re everything."

"Yeah."

There was silence, neither one of them sure how to continue. Jack tried to think of another question to ask but couldn’t think of anything that didn’t feel like prying too deep, so instead he retreated back to more mundane things. "So how was your week?"

"Fine. Normal for around here," said Xander. "Mostly I’ve just been looking out for people."

"That’s good."

Another an awkward pause.

"Listen," Xander broke the silence. "I’ve got to go. Dinner’s soon. But thanks for calling." And he did seem glad which just made Jack grin again. His cheeks were starting to get sore.

"I’ll call again, sometime?"

"Okay, talk to you then. Bye."

"Bye."

Jack hung up and turned back to the television. All in all, he thought, that went well. And he grinned wider.

**********************************************************

*One month later*

"Willow!" Xander cheerfully snatched the phone from Dawn’s fingers, grinning at the young woman’s knowing smirk. "It’s been ages. How are you? Where are you?"

On the other end, his best friend laughed at the string of questions, and Xander grinned. It felt so good to hear that familiar sound. "We’re in Florida at the beach. Got in yesterday morning," said Willow. "Except not the beach beach right now because I’m talking to you."

"Ah. So are there really demons there or are you a Kennedy just snuggling under the covers?" he asked. He would bet even money that Florida’s biggest crisis was a rainy day.

But Willow protested, "There’s demons! Really. We saw some the last night!"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, so they were just hanging out at a club," Willow caved. "And there might be more snuggling than working going on. But don’t tell Giles."

"I knew it!" Xander crowed. "And I think Giles already knows." At the Scooby meeting after Willow had called to suggest that she and Kennedy check out Florida, they had all just looked at each other, knowing.

"Really? Is he mad?" Willow asked, all of a sudden anxious and nervous that she was in trouble.

"Nah," Xander waved a hand she couldn’t see. "I think he’s enjoying the vicarious smoochies with the rest of us."

"Ewe, Xander!"

"What?"

"It’s Giles!"

"I know, but he’s still significant other-less like the rest of us. And hey, who wouldn’t want the think about two girls making out at the beach?"

"Xander!" Willow screeched again like he knew she would, but he could also tell that she wasn’t really upset, but rather flattered. "Ooh, hey, guess what?" She bubbled happily.

"What?"

"I got to intimidate these guys who were hitting on Kennedy!"

"Really?"

"Yeah. We were at the beach lying on our towels near their volleyball game when their ball rolled over cause someone hit it out, so this guy came over to get it. Kennedy was next to the ball and I didn’t even notice he was there until he started talking. He said something like ‘Hey, how’s it going.’ And then he took his ball and they kept playing. Then after the game, he and a couple of his friends came over to say hi and invited us to a party tonight. So then one guy started asking Kennedy where she was from and stuff and then if she had a boyfriend all the while being Mr. Obvious-I-Want-To-Jump-You. So then I started to get a little annoyed and when Kennedy said no boyfriend I told him that if he didn’t stop hitting on *my girlfriend* I’d make him a boy soprano in my totally scary way – but not bad scary, just to him scary."

"And what did he do?"

"I think we weirded him out, and his friends were laughing at him. But he was cool in the end, and we’re still going to the party."

Xander chuckled. He could just imagine Willow’s resolve face squaring off against a six foot nothing beach boy. "So you’re enjoying yourselves?"

"Yeah," Willow said. "You know, I just love doing the normal thing every once in a while."

"Yeah," Xander agreed. Normal was always a nice change from the bustle of their lives. On the other hand, too much normal would drive him crazy, he knew. Though it would help if he had another guy to hang out with.

"So how’s life at Scooby Central?" asked Willow. "Everything’s okay?"

"Just the usual. Vampire’s roam. Slayers slay. I feel like all I ever do anymore is fix schedules, go over grocery lists, and keep everyone from tearing each other’s hair out. Were girls always like this in high school?"

"Yep. Welcome to Hormoneland. Cat fights and snarking every hour on the hour," Willow quipped.

"It’s like Cordelia concentrate here. Except all of them are stronger than He-Man. If this is what parents go through, I’m never having kids."

Willow laughed. "That’s why they invented summer camp, Xander," she said. "And speaking of parents, I finally finished the search."

"On Jack?" Xander perked up curiously. He still couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘dad,’ even since the test results came back, both Cathy’s and Fred’s, the latter having come up one hundred percent human. Xander had in fact been greatly relieved and surprised by the feeling. But it was true. He liked Jack. The guy was just as new and unsure about how to do the whole father-son thing as he was, but he was trying, and that impressed Xander. His own dad had stopped trying by the time he was ten, and Giles, as much as Xander loved him, was more dad by default than effort to all of them.

"Yes." In the background, Xander heard Willow shuffling some papers around. "It took me a while to get to the Air Force database, especially since work and demon stuff kept interrupting. The military really have some tight systems . . ." she trailed off and Xander waited patiently. The research had been an unspoken unanimous decision by all of them. The Initiative had made them all gun-shy where the military was involved, and father or not, there was too much at risk.

"Here it is," Willow announced. "So he works at NORAD like we found out earlier on the Deep Space Telemetry project code name Project Blue Book, though where they got that name from I don’t know."

"Riley was Lilac," Xander offered.

"Anyway," she went on, "he’s got a really good service record with some impressive medals from the Persian Gulf War, though almost everything he’s done has been erased. I think because it’s top secret we’re-gonna-destroy-terrorism-by-being-terrorists government stuff. Wherever the files for this stuff are, I don’t know. I doubt they’re on the same server, if they’re in a computer at all."

"So he’s Special Forces?" That was like the best of the best, especially if all his missions were so secret.

"Yeah. If you want I can do some . . . more refined searches for the top secret stuff, but I’d kinda rather not," Willow offered.

Magic. Xander knew she would do it for him in a second if he asked, but he also knew how much it would cost her. It had been a little over two years since Tara, one since she had activated all the slayers, and the magic still made her nervous. And rightly so – she was just too powerful to use it lightly. "No it’s okay," Xander told her. "It’s probably all stuff we don’t want to know anyway."

"Yeah." Willow sounded relieved. "So has he called again?"

"Not yet." And that was not disappointment in his voice. Really. "We’ll see what happens."

"I hope it works out," said Willow a little hesitantly. "I mean, if you want it to," she added hastily. "Cause if you don’t, I’m all for the hating."

"Thanks," Xander grinned. There was no changing Willow. "I kinda hope it works out too." He paused. "How are your parents doing?"

"Fine, I guess."

"They’re still in DC?" They had moved there before the collapse of Sunnydale. He remembered when Willow had gone to tell them to get out of town, and they had wanted her to come with them, the overwhelming evil of the First registering on some level that had remained untouched by all the other demonic activity of the hellmouth. When she had refused, they finally seemed to understand that the shy girl they had raised, and even the one who had brought a girl home to meet them, was long gone, replaced by a woman who was staying because she knew what was coming.

"Yep. We stopped by on our way south and went out to dinner. It was nice in a polite way. Dad still wants me to finish college since I’ve only got a year and a half left. He thinks I’ve been doing the ‘backpacker’ thing too long. And he wonders why the heck we decided on Cleveland."

"Who would have thought that you would be a college drop out?" Xander shook his head at the upheaval of the universe.

"Hey! Extenuating circumstances!" Willow said, indignant. "Besides," she continued in a normal voice, "I already talked to Giles. I might finish at Oxford. Since we’re still trying to pull stuff together in England, I’d be like our liaison."

"Oxford?" Xander was surprised. She wasn’t coming home? She couldn’t do that!

"I’m not going now or anything," she reassured him. "And it would only be for two years when I did. And I’d visit every holiday."

"And you’re gonna come home drinking tea, talking like Giles, and swearing soccer is a million times better than any pansy sport we’ve got here," Xander groused, not liking the idea. England was so far away.

"Xander," Willow giggled. "You said ‘pansy.’"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

Wait, he had, hadn’t he. Damn. He really needed to get some guy friends that were not British, wimps, or vampires. "Just rescue me from all the junior slayers first," he begged.

"Promise," said Willow. "Kennedy and I will be home in a month, so just hang on until then."

"All right." Just a month to go.

"Xander," Buffy knocked on the doorframe. "Am I ever gonna get the phone?" the Slayer whined with her best pitiful look.

Grinning, he said, "Wills, I think Buffy’s gonna kill me if I don’t give you to her."

"All right, put her on," Willow laughed.

"All right, love you," he said to his best friend

"Love you, too."

Xander passed the phone on to Buffy who grinned in thanks before squealing, "Willow!" and disappearing into her room. He doubted she’d emerge anytime soon.

***********************************************

The ringing phone woke Jack from his doze on the couch. A little disoriented at first, he fumbled in the dim light for the cursed contraption. He was on stand-down, for crying out loud. "O’Neill," he answered.

"Sir, it’s me," his second in command’s voice greeted him.

Jack rubbed his forehead. Of course. "Carter, are you still on base?" he asked reprovingly.

There was a moment of incriminating silence before she answered, "Yes, sir," with a sigh that said I-know-but-tell-me-later.

"Carter," Jack ignored the unspoken words. "This is our first real break in almost a month."

"I should be at home sleeping, yes, I know," Carter finished for him. "I just had a few things to finish up here and one of the labs needed a consultation. I’ll be out of here in an hour."

"I’ll be calling your house," he told her. And he would. His eyes flickered to the clock noting the time. One hour. That reminded him to check up on Daniel and make sure he wasn’t doing anything stupid like not sleeping either.

Carter sighed again, but Jack thought it sounded like a smile too. "All right," she said.

"So what’s up?" Jack asked now that that was taken care of.

"Well, I had some free time while I was waiting for some results so I did that background check you asked me for about a month ago on Rupert Giles."

"Oh?" Jack only vaguely remembered asking. At the time he’d still been rattled by his visit to Cleveland. Thinking about it now, he felt a little like a . . . well, an overprotective parent. "So what did you find out?"

"Rupert Giles a British citizen who’s been living in the US for the last eight years, though according to immigration he went back to England for a year in 2002. He worked as a high school librarian in the ‘90s and then owned a shop, both in Sunnydale. His green card currently lists him as self-employed. His American record’s clean: no arrests, no complaints."

"But?"

"I got into his British record," Carter went on. "Two arrests when he was in his early twenties, once for assault and once for petty theft, but all the charges were dropped."

"Sounds like a case of stupid youth," Jack commented, feeling a little stupid himself at suspecting the man. The whole situation must have skewed his sense of danger about Mr. Giles, ‘cause, really, a librarian? "Anything else?"

"No," Carter sighed. "That was all I had time to get into. Non-government records are harder to track down. I can still do it if you want," she offered.

"No, it’s okay," Jack said. "I think I was just being paranoid. He doesn’t sound like he’s in any secret cults or anything."

"Well, I only have the federal database to work with but since he’s an alien everything gets reported to them," said Carter. "And since he’s not in the California system, I doubt he’s done anything more serious than forget about a parking ticket."

"So you don’t think it’s weird that he runs a self-defense camp for girls with people half his age?" Jack asked. It still was a little funny to him.

"A little," said Carter. "But you did say that your son’s other friends running it were young women. Maybe it was their project."

"And Mr. Giles?"

"I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him and stop guessing."

"Carter."

"I’m just saying, sir. You only met them once, and you said yourself that it didn’t look like anything illegal."

"Okay, okay, I’ll stop," Jack ran a hand through his short hair. She was right, he was being paranoid. "So you’re going home now, Carter?"

He swore he could hear her roll her eyes. "Yes, sir. I’ll be home in half an hour."

Jack glanced at the clock. That still put her home under her promised hour. "Good. I’ll call you then."

"Good night, sir," she said forcefully, telling him she didn’t need a babysitter.

"Night."

He hung up. Parking tickets, he shook his head. But now he knew where Xander had met Mr. Giles – the high school library. Xander who was a carpenter that had never gone to college was still friends with him. Once again Jack wondered just what had his son’s home life been like.

************************************************

"So we saw vamps here and here under the bridge," Rebecca pointed on the blown up map of a neighborhood in South Cleveland that was spread out over the dining room table. She and the other four members of Team Toesocks had run into a group of twenty eight-foot demons with a crew of vampires who were setting up shop in an abandoned building. The fight had been rough leaving them all with deep bruises and Amy, the youngest of the group, with a broken arm. Dawn had taken her to the ER to get it set, but the rest of the battered team sat around the table with Buffy, Xander, and Giles.

Xander’s eye roamed over them while Rebecca told them what had happened. They were shaken up. This was their first big defeat and he could tell that it had shaken their confidence in their newfound skills. He knew that it was hitting them for the first time what a slayer’s short life span really meant. Rachel and Leslie sat quietly with their hands in their laps, neither one quite looking at Rebecca. Beside Giles, Joanna fidgeted, her hands busy with a pencil and her eyes never leaving the table. She had a bright red scratch along her jaw. Xander hoped Buffy would talk to them later about it and let them know that getting beat was part of getting stronger.

For the moment though, they needed to figure out what was going on. This was the Toesocks’s first big case so to speak and given the numbers and sheer size of the demons, they would need help with it.

Once Rebecca had finished, Buffy and Giles laid out the three R’s of the Scooby standard operating procedure: Research, Reconnaissance, and more Research. There wasn’t much to it really. Giles showed them how to find the most relevant books in the library then got them started flipping through the pages. Xander was on the computer with Leslie, showing her the demon sites and the database Willow had been compiling for the last year. They wouldn’t do much tonight, just get a start. Tomorrow they’d check out the lair again with Buffy, do more research and then figure out where to go from there. And Rebecca and the Toesocks would ultimately be making the decisions because when they went home in the fall, they’d be on their own.

The phone rang somewhere in the background after they had been working for a while and a moment later someone was calling Xander’s name. "You good?" he asked Leslie, standing when she nodded and making his way to the kitchen.

"It’s Jack," Vi told him, handing him the phone.

Surprised and pleased, Xander said, "Jack? Hi."

"Hey," Jack replied. "How you doing?"

"Good," said Xander. "Tired. But good."

"All those kids running you ragged?"

Running him ragged by getting ragged was more like it, Xander thought of Amy. "Yeah," he said. "It’s been pretty crazy here. So what’s up?"

"Nothing," said Jack lightly. "I just thought I’d call, see how you were doing."

Xander felt warm suddenly and a little surprised. "I’m good," he repeated, not sure what to add. "How are you?"

"Oh, I’m fine," said Jack. "Stuff’s been kinda hectic around here too. It’s why I haven’t called."

"That and a complete lack of anything else to say?" Xander asked wryly. To hell with this awkwardness. It was really starting to get annoying.

Jack left out a huff of a laugh. "Yeah, that too. Unless you like hockey?"

"Sorry," Xander grinned. "Not much of a sports person."

"You’re kidding!" Jack sounded offended. "How can you not like sports? Didn’t you play anything when you were younger?"

Did running for your life count? Xander wondered but didn’t say. "Only videogames."

"Oh, well, I guess that’s something," said Jack. "How do you like Super Mario?"

"Super Mario’s cool," Xander responded really surprised that Jack the Colonel was asking about videogames. Wasn’t he supposed to be like videogames-rot-your-mind? "You play?"

"Only on my GameBoy," Jack sounded a little defensive. "I get bored easily."

Xander laughed. "I’m sorry," he said. "It’s just . . . I guess I’m having a hard time imagining you playing a GameBoy."

"Because I’m a colonel in the Air Force? You should hear what my CO says about me," said Jack, making Xander chuckle again.

"So how long have you been in the Air Force?" asked Xander.

"I did ROTC in college," said Jack. "Ended up deciding I wanted to fly planes and go career."

"Cool."

"Yeah." There was a pause as the conversation lost momentum. "So listen," said Jack. "I was wondering if you wanted to come for a visit sometime?"

"With you in Colorado?" asked Xander, surprised.

"For like a weekend or something," Jack added. "I understand if you don’t – "

"No," Xander interrupted before he could finish. "I’d like that." It would be neat to see Jack in his own place. See what he was really like when he wasn’t coping with a son from out of nowhere. It’d be really . . . neat. "I’ve got to be here for the rest of the summer, but maybe in September when things calm down?" he offered.

"September," Jack repeated, clearly pleased. "I’ll get some leave."

"Okay." Xander smiled, pleased himself, and a little excited.

"I’ll let you get back to your . . .stuff then," said Jack.

"Yeah. I guess I’ll talk to you later."

"Okay, bye."

"Bye." The phone clicked off. When Xander rejoined the others in the dining room, he was still smiling.

********************* Five Days Under the Sun ********************

*September*

Xander glared at the fasten-seatbelt sign that refused to shut off. The plane had stopped, they were on the ground, so what was the hold up? It couldn’t be that hard to park a Boeing 387. Really. Xander fidgeted in his seat. Okay, so he was nervous about this whole visiting thing. Sure it sounds great on the phone, but then it’s like your wedding come back to haunt you. He took a deep breath to steady himself. Five days. He could do this.

Around him his fellow passengers were shuffling for their things and finally the seatbelt light went off. Like a living mass, everyone surged into the center, compressing and undulating like a stuttering snake as people jostled to get off the plane. Xander joined them, nearly tumbling his duffel on top of a woman’s head when he yanked it from the overhead compartment. He only had the one bag with a couple changes of clothes, a Coke bottle of holy water, and his trusty dusty stake. The green and pink water gun had gotten him stripped searched, and for a while he had been worried that he would miss his flight, but in the end, everything had gotten through. Let it not be said that he was unprepared. Though he did wish he could have brought along his axe.

Xander followed the crowd off the plane and up through the tunnel to the gate. From there he followed the signs to the baggage claim where Jack was meeting him. And there he was leaning against a bank of TV monitors with his hands in his pockets. He wore the same leather jacket he had had in Cleveland over a button-down shirt and a pair of worn jeans. He straightened up when he saw Xander, a big grin splitting his face. Xander felt the corners of his mouth tug reflexively in response. Oh god, was his last thought before he reached the older man.

"Hey!" said Jack cheerfully. His hands came out of his pockets and he rocked back on his feet.

"Hey," said Xander. Neither one of them made a move to touch each other, and he didn’t know if he felt happy or sad about that. Maybe it was just the break in ritual throwing him off.

"Do you have any bags?" asked Jack.

"Nah, just this," Xander replied, hefting the duffel a little.

"All right. Car’s this way," Jack smiled again and led the way to the parking deck. "So how was your flight?" Oh, yeah, this was going to be a long trip.

"I felt like I was in a sardine can," said Xander with a half smile and was rewarded when Jack chuckled. Sense of humor still intact, he thought with relief.

"Yeah, I hate flying commercial," Jack said. "There’s no leg room, no elbow room, and I always get stuck next to the noisy kids."

"Always?" Xander asked, feeling heartened by the start of an actual conversation.

"Always," Jack gave him a serious look that was belied by the humorous glint in his eye. "But I guess you know what that’s like."

"Actually that’s only my third flight ever."

"I meant about the kids," said Jack. "But it’s only your third flight?"

"Yeah, after Sunnydale we went to Europe for while. See the sights, you know?" said Xander. And find slayers and restart a secret international organization, but it had still been fun. Except for Rome. Rome would never, ever be mentioned again. Ever. "I’d never been out of the country before."

"That’s not surprising. I’d never left the country before I joined the Air Force," said Jack with a shrug. "And I wouldn’t recommend most of the places I’ve been," he grinned.

"Bad service?" quipped Xander. Given that most of Jack’s file was blacked out he figured he really wanted to steer clear of the heavy military stuff.

"The worst. Can’t find clean towels anywhere." The colonel said with a completely straight face that all of a sudden made Xander feel like a weight had been lifted from his chest. This wasn’t going to be a disaster. With Jack’s sense of humor definitely not going anywhere, Xander could deal with this. He’d been so worried after the last phone call that had promised nothing but uncomfortableness, but here they were, chatting about the worst hotel service money could buy as they walked to the car. And when silence fell as they pulled onto the highway, it wasn’t a dead weight. Jack fiddled with the radio until he found a good station.

Xander snuck looks at him every few minutes, really taking him in for the first time. Gray hair cut close, wrinkles around his eyes from too much laughing or squinting, a slight sunglasses tan, the hint of a grin. He seemed like the kind of guy who would laugh a lot at life.

"What?" Jack asked after twenty minutes of this.

"What what?" Xander played innocent.

"You keep looking at me. I don’t have something hanging out of my nose, do I?"

"What? No. Sorry." Xander smiled at that, looking instead at his hands then back at the road. "Just you know . . . really seeing what you look like," he practically mumbled.

"Oh," Jack shifted uncomfortably, obviously self-conscious now.

"I’ll stop," said Xander with another smile. "I didn’t mean to stare or anything."

"So do I pass?"

Xander looked at him then out the window, confused. "Pass what?"

"Inspection," Jack gave him an amused smile that made him feel silly for misunderstanding. Xander hated that feeling.

He also didn’t like where this conversation was going. When he’d agreed to come for the visit, he’d thought he was used to the fact that Jack was his father. But sitting here, right now in the car, going to his house was another whole can of worms. And why can worms anyway? See – nervous! Getting sidetracked in his head was never a good sign. He knew he liked Jack, he knew Jack wanted to be in his life but for some reason something was bothering him about that. Trying to explain it was like trying to explain why he didn’t like squash but did like zucchini.

"I don’t know," he finally said. "I’m still all with the weirdness." And how lame was that, he wondered. He really should just go ahead and have his mouth sewn up

But Jack smiled at him. "Yeah. Well, if it bothers you, don’t think about It like that." Xander could here the capitals around what they were decidedly not mentioning. Maybe Jack was repressing too. "Just think of me like an old friend of your mom’s inviting you for the weekend."

"A friend who just happened to have sex with her and whoops! Here I am," said Xander a bit more harshly than he intended. Beside him, Jack winced, the smile slipping a bit, making Xander feel bad. He hadn’t meant to hurt him, but really . . .

"Are you saying you don’t want to be here?" Jack asked quietly, his earlier levity gone.

"No, sorry," Xander shook his head. Okay, now he felt rotten, like he’d just stolen a kitten from a slayer. "I didn’t mean anything like that. It’s just still weird. And I think the not thinking about it thing would work much better if I wasn’t you know, thinking. Or not not talking and thinking. Not thinking would be good right now. You know?" When Jack didn’t reply, Xander turned more so he could see him around his blind spot. Jack had a curious look on his face, his brow slightly crinkled in thought as he glanced between Xander and the road. "What?"

"Could you repeat that in English?"

Xander couldn’t help but smile, the nervousness once again lifting from the debacle of the conversation. "I said, let’s just talk about something else."

"Oh." Jack still seemed a little puzzled.

"Sorry," Xander apologized again for being incomprehensible. Jack still looked a little unsure, and Xander desperately racked his brains for something, anything to talk about now that the silence had gone sour. "So," he looked back out the windshield, "tell me what’s so great about hockey."

And Jack did. And listening and making snarky comments that Jack returned as good as he got kept Xander’s mind away from uncomfortable thoughts. As long as they kept talking, he’d get through this.

***********************************************************

"So this is it," said Jack as he unlocked the front door of his house. Xander looked about him taking it all in. It was a small, dark brown with a log-house kind of look too it, nestled in a quiet neighborhood in suburbia. Bushy plants lined the path to the door looking like they’d been there forever. Inside it was calm. The builder in Xander recognized a good design and nice work. Light walls contrasted with dark, but tasteful furniture.

"Your room’s down here," Jack led the way to the guest room, opening it for Xander to enter first. Nice bed, pretty comforter, chest of drawers, mirror – all the amenities of home. "Bathroom’s to the left," Jack pointed in the appropriate direction as Xander set his bag down on the bed.

"It’s nice," said Xander. Way better than the room he shared with Andrew at home, in fact. It was much more . . . adult.

"Come on, I’ll give you the nickel tour," Jack bobbed his head toward the rest of the house. "My room’s that way," he began by pointing to the next room down the hall. "Another bathroom here. Kitchen. Dining room. Living room." They went through in the opposite direction. The living room was nice with windows looking over the back yard across one wall and plump armchairs and a couch with plenty of pillows. There was a stone fireplace on an adjacent wall and above it . . . Holy bejesus! Xander felt his jaw drop open a bit. A whole buttload of medals were framed above the fireplace. Unconsciously, Xander stepped forward to take a closer look at the dozen or so decorations. Willow had said he was decorated but it hadn’t really sunk in until he saw the stars and ribbons of a few very top honors. Xander was impressed. And a little jealous. After all, what had they ever gotten, besides Buffy’s sparkly umbrella from their graduating class?

Behind him, Xander could hear Jack shifting from foot to foot as his eyes roamed over the medals and flags and caught on the photos on the ends of the mantle piece. There were two. One was of Jack in full military gear with a bunch of other soldiers grinning at the camera. They were all young, like in the picture of Jack and his mother. The other was of Jack and a little boy about seven or eight years old in a soccer uniform. Grass stains covered his knees as he grinned proudly at the camera. "Is this your son?" he asked, turning his head over his shoulder to Jack.

The older man nodded and came to stand beside him. "Yeah, that’s Charlie," he said with a fond, sad smile. "He had just started playing soccer then."

"My brother," said Xander quietly, his own soft words surprising him. He’d had a brother. He remembered growing up wondering what it would be like. Jack glanced at him sharply at this tacit acknowledgement of his paternity after they had agreed not to talk about it in the car.

"He’d be eighteen now," he said.

But he wasn’t because he had died. The thought was too much for Xander at the moment. He didn’t want to think about dead brothers. There was just too much death everywhere in his life, even in this new normal part with Jack, death still left its mark.

"How did you get all these?" Xander turned his attention back to the medals. "Did you save the world or something?"

Jack gave him a funny, unreadable look before smiling slightly and saying, "something like that." He shifted again, then stepped back from the mantle a bit. "So we have two choices for dinner," he changed the subject brightly, the seriousness of the last two minutes dispelling. "I can cook us up some grub, though I’ll warn you that I didn’t have a chance to finish the grocery shopping. Or, my choice, we can go out to eat."

"You paying?" asked Xander.

"Of course," said Jack, looking a little hurt that he’d asked. "Consider it part of the bribery."

Xander grinned. "Then let’s eat out."

****************************************************

Half an hour later, Jack and Xander were safely ensconced in a booth at Patrick’s Grill, a local steak house from which Jack wasn’t banned. It was a good place with pretty good service. One look at Xander’s face told him that it had been a good choice. The young man flipped through the menu with glee.

"Now that’s what I call food," he murmured happily.

Jack couldn’t help but grin. "What do they feed you at that camp of yours? Worms?" he asked.

"You have no idea," Xander sighed wearily. "Did you meet Andrew?"

"No." Jack sensed a story coming, a glimpse into his son’s life.

"Well Andrew’s our cook and I’m not saying he’s a bad cook, or anything, because compared to other options, he’s a culinary god."

"Your other options being?"

"Me or other people who don’t know how to cook. I mean we have like fifty people at each meal and given that the . . . girls eat like hyenas, that’s a lot of food. Andrew does a good job in spite of that. But we also have a limited budget, you know?"

Jack nodded for him to go on.

"Anyway, Andrew tends to get creative with things like Klingon Blood Pudding."

"Klingon?" Jack had watched enough Star Trek with Teal’c to get the reference.

"Yeah," Xander said knowing what he was really getting at. "Andrew’s a little . . . well I guess the nicest thing I can say about him is he’s a nerd."

"And the worst?" Jack couldn’t help but ask. Xander looked up from the menu and answered without missing a beat.

"He’s the most annoying little creep ever. He’s whiny and never shuts up, always complains and everything he says is related to comics or bad scifi. And I do mean everything."

Everything? Jack wondered with a grin. "He’s one of the friends you set up the camp with?"

"Friend is stretching it, but yeah, he came with us from Sunnydale. He didn’t have anywhere else to go either." Now the distant look was back as thoughts of his hometown undoubtedly fluttered through Xander’s mind. It must have been hard for him, all of them, to suddenly have nothing because of one random earthquake. Everything gone in a few short minutes.

"So Andrew cooks food that keeps him in touch with his inner dork?" Jack tried to get the conversation back on track.

"Pretty much," Xander agreed, shaking off his mood. "He actually kinda reminds me of me when I was in middle school. Except I don’t think I was ever that . . . obsessed."

"How old is he?"

"Nineteen or twenty. Trust me, he doesn’t act it."

Jack shrugged. "He’ll grow up. He just needs a healthy dose of reality." He knew many a recruit who just needed a kick in the pants to straighten them out.

But the distant look was back in Xander’s eye as he shook his head. "He’s grown up a lot actually. He used to be ten times worse than he is now. He’s just the way he is, you know?"

And Jack did see. He saw that despite what he said, Andrew was important to Xander. "Sounds like a kid brother," he commented.

Xander dropped his head slightly and blinked slowly. "You’re kidding right?" his voice was colored in disbelief. "Because there is no way Andrew is anything like a brother to me. No way in Hell. That’s like saying twinkies are a good replacement for broccoli. Which they are, just not in a vitamin kind of way."

"Broccoli?" Jack asked. How the hell did broccoli come into this? And what the hell was he talking about now? Xander needed a road map to understand.

"You didn’t have an affair with Andrew’s mom too, did you? Because I could so not handle that right now." Xander visibly shuddered at the thought.

"No!" said Jack, latching on to what he understood of the conversation. "There are no other lost kids, I promise."

"There better not be," Xander grumbled. "’Cause, Andrew? That’s just *wrong*."

Jack couldn’t help but chuckle at the vehemence of the protest. "I’m just saying that it sounds like you like the guy," he defended his observation only to earn another look from his son.

"I’m not gay if that’s what you’re asking," he said.

Gay? What? Where had that come from? Definitely needed a roadmap for this kid. "That’s not what I meant," said Jack.

"Oh," said Xander. "Well, I’m still not."

"I never thought you were."

"Good."

"Right."

"What were we talking about?"

"Your friend Andrew."

"Oh." Xander looked back down at his menu, seemingly not interested in talking anymore about it. So Jack, still a little confused about the inner workings of his son’s mind, also went back to his internal debate over a classic steak or spare ribs. Neither one of them said anything until the waitress came and took their orders. Jack decided on the spare ribs while Xander asked for a steak well done. After she left, Xander started fiddling with his straw. Jack watched, unsure what to say to break the silence, but in the end, he didn’t have to.

"Andrew’s like," Xander paused, searching for words in the crushed ice of his Sprite. "He’s not like a brother or a good friend, though I think I’m past hating him. He’s more like a pain in the ass all the time," his eye flicked up to meet Jack’s. "He’s jus