Alexander Harris was a simple being – he slept, he ate, he was active in something he liked to do, he like to laugh and he got angry, something he currently was in spades at the resident geek, Andrew; said geek had been talking non-stop for the last twenty seven minutes through one of Xander's favorite episodes of Star Trek" The Next Generation about something that happened before the opening credits and Xander was about two seconds away from committing homicide.
"Andrew, do you like being able to speak and walk on two legs?" This got a look from several of the new Slayers as he was the one who was supposed to be even-tempered.
"Uh, yes, why?"
Xander glared at the geek with his one eye, "Because if you do not shut up right now I am going to remove your capacity to which you can claim to be a bipedal creature and then I'm going to break your jaw into so many pieces nobody will ever be able to put it back together properly. Capice?" Years of being around Willow and Giles had expanded his understand of the English language greatly, even if he rarely showed it.
Apparently Andrew's own grasp of the language, when not involving computers, wasn't that great, "Huh?"
"He's gonna rip your legs off, dork," one of the Slayers from in and around New York, named Jessica, chipped in with a savage grin. "And we're going to help him make it look like it was an accident."
One of the youngest Slayers there at only fourteen, Diane from London began to cry crocodile tears and gibber slightly, "B-buffy, we t-tried to stop him, we really did, but he just … tripped." The Slayers all began to chuckle at Andrew's stricken look, a chuckle in which Xander joined in with but with a slightly darker tone.
"You wouldn't!"
"Maybe they won't," Xander said quietly, menacingly and grinning a grin that befit the Hyena more than 'the goof', "but I would."
"Enough torturing the helpless geek, Xander," Willow's voice came in from the doorway, where she and Kennedy were standing and doing their best not to laugh.
"Sure, spoil our fun," he groused. He then smiled hugely, "So what is in the wacky world of Willow these days, Wills? Magic? Translations? Nude skydiving?"
Kennedy looked slightly speculative at the last suggestion but Willow spoke up, blushing slightly while the Slayers all chuckled, "Nothing much, really. I've been feeling something funny all day and it's only getting stronger."
Xander's good mood evaporated instantly, "Evil?"
"No, just … powerful."
"Well that's one way of putting it." Everyone turned to look at the television, where John DeLancey's {did I spell his last name right?} character, Q, was standing in his Star Fleet uniform, "Hello, Children."
"Cool! He's talking to us, guys!" Andrew went into full geek mode until a precisely flung and densely stuffed pillow from one of the Slayers caught him in the chest.
"Thank you, young lady." He snapped his fingers and with a flash, disappeared from the television, only to reappear in front of everybody, still in uniform and oozing so much power that many of the Slayer had to do their best to stay conscious, "Greetings, all, I am Q. I mean you no harm, but I must speak to young Alexander here." That said, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers, in which Xander's world was lost in a bright flash of light.
Xander's world came back into focus a second later and before him stood a trio of people, all of whom were dressed in the same Command Star Fleet uniform; one was a female, who looked to be 35 years old on the outside, with light brown/blonde hair and gray eyes along with a slightly upset expression while the other was a young male, human in appearance, with dark hair, dark eyes and wore an expression of pure contempt while Q, on the other hand, wore a smug grin that Xander didn't like at all, "Alright, just where in the hell did you take me and who are they?"
"This is my wife, Q, and my son, Q {alright, for this not to be confusing, the wife will be Q-F and the son will be Q2}. Wife, son, meet Alexander Lavelle Harris, native of Earth circa the early twenty first century in a lovely little hamlet called Sunnydale, which also houses the Hellmouth." Both persons apparently knew what a Hellmouth was because they both winced and Q went on, "Now, I have a bit of news for all three of you to hear and I am sure that none of you will like all of it."
Q took a breath and then let it out, "Alexander Harris is my son by way of a mortal woman I had relations with some time back. You, Alexander, are also Q, and Q2 is your little brother."
There was silence for several minutes afterwards of this proclamation, but that ended when Q-F looked at her husband and glared, "So, there was another woman?"
"And this is my, our, cue to leave, little bro," Xander said hastily, grabbing Q2 by the wrist and dragging him along as Q-F's voice began to raise in volume.
"Unhand me, you inferior brute!" Q2 began to struggle to try and get away from him, but apparently could not and was dragged along for the ride while Q did his best to calm his wife, "LET ME GO!"
"Do you WANT to get caught in the middle of that," Xander pointed at where Q and Q-F were now obscured in a cloud of smoke and energy, "mess?"
Q2 looked for a moment as if he were going to say 'yes', but then common sense began to seep in and he shook his head, "On the other hand, I think you have the right idea."
"Trust me, feuding parents are no kid's friend."
Q2 looked at him oddly, "You seem to be taking dad's confession rather well, all things considered."
Xander snorted, "Please, I've lived on the Hellmouth long enough to know that nothing is too out there. Hell, I think I just won the pool for who had the strangest real father-and-or-mother." He laughed mirthlessly for a second before he sobered up, "Well, at least I'm not Tony Harris' real son, so things can't be all bad."
"Hmm, you are a strange mortal, brother."
"Tell me about it." The battle between Q and Q-F appeared to be over as both individuals walked over, more than a little singed in appearance, but other than that they were fine, "So, is the lover's spat over or do Junior and I here need to wait somewhere else for Round 2 to finish?"
"No, son," Q-F grated out with a glare at her husband before looking back at him. She looked into his one good eye for a moment and then clucked in disapproval, "When will that bitch ever learn?" She snapped her fingers and Xander collapsed to the ground in agony, his head burning for a few seconds before it stopped completely.
Hesitantly he lifted the patch that had covered his missing eye for nearly three months before feeling around and somehow knowing that it was back, which made him open his new eye slowly, "Cool."
"Very," Q said drolly before clapping his hand. "Now, for some answers."
"Yes, husband, they would do nicely right about now. Why is it that you coupled with a mortal and fathered a child without telling me?"
"Because I was young, stupid and didn't know any better, dear," Q said blandly, making Xander wince.
"So I really was an accident, wasn't I? Damnit, I hate it when that bastard is right." Both Q2 and Q-F looked at him oddly but said nothing as he went on, "So, what am I?"
"Human, mostly, but yet you are also Q."
Xander looked at the other two, "Am I the only one that didn't make sense to here?" Both shook their heads, "Good."
Q sighed, "I was human for a time and after I got my powers back I randomly hopped back into Earth's past, met a woman and we copulated after getting to know one another. You are the product of that union and, as such, you have certain fringe benefits from it."
Xander snorted, "I can't find a normal girlfriend, the universe seems to be out to get me and I live on the Hellmouth; THOSE are fringe benefits?"
Q smiled, "Yes, but not all of them - have you ever noticed that you cannot be unwillingly enspelled?"
"Wrong-o, bucko. I was possessed by a Hyena Spirit when I was 15 and a Chaos spell made me into a Vietnam Veteran a little more than a year later."
Q winced, "Well, that blasted Hyena Spirit has always been causing more trouble than he was worth, but I am not sure why a Chaos mage would have been able to enspell you." Q shrugged, "Oh well, it matters not. You are Q now, Alexander, and this is going to be your first test."
"What?" Q-F, Q2 and Xander all said at once, the latter of the three going on, "What kind of test are you talking about?"
"Your little brother needs someone to teach him about human values and, as you have spent your entire life on Earth as a human, you are more than qualified to teach him. Also, you are also Q and need to learn about your new abilities, so he can teach you some of what you need to know by visiting your new Aunt Kathy."
"Aunt Kathy! I love visiting her!" Q2 apparently did like his Aunt Kathy with the way he beamed and his mother frowned, "She and her crew on Voyager are so fun to be around, brother, that you'll never want to come back here." He grabbed Xander's hand and smiled before snapping his fingers, "Away we go!"
"What the … hell?" Xander looked around at the surrounding room, all of them dressed in variants of the same uniform that Q2 himself wore, only with yellow on some of the shoulders, and one buxom blonde in a catsuit with a metal piece over her left eye and some metal on her hand.
"Hello, Q," came an exasperated voice from the woman with four pips on her collar and red on her shoulders. "What is it this time?"
"HI, Aunty, this is my brother Alexander from Earth."
Everyone looked at Xander and he sighed, "Q, there is something called subtlety; look into it some time." He straightened his clothes, namely his jeans and a t-shirt, and smiled, "Hi, Alexander Harris of Earth, 2004, but please, call me Xander."
The redhead looked at him oddly, "You're Q's brother?"
"Apparently. Dear old dad had a quick furlough to earth a while back and he met my mom – so I'm sure I don't have to explain what happened beyond that, do I?" A snort from the Asian man behind one terminal and a chuckle from 'Kathy', not to mention a few odd looks and a raised eyebrow from a honest-to-God Vulcan were all the responses he got, "Okay, um, one quick question – where in God's name has he taken me?"
The woman smiled slightly, "I am Captain Katherine Janeway, and welcome to the United Federation of Planets Starship Voyager."
Xander felt himself snap to attention slightly and then salute, "Captain." There was a flash and immediately he felt a difference in his clothing – gone were his jeans, sneakers and t-shirt, but now in their place stood spit-shined black combat boots, forest-style camouflage BDUs, a green beret under his left epaulette and the rank of sergeant on his sleeves. He glared at Q2, "What'd you do to my clothes?"
Q2 held up his hands in surrender, "That wasn't me, brother – that was all you."
Xander sighed, "This is going to take some getting used to."
Aunt Kathy looked at Q2, "My ready room – now."
"So he's new to the Continuum?"
Q2 nodded, "He's technically been Q for less than an hour, Aunt Kathy – grew up on Earth as a human and never knew the truth until dad told him."
Katherine sighed, "What a way to become Q."
Q2 shrugged and looked at his brother, "Where'd you get those clothes, brother?"
"Do you remember what I said about the Chaos Mage?" At Q2's nod, Xander went on, "These are remnants of the memories of the soldier I was turned into that night."
"Excuse me," Katherine asked quickly. "Chaos mage?"
"Magic user who called upon the Roman god Janus to power his spell to infuse those who wore costumes on Halloween bought from his store – whoever you were was whoever you got turned into."
"Ah."
"Anyway, when the spell ended, not all of him went away and trust me, some of his memories I could have done without." Xander shuddered for a second and then looked at Katherine, "Hold on a second – you're his Aunt Kathy, right?"
"Yes."
Xander gave her a sly smile, "Does that make you my Aunt Kathy too?"
Q2 snickered at that as Katherine gave him a small smile, "At least you don't need your diapers changed. So, Alexander, tell me about yourself."
"No time, Kathy," came Q's voice as he flashed into being sitting on Katherine's desk. "Junior and Xander have a lot to learn about being Human and Q, respectively." He snapped his fingers and with a flash of light, Katherine was the only one in the room.
She put her head down into her hands and moaned, "Oh God, there's three of them."
All three members of the Q Continuum flashed into being again together, but this time back in the Summers home in Sunnydale with everyone still where they were when Q originally took Xander away, "Now, Alexander, your job is to teach Q2 about being human and he is to teach you about being Q – you have all eternity to learn how to be Q, but this is probably the best chance for him to learn about humanity; they are short-lived, violent, sometimes mindless beings who are so very fascinating in their interactions, and with all of the Slayers here, he will be in a prime learning environment."
"Okay, rule One – no peeking in on any female in or around this or any house if you like all of your parts and pieces where they currently are. They'll kill you if they think you're a peeping tom and I'm not sure I'd stop them if you were."
"But you're my brother! You have to stop them."
"Rule Two – Self-preservation is key, so don't let other men drag you down with them if they get into trouble."
Q clapped his hands, "Excellent – he's already learned two of the most important lessons there are to being both human and male. Now, Alexander, teach him well, and I'll be back in one month to check in on your progress." With a snap of his fingers, Q left and time resumed … as did the chaos of Xander's sudden departure.
"So let me get this straight – you're now an all-powerful, omnipotent being from the Q Continuum, he is temporarily powerless to teach him about humanity and we're supposed to deal with it?" Buffy wiggled her hand in front of his face, "HELLO! Anybody home?"
Xander looked at Q2, "While sometimes humans can be overly smart, most of the times those who bleach their hair blonde can be overly annoying with their supposed superiority." Q2 nodded at this sage-like advice and Xander turned back to the now-fuming bottle blonde, "Yes, I am here, Buffy, but you haven't said anything about my newest returned feature yet."
"Yes, I said your uniform looks nice, but let's –"
"He's talking about his eye, Buffy," Dawn said to the bottle blonde. "DUH!"
Buffy looked up and saw that, indeed, her Xander-shaped friend had two eyes. "Oh."
Xander looked at Q2 again, "Humans also often miss that which is obvious and right in front of their eyes." Looking back, he smiled, "Yes, you got the gist of it, Buff – for a month he is human and will be learning how to deal with us, meaning he will have to resist the urge to not murder the lot of us because we can be bloody-well annoying most of the time." He stopped and thought back over the sentence he'd just said and then paled, "Oh God, I just spoke British!"
The assembled Slayers, save Buffy, who was still fuming, took that point to chuckle – it was general consensus that Xander was the fun guy to be around, but now that he was back, with two eyes, dressed in forest BDUs and with the green beret still there, many of the Slayers seemed to be paying more attention to him with Dawn and Faith leading the way {No, Dawn isn't a Slayer, but her crush is still there}.
"Be that as it may, Xander," Giles went on in his smooth tone, still smirking at his infection of the British English Language on an American, "What is it that you can do, in broad terms?"
"He can change anything he want to whatever he wants, Mister Giles – what good is being omnipotent if one is not also all-powerful?" Q2 smirked, but then frowned, "But until he figures out how to control his powers Dad will probably make it to where he can't do too much more than he already has and most of it will be for himself."
The entire group seemed to deflate at this, as if hoping that he would be able to destroy all of the demons for them, but that was something that, even if he were capable of it, he would not do – Humanity needed to learn to stand on their own feet and take the challenges that came their way (plus the whole unbalancing thing would probably piss a lot of people off in Heaven and Hell, regardless of the fact that he was Q now).
It was Dawn who spoke up next and Xander could hear the trepidation in her voice, "So you're here for another month?"
"Yep, then I'm off to learn the family business, as it were, but if I am thinking of this the right way, you'll never know I was gone because I'll be in another time and, as such if I do return the only time that will have passed will have been for me," he looked at Q2, "right?"
"Temporal Law of Q – time passes only as much, as fast or as little as you allow it to." Q2 shrugged, "To them you may be gone for a second, a minute or a year – when you come back you adjust for that and move on from there."
"Alrighty then," Xander said, rubbing his hands together and then snapping his fingers, changing out of his uniform and into his old jeans and a t-shirt, noticing that the more the did it, the easier it was to do things with his new powers. "Rules of Humanity, little brother; take notes and remember that when dealing with humans, common sense is not a requirement."
As was with any type of withdrawal, the first week is always the worst; by the end of day one Q2, now called Butch instead of Quentin (nobody from the OSG -original Scooby gang- wanted to be reminded of Quentin Travers any more than they had to be), was snapping his fingers to make things happen spontaneously while Xander wasn't snapping them at all – he merely had to think about it and learned that Q snapped their fingers as kind of a triggering mechanism. By the end of day two, while the education of what it meant to be human covered hunger, sleeping, washing, shaving, etc., Butch was learning what fools mortals were while doing his best not strangle Andrew with anything that was handy, even a Slayer who was more than willing to do the job for Butch.
First lesson was The Code of Men, taught by Xander, Giles and, when he deemed it important enough to ever show up, Robin; it covered the do's and don'ts of what it was to be a human male – Giles even got him a revised copy from the local distributor {AN: No Comments made about this other than a friend suggested this}. Lessons to follow were basic common sense when dealing with Humans, but as Xander has pointed out to Butch on his first day as a human, common sense only occasionally factored in with dealing with humans of the 21st century
Days three and four were hard learning experiences for Butch; he learned that in a house full mystically-enhanced Vampire Slayers who happened to be teenaged girls, being a male meant that you were immediately at a minority and even if you were liked, that meant getting in and out of the bathroom, on and off the phone, everything done in as little time as possible – it was at this point, though, that Butch learned the values of threats to humans when Andrew's incessant questions pushed the still-currently senior Q present over the edge to the point he buried a steak knife into the wall next to the young man's head. Had it not been for Butch's towering fury towards Andrew, it would have been funny.
Days five through seven were tougher than most – Butch had gotten down the basics of sanitation, eating and most of the human norms, but he had yet to grasp the finer points of subtlety and tact, which reminded Xander all too keenly of Anya under the best of circumstances. Against his better judgment he had pulled the temporary human out of several sticky spots with the new Slayers and did his best to avoid being caught in the crossfire when Butch accidentally, though it could be questioned just how accidental it was at the time, walked into the bathroom and an Slayer from Hong Kong al natural, which got Butch clocked but good.
All of this was not to say that it had been easy for Xander; it started slowly at first with one or two of the Slayers, generally Jessica or Kennedy, wanted a little something to eat and it ended up him providing a seven course meal for all present. He'd lost his temper several times and told all present that he wasn't a walking buffet provider, nor was he a dispenser of clothing, cosmetics or cash – but thankfully the word had spread not to piss him off after he accidentally turned Kennedy into a human-sized Smurf {AN: I know this has been used in several stories except it was Willow who was 'smurffed', but I like the concept, so whoever thought of it, cuddos.}. The fact was that the one person who had not asked him for anything was the one person who had yet to say more than three words to him since she got back into Sunnydale – Faith. She and Robin had a fling, but that soon petered out and she had settled down, a lot, since defeating the First Evil and closing the Hellmouth – Xander sometimes found himself on the roof for some reason or another and she'd join him; neither would say a damned word because they didn't need to.
It was the almost sundown of the seventh evening, once again on the roof while Butch did his best to learn how to interact with humans, when she found him on the roof and spoke, "I'm sorry, Xander."
He didn't need to read her mind, a neat trick he'd picked up in the previous few days yet shied away from because of the whole invasion of privacy thing, to know what she was talking about, "You weren't the first to try and kill me, Faith, and not the last – forgiven and forgotten."
She sat on his right, dressed in her now-habitual jeans and jacket with what appeared to be a tank top underneath, "Bet you say that to all the girls."
He smiled and took a pull off of his open soda, "Nope – you're the first; they're mostly all dead and Willow still hasn't really apologized for nearly killing me {AN: She may have, but I'm saying no} two years ago." He absently willed a soda into existence for her with a stray thought and lay back until his back was on the roof, "So is that all you're up here for?"
She joined him, "What's it like, being all-powerful and omnipotent? Must be a killer high."
"Sometimes, yes, but 99.9% of the time it's terrifying, Faith; I could kill someone with a thought, and I have to be on guard 24/7 so I don't. I sorta know what it's like to be a Slayer now, all hopped up on power and having to restrain myself."
She chuckled next to him, looking over, "So what are you gonna do once you finish your training? Come back here and be Super Xander? Save us all from the demons and let us live out our lives peacefully?"
He sighed, "Wish I could do that, but I can't; that'd destroy the balance between the light and dark, so I'd probably just be Xander, living somewhere with myself and anyone who could stand me."
She smiled, "Is that an invite?"
"Door's open as long as you have a pulse." He thought he was kidding himself at first, but he then felt her hand on top of his and squeezing slightly, which he returned as they sat in comfortable silence until, naturally, it was disturbed by a scream and a howled curse.
Before Faith could get out habitual, "WTF," Xander had teleported them down to the front room, where the scream and howled curse originated from and took in the situation; Andrew was on the ground in the fetal position, the girls were all looking at Butch, who was snarling curses and clutching his right hand, Giles was cringing and then it clicked that it was he who had howled the curse, "What the hell happened here?" Everyone started to speak at once but it sounded like seven different stories at once, so he held up his hands and looked at Butch, who appeared to be calming down, "Well?"
"That … that idiot wouldn't leave me alone even after I told him to stop, so I kicked him."
"In the 'crown jewels', ye wanker! Ye don't EVER do that to another bloke, ponce or not!" Giles looked incredulous and had let the Ripper slip for several seconds before getting back into control, "It's incredibly bad form."
Xander closed his eyes and counted to ten, taking deep breaths, and then looked down at Andrew, "Alright, that's quite enough of that; let your worst nightmares become reality!" He snapped his fingers and Andrew instantly changed from rolling-on-the-floor-from-being-racked geek to an impeccably dressed young man who appeared to be the poster boy for the young Republicans.
"Forgive me, but I must go preach the word of GWB to the masses so he may be re-elected," the new Andrew said in an educated voice before leaving the house for the downtown area of Sunnydale.
The group was silent for a moment before Faith looked over at Xander, "That was cruel."
"No, that was fun – cruel would have been to turn him into an unimaginative hick who preferred sheep and goats to human beings." He looked over at Butch, who was smiling, "What're you smiling about?"
"Father would be so proud of you, Alexander. That was truly inspired."
Xander grinned evilly, "No, that was my overactive imagination at work – THIS is both inspired and cruel." He snapped his fingers and both he and Butch were suddenly in the basement, the latter of the pair strapped into a chair with a straight jacket, eyes peeled open, and looking at a television set while it turned on and came to rest on Public Television.
For a second there was no words spoken, but then Butch began to struggle, "NO, YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! NOT BARNEY! ARGH, THE HUMANITY! PLEASE, I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD!"
Xander ignored his cries of terror and flashed back up to the front room, where everyone could hear the muffled screams from below, "I wouldn't go down in the basement if I were any of you, unless you like Barney."
Everyone winced and shuddered at that, Giles speaking up almost timidly, "Does he deserve that, Xander?"
"Possibly not, but he needs to learn what true terror is and that's the best way to learn – fear is something that must be faced and it is what often keeps humans alive."
Word spread quickly among the Slayers that Xander had taken a turn for the sadistic and everyone stayed well away from the basement, even if when they passed by they heard pitiful whimpers and the occasional, "DIE YOU PURPLE FREAK!" For her part, Buffy had gotten a good chuckle out of it until she saw what Xander had done to Andrew, who had tried to convert a small group of young Slayers into Republicans, then she too avoided the Scooby/Q while muttering, "Sheesh, what sent him off the deep end?"
When midnight came, though, Xander let Butch out of his restraints and out of the basement, but not out of the house, as he was sitting in any available dark corner, rocking himself and whispering, "nomorepurpledinosaur, nomorepurpledinosaur," over and over again. Andrew, for his part, avoided both Xander and Butch, having almost converted three Slayers to the Republican Party until Willow banished him from the house, telling him to go convert some vampires. {No, I don't like Andrew, but he won't be killed}
Xander returned to the roof and sat, waiting for sunrise because, as Q, he didn't need to sleep; he was joined by the odd Slayer, even Dawn for a few minutes, but as the sun came up on day eight, he smiled and muttered to himself, "Now, for teleportation practice."
Xander had been busy that morning – first on the list was learning from Butch how to manipulate the bodies of other people, which he had done by knocking about twenty years off of Giles' age (25 – 30 years old for a while), but then learned how to manipulate reality and matter by conjuring up a full Pardon signed by the Last Action Hero himself, a full file on the guy known as Soldier Boy, but his crowning achievement up was then done when he created a new refrigerator that, when emptied, filled up again after about five minutes. Several of the Slayers and a certain red-haired best friend/Wicca/Lesbian had proposed to him on the spot, while numerous others, including a mystical ball of Key energy, made an offering to him of the option of fathering their first, second and even third born children. It took all of his willpower to say no to all of them, but Butch reminded him at that point that it was time for his teleportation and time manipulation classes.
Xander looked at Butch, who took only a few minutes to explain the entire process, even as several Slayers gathered around for the big moment, "So, that's all there is to it? Picture where I want to be and, poof, there I am?"
"Yes," Butch said. "You've done it on pure instinct several times already, but this time you have to picture a place or dimension where you want to go and do it – remember to aim for dry land, because when you appear over water you go right in with no time to teleport anywhere else."
"I'll keep that in mind, little brother." Picturing a woman's face in his mind, Xander felt himself being ripped across dimensions to the realm that was often considered Heaven; it wasn't all that different from Earth, really, but it was the little things like clean air, pleasant weather and plenty of green plants that made it … perfect.
"Xander?" He turned around to look at the speaker of his name and did his best not to choke up with tears when he saw her.
"Joyce." He walked up to her and embraced the woman he had wanted to be his true mother for years, "It's good to see you again, mom."
She hugged him back, "You too, son." They parted after a minute and she looked him up and down, "So, I guess you have finally come into your birthright then?"
He smiled, "You knew?"
She smiled, "Once it was explained to me, yes. There is actually quite a pool going up here on just whom you are going to end up with for the rest of eternity – Dawn and Faith are in front, with Vi and several other new Slayers in marginal positions, but oddly enough Buffy is in dead last." She shrugged at that and then grinned impishly, "Of course both Jenny and I are tied for fourth, if we are ever allowed to go back."
He chuckled, "Who's in third place?"
"I-I am, Xander." He turned to see Tara, dressed in a flowing skirt and a matching blouse, still as beautiful as ever.
"Tara." He hugged her gently, remembering his want of vengeance against Warren Meers for killing her.
"Don't, Xander." He pulled back and saw her face had a wan look to it, "He's being punished enough as it is."
Xander felt his face darken, "No punishment would EVER be enough for that … person." It took several seconds for him to regain his composure but it happened and he looked her up and down, "You look good, Tara-bear."
She blushed and Joyce giggled, "I never should have told you my nickname." They all shared a laugh and for a moment there was silence, then Tara spoke again, "Thank you for what you did for Willow, Xander. Had you not been destined for something more, your place up here would have been cemented, regardless of what you would have done from then on."
"It had to be done, Tara, and I was the one saddled with it; besides, if you saw that you knew what I was going to do if I couldn't stop her with words … all of it." He'd brought a gun with him that day for two reasons – if he couldn't talk Willow down he would have shot her, and then himself because a world with Willow wasn't one he wanted to live in.
"We know all, Xander. Now, you have a lot more places to visit, so get going, but come back and visit us some time soon, son." Joyce kissed him on one cheek and then Tara kissed him on the other.
"I shall return." That done, he pictured his next place and willed himself there; it wasn't often that people wanted to go to Hell, but to see that bastard suffer, Xander was willing to put up with a little extra heat.
Xander wasn't too surprised to see Warren being flogged by each and every demon that came around, but what he was surprised to hear, from 'Louis Cypher' off all 'people', was that even the demons in Hell had liked Tara and her killer had been reserved a special place.
Curiosity satisfied, Xander then willed himself to do something he had not had a chance to do in nearly four years – Annoy Deadboy; he popped in on the souled vampire and wasn't surprised to find him brooding at his desk in the Executive Office of Wolfram and Hart, "Hiya, DB."
Angel jumped in his seat and turned, looking at Xander for a moment before sighing, "Great, you're here to torture me now too. Wasn't Spike enough?"
"There's never enough annoying you, Deadboy," Xander said glibly as the door opened and several people walked in, but only two of them Xander recognized. "Harmony? Spike?" He looked at Angel is something that approached, but not quite reached, sympathy, "Sorry, man. Didn't think you had it this bad."
"Whelp?" "Harris?" Spike and Harmony spoke as one, while the others looked on blankly.
"In the Q flesh, as it were." He teleported forwards and, on general principle, decked Spike for all the trouble he had caused in the past and would continue to cause in the future. "God I have wanted to do that for years now."
"How did you do that? I mean, teleportation is supposed to be magical, but magic is used with incantations and scrolls and potions, but you said nothing…" {Three guesses whom this is.}.
"Fringe benefit of the job, ma'am." He looked back at the bewildered Angel and smiled wickedly, "Don't you hate it when an annoying Zeppo like me becomes a cosmic being of unlimited power and true omnipotence? Adios!" Picking a place randomly, he teleported before anyone could say anything.
When he arrived he was greeted with perhaps the second most amazing sight he had ever witnessed - a natural blonde in the shower.
"AH!" The scream shook him out of his reverie and he screamed in response, teleporting as the name was finally placed – Kate Lockley. {AN: Sorry, I had to throw her in for some reason, but I know the actress who plays here isn't natural – but one could always dream. Besides, he left quickly, didn't he? Add to that, he teleported randomly!}
"Freeze!" Xander froze at the barked order from someone, from the voice a female someone, behind him. "Hands in the air and turn around slowly!"
He complied and saw that the person giving him orders had a gun drawn on him, so he instinctively teleported it into his hands without much fuss, "Now, are you quite finished?"
"Who are you?" {P–)}The woman in question was Catherine Willows, from the television show CSI, and she did not look happy.
Xander, who had seen the show, flipped on the radio next to him and The Who came on with the appropriate song, "Call me Q, my dear Ms. Willows. I, uh, missed my target landing zone, sorry. If you can't tell, I am still kinda new at this. Bye!" He smiled and teleported himself away, her gun reappearing in her holster as Gil Grissom entered the room, gun drawn.
"Who was in here, Catherine?"
She shook her head, "He said his name was Q."
Xander had fun in New York City from the Marvel comics Universe (Marvel-verse) when he traded quips with Spiderman while rounding up several thugs and even dropped in on the Black Cat as she kicked the backside of another group of thugs who had tried to divest her of some loot she had … procured … from a local blood diamond runner. He visited the group from Cheers in Boston, dropped in on Harry Potter while he, Ron and Hermione were studying in the Library, sipped win in Paris, met briefly with an ailing Pontiff in Vatican City, visited various places in Russia, India, China, even saw that lunatic Croc Hunter in Australia before popping into Japan, where he was almost mauled by a cat-rabbit for landing on it's carrot. His next stop was his Africa, where he appeared before a small pack of hyenas, which made him cackle insanely for several seconds, which they joined in on, before zapping himself further east and into Maui, where he enjoyed some Luau Pig and even got a hula lesson and a grass skirt before teleporting back to Sunnydale, where nobody had appeared to have moved.
"Hi!" The two nearest Slayers screeched in shock as he landed behind them and jumped several feet in the air before landing on their feet, glaring at him for a second before his mishmash of clothes hit home – he still had on a lei, the grass skirt, a Red Sox cap signed by the entire team, odds and ends from Russia, India, China and even a pair of shorts that mirrored the Croc Hunter's. They all began to giggle incessantly and even Butch snickered at the … eclectic clothing he was wearing.
He snapped his fingers and the clothes were replaced by his normal attire, the Sox cap still present on his head as Faith's birthday was a few days away, and he smirked at them before setting down an apology not to a particular blonde, "Dear Miss Lockley, sorry about dropping in on you like that, but it was an accident, really. If you want someone to blame, ask Angel, remember him (?), and he'll point you in the right direction. Signed, Alex Harris. PS. DAMN! Hollywood needs more natural blondes as beautiful as you. AH." With that done, he zapped it to her and set about to find Faith to give her an early birthday present.
A week later Xander found himself along side of Faith in Boston at a Red Sox/Yankees game; they had not been playing on her birthday two days before, so he had made it up to her by bringing her back home at the crack of dawn for White Castle burgers/sliders, a baseball game with her favorite team against a hated rival, and generally a day off. They had been getting closer than ever over the past few days, Xander not really trying to do anything more than just being himself, which was a laugh because he was a cosmic being of unlimited power/potential, and somehow they had just been spending more and more of their time together while Andrew spread the word of GWB and Butch did his best to fit in with the others in the house.
"SOX WIN! SOX WIN!" The stadium went, to put it nicely, ape shit and Faith was probably the loudest as the Yankees popped out in the ninth down six to four. Xander could have cared less normally, but Faith was having fun, so he tolerated all the suspicious looks she had given him when her team had pulled rabbits out of their collective ass in the form of miracle plays. It was at times like this, when she acted like a carefree young woman, that she looked to be at her most relaxed and Xander felt happy that she was happy.
After the game she had wanted to go see the Big Dig; from what Xander had heard and knew, it was a solution to alleviate Boston's automotive congestion, but it seemed as if it would never be finished. They found a nice little park not too far away and she looked over at him, "Thanks for the trip home, boy toy."
"Not a problem, Faith. It's your birthday and you deserve the very best."
She looked oddly at him, "You didn't rig the game, right? My boys won on their own?"
"Well, today was going to be rained out, so I made a small change in the weather. No big."
"Getting a little free with those powers, aren't ya boy toy? I mean, isn't this what happened with Red a year ago?"
"Yes and no, Faith." He leaned back and took off his jacket, "If you haven't noticed, it's only the small things I use my powers on unconsciously – I still read the paper, walk up to the store, fix things by hand when they are broken, even cook when I feel like it. It helps balance things out and keep me anchored."
"And what about those homeless guys we passed on our way here? It was kinda crazy how you passed 'em all a few coins but then their cups and tins all filled up with some mad cash."
"What's a little charity between friends and neighbors?"
She snorted and reached into her jacket for a smoke, putting it to her lips and going to light it when it flashed and turned into a stick of gum, "Quit doin' that, Xander. I need my nic fix."
He impulsively reached over and put a hand on her forehead, cleansing the toxins and addiction/craving nodes in her brain, "No, you don't Faith. I may still be second banana on this planet as far as skills go, but I want you to live a long, healthy life and lung cancer can be pretty rough."
She growled at him for a second before smiling, "Stop changing the subject, boy toy. You act like you're friggin' Santa Clause and the big JC all rolled into one with the ways you help everyone out."
"Not everyone, Faith. I only help those who truly need help, like that girl on the way to the ballpark today – she had a week, maybe two, to live from the AIDS in her system; she was born like that from her junky mother, so I took care of it. Is wanting to help those who can't be helped a crime, Faith?"
"It's not that, X, it just ain't natural. How's she going to explain it at the clinic when they check her out? Or how about that G's twenty years younger today than he was a month ago?"
He shrugged, "Okay, so I went a little overboard with Giles, but I was still learning; as for the girl, she wasn't going to a clinic and was actually thinking about suicide before I intervened – one thing with my powers is that I can stop time and not even a Slayer can feel it. She and I talked for over an hour about what I'd done to her and she's on her way now to an employment office to get real work and off her back." He looked over at Faith and she was floored, "What, didn't I tell you that as Q, all things are possible?"
She shook her head as if to clear it, "Damn, X, you've got more tricks than a cereal box." She was quiet for a moment and he enjoyed it before she spoke again, but this time her voice was quiet, almost scared, "What if I asked you not to leave, X? I like that we're connecting like this, and I want see if maybe…"
He nodded and then chuckled, "So would I, Faith, but I need to learn to use my powers, to control them properly so I don't accidentally kill everyone while trying to save a cat out of a tree one day. But when I get back it will seem as if very little, if any, time has gone by." He slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, feeling her shake ever so slightly before she turned into him and hugged him for all she was worth.
They stayed like that for several minutes until Faith got herself back under control, which is when the Dig's whistle went off, signaling that it was quitting time for one shift, "Now, for dinner." He stood them up and snapped his fingers, changing their clothes. He himself went for a nice suit of dark gray/charcoal with a matching shirt and tie while he transformed Faith's clothes into an evening gown of red that left her shoulders bare, her hair done up nicely and only a hint of makeup on her face (he'd spent the past week with the other Slayers and every girls magazine he could conjure to figure out just what she would look good in – though he was convinced she could make a brown paper sack look good.)
She looked down at the dress she was now wearing and then at him, "Where are we going? The Club closed down a few years back and…"
"Paris, actually." He snapped his fingers and instantly they were in a small park from where you were less than a thousand feet from the Eiffel Tower, "When only the very best will do, Faith." He smiled and took her arm, leading her to a nice restaurant not five minutes away and asked for his reservations under 'Harris', and they were led to a table right away.
They ordered and ate, chatting about this and that while Faith soaked in all of the ambiance of the restaurant, generally having a blast while they ate; it all culminated when the head chef brought out a small cake with a single candle on top of it, {next shall be translated into English from French}. "Madam, the young man here asked us to make you a special cake for your special day. Happy birthday and we hope you have many more to come."
Faith, for her part, did her best not to promptly break into tears – it had been a long time, Xander knew, since someone had given a damn about her birthday, and she thanked the chef and Xander with a radiant smile before blowing out the candle on the cake.
"So what'd ya wish for, Faith? Fame? Money? A never-ending supply of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in a gallon tub?" He did have to guess what her wish was – she had been projecting it all night.
She smiled somewhat coyly, "Can't tell ya, boy toy, or it won't come true."
After dinner they danced for several hours in a small dance hall near the restaurant until Faith yawned and he then zapped them back to the Summers' kitchen back in Sunnydale, where the sun was just starting to sink below the horizon, "I've had a blast tonight, X. Thanks."
"No problem, Faith." Actually there was a problem – Xander almost had to physically restrain himself to not kiss her as she moved closer to him to do just that. They were less than an inch apart when the door to the kitchen flew open and two forms stumbled in, causing Faith to back up suddenly and drop into a combat stance while Xander himself swore fluently in Klingon internally when he saw who the two people were – Butch and the Slayer from Hong Kong, Ming Tai (or Tai-chan for short). After he had explained what had happened with the accident to Tai-chan, Butch and she had been getting along very well in the past week and it now appeared that they were jumping several levels of friendship and checking to see if the other still had their tonsils.
Both figures stopped kissing and looked up from the floor at the two standing figures above them; Faith, for her part, looked about to laugh her ass off, but both could tell that Xander was contemplating scattering their atoms to the winds even as Faith dissolved into giggles.
Butch could only smile, though, "Hey brother, what's up?"
It had been twelve days since the almost-kiss between Faith and Xander, which meant that there were two days to go before Q would return Butch's powers and take Xander away to train him in the more complex uses of his powers; basically, Xander was frustrated and mightily pissed off that his luck was holding true to form – just as soon as he gets close to someone, luck, fate and Murphy all combine forces to screw it up.
Faith, for her part, had balled out both Ming-Tai and Butch for interrupting both her and Xander; the junior Hong Kong Slayer was profoundly sorry for interrupting 'smoochies' but Butch had snarked left, right and center about them kissing in secret (he and Tai-chan were common knowledge in the house) until Xander came in with a straight jacket, a stack of Barney tapes and duct tape – this shut up the temporary human immediately.
Later that day, when Xander was in better humor, Butch approached him, "Do we have to leave, brother? I like it here – it's … different … from anything else I've ever known."
"You already know the answer to that, Butch. We have to go back and finish our training – you already have a huge jump start on me and will probably be done several hundred million years before I am."
Butch sat next to him on the pitch roof, "But I don't want to leave Ming Tai! I can't explain it, brother; every time she walks into the room I feel…"
"Like your heart is going to explode in joy? Like nothing and nobody else in the room or on the world exists at that point?"
Butch looked at him in surprise, "Yes! That's it."
Xander smiled, "It's called love, Butch, and the reason you can't explain it is because for over ten thousand years humans have tried to and have not. Sure, the science of it is easy – chemical reactions in the brain and pheromone release/absorption increase when someone pleasing to the eye and to the individual is observed, adrenaline output is increased, repertory and pulmonary functions fluctuate, your body pores alter the release of pheromones and sweat and few other factors, but science has yet to explain just why someone falls in love with someone else just by sight alone."
"So I can stay and maybe find this out?"
"No."
Butch stood up suddenly, an angry expression on his face, "I am not leaving her and that is final." He stormed off the roof and into the house, not catching Xander's next words.
"Believe it or not, little brother, I am in the same boat."
About ten minutes later Xander found Ming Tai in the back yard doing what appeared to be Tai Chi, "Morning, Tai-chan."
She looked at him and nodded her head; she spoke very little English to begin with, so most of the time it was either Butch or himself that translated her native Chinese for the other.
"We need to talk." These words and the steel behind them made her stop of meditative movements and look at him expectantly, "I want to know, with no hedging or bullshit, that even knowing what my little brother is, what WE are, how you feel about him."
"I love him." It was scary that being born half a world away, never having me him, she spoke just like Oz.
"Why? Why do you love someone who, in the blink of his eye, outlives you and then moves on?"
She shrugged in a very Kwai Chang Caine way, "Who are we to question the wills of the Ancients? They have dictated to my heart that I am to love him, even if our initial meeting was less than stellar." She blushed as she remembered when Butch had accidentally walked in on her as she was crawling out of the shower. "He is my soul mate."
Xander sighed, "Very well, Tai-chan. I thank you for your honesty and that you actually listen to what you ancestors have to say instead of bleaching it out of your head with your hair." How bowed to her and left, allowing her to return to her Tai Chi.
With one full day before Q's return, Xander cornered Butch in one of the upper rooms (which he later placed as Joyce's old room) and spoke plainly, "Look, before you and Tai can EVER be together, you have to finish your studies as a Q – like it or not we are eternal beings and I know for a fact that even though we can manipulate time and space, feelings do change over time; accept it and move on."
"But-"
"I'm not finished, Q." This shut Butch up immediately – Xander had never used Q's real name, ever, "I know the very thought of leaving her hurts – trust me, I'm in the same boat, but one of the hardest lessons for a human to learn is that love is pain. Life, love and humanity all hurt at times, but they are what make being human worth it – if I teach you nothing else about being one of us, learn this." Xander turned away from Butch, who was doing a credible impersonation of a fish at that point, and walked out of the room, "And one day you might even be willing to accept it."
It was time to leave – his father stood before him and had restored the powers of his little brother; Buffy and Dawn were raging about his leaving, Willow was weeping and he could feel Faith up in her room, sobbing even as he did his best not to teleport up there and console her. Eventually he knew he'd have to leave, so he phased himself and Q2 out of time as Q2 let Ming-Tai out of an embrace, "Let this be my last lesson to you on Humanity, Q2, and it's the one that is the hardest to learn and accept – how to say goodbye to the ones that you love." Neither Q nor Q2 said anything as tears began to course down Xander's face, "They are my friends, my family in all ways but blood, and I know this is for the best, but I'd rather shove a knife into my own heart than to hurt them like this. What I know, however, is that they will move on with their lives and eventually forget us, I will never forget them, which is what will sustain me until I can come back and be with them … with her again."
"Well spoken, my son," Q said to Xander. "Jean-Luc would be crying his eyes out had he heard such a profession of emotion."
"English?"
"French."
"Ah."
Q2 looked at his father and brother during the exchange and came up with one conclusion – grownups were weird.
"Regardless, Alexander, your training will consist of two parts – first, I am pleased to see just how much you have learned on your own and from Q2 here, as well as your restraint in using your powers, but now a new education is needed for you to fully come to grasps with what you will be dealing with in our relative time. I have, with permission from the Elders, enrolled you in Starfleet Academy, as Alexander Q. Harris and you will be learning from and being mentored by Admiral Katherine Janeway."
AN: Okay, that's it for this chapter – Xander in Starfleet is not a new concept (Seige has used it before) but instead of finding/training Slayers, he'll be learning about how the world and universe works on a new level. Before you can make use of everything around you, you must first know what everything around you is. Also, I have decided that, yes, this will eventually be a X/F story, but in the coming chapters he will have close friendships with several females (and yes, one will be a former Borg drone – friendship only, though.)
AN2: Alright, that's it for the first part of Of Family and Q. I'm starting on the outline of Part 2, which will encompass Xander's familiarization/training/hiding with and within Starfleet - it sounds rough right now, but he'll be hiding in Starfleet as a new cadet (he'll look 18 again) and end up on a ship where he can learn how's and why's the universe. Thanks for the reviews and the help, and hopefully I'll have the next part written in short order (no later than mid-June should I start posting, barring Murphy's Law) Anime Ronin.