Sorry About That

"Beep-beep; Mr.Harris, we have a problem," the intercom announced in the Director of Aquisitions Office on the fifteenth floor of the Strategic Defense Worldwide Corporate Headquarters Building. The Director, Xander Harris would often sit at his chrome and glass desk looking out over one of the more fashionable areas of Seattle.

"Beep-beep; Mr. Harris.." More often than not, Xander would be working hard, or at least pretending to, because even after a few years he still wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to be doing here at SDW. Of course, he wasn't looking out over the city or even wondering at his own usefulness because...

"Beep-beep; XANDER!" He startled awake nearly falling out of his Monarch1000 Executive Series Chair. Fumbling for the intercom controls he naturally knocked over his long forgotten half full can of Diet Pepsi.

"Yea...yes, Kevin, what's going on?" Xander responded as he desperately tried to use his shoe to mop up the spill as it set into the gray carpet until finally giving up and pulling his waste basket over to cover the spot.

"We'll first, I worked thirty seven hours last week and Payroll only has me down for thirty five. The server is down again and that I.T. guy with the cute face but bad hygiene says that we're on his list but not at the top, his quote. Oh, and Courtney down at Load-Out would like you to stop down there when you wake up..when..When you're not busy, Sir."

"Okay, I'll call Payroll, I'll call Cute but Smelly, and I'll go see Courtney. Hey, Kevin, did Dawn call while I was...working?"

"Uhm, no sir, I haven't talked to Mrs.Harris since she left for Miami yesterday."

Severing the intercom connection, Xander wrote himself a sticky-note to make those calls. After standing and pulling on his coat, he paused, taking out his I-phone with a picture of his beautiful young vibrant wife's jean-clad rear end as the main screen background and checked to see if he had missed any calls. Shaking his neatly coiffed head, he touched a few buttons to make a call.

"Willow Rosenberg, How may I help you?"

"Hey, Wils.."

"XAN!...Congratulations, she told me last night. Oh, I'm so happy!" Holding the phone away from his face for a second to clear his mind and reset the calibration on his artificial eye, he grimaced..

"Willow, I don't know what you're talking about," he said flatly causing her mood to quickly diminish.

"UHMummmm...OH this is XANDER, I'm sorry I thought it was Andrew, it's his birthday you know," she replied quickly.

"It is? ....Okay. Look, Wils, I think something's going on here."

"Really, what do you think is happening?"

He couldn't help but hear how nervous she was.
"I set a Ringtone bomb on her phone and she hasn't called me bitching about it yet. She had to have heard it by now. I think maybe she has some nefarious revenge plot in the works AND I think you're in on it, Willow Rosenberg. How about that?"

"Xander, I don't know anything about that, NOT that I know anything about anything else either, nothing, I KNOW NOTHING," she rambled out affecting her Schultz accent at the end.

"Will, I had raccoon face for three weeks last time she did something like this, THREE WEEKS ,Willow. I had to go to meetings and explain to clients why I looked like Rocket!"

"I already apologized for helping her with that and to quickly change the subject; My honey-bunny brought a Gambou tribal mask back from Belize with her and we're going to give it to Willie at his birthday party," she said sounding proud and happy at the same time.

"William is turning two, I doubt that he is going to understand a wooden mask...and really? A wooden mask? Haven't we, of all people had enough experience with magical wooden masks?"

"Xander, you know I would never expose my perfect little godson to anything I wasn't a million percent sure of, she answered. "There are only three of these masks in known creation, it's priceless and Kennedy says when you put it on you can hear monkey and elephant sounds. And by the way, Willie is a genius. He'll figure out how to direct the mask's charm in no time, mark my words." She was obviously proud of the phenom that was known as William the Terrible by any and all of his babysitters.

Xander looked at the gold framed photos of his amazing son being held by Buffy, Giles, Willow, and by far his favorite picture, the one of Dawn, hair still coated in sweat on the hospital bed staring entranced at his newborn little man. Even if he was named after Spike, that photo could still bring him to tears if he let it.

"Okay, Willow, there's something you're not telling me but I won't push. I'm sure William will be thrilled with a scary wooden face and I know for a fact that Dawn is up to no good.. You do know what paybacks are right?"

"Xan, I would NEVER call Faith that. Byebye" The phone went dead.

Rolling his eyes and putting his phone away, he walked out of his much too important looking office past Kevin, the farthest away from a big boobed blond secretary that Dawn could find to hire for him; although if she knew Kevin was into guys, she definitely wouldn't have hired him either, possessive to the point of frightening homicidal threats his Dawnie was.

Making his way through the Executive Office Level towards the elevator to go down to Mission Load-Out in the basement, he nodded at Riley Finn who was standing in the hall talking to some of the suits from the Board of Directors. As he waited for the elevator doors to open the P.A. system screamed to life with Kevin's frantic voice.

"Mr.Harris! Mr.Giles needs to see you immediately, It's something about your wife sir!" Long before Kevin's message ended, Xander was running like the Hounds of Hell were on his heels, scared to death and any thoughts of practical jokes or birthday party presents washed from his mind.