A Second Chance

Part Two

His fingers clenched frozenly on the steering wheel, Spike tried to not look around as he entered the city limits of Sunnydale. Not that it mattered, because from what he did see, nothing was the same. Oh, the Bronze was still there, and the high school, but the past ten years had changed the town.

It seemed... happier. The dark cloud that had hovered over the place had dissipated, leaving a sense of quiet and peace in its place. Spike couldn't even feel the Hellmouth.

It was as if it had never existed there.

He still saw the occasional demon, but no more than any other large town or small city. Something had obviously happened to close the mouth of Hell, something that had probably cost Buffy her life, but he had no idea what.

A sliver of guilt ran through him at the thought that with him there, things could have happened differently, but the Slayer had seemed happy with the way things had gone and was much the same as before, just a little more mature. Obviously, Red was still in the souling business.

Willow...

There went that guilt again. The red-headed witch had looked so broken, hollow, the last time he had seen her. Maybe if he had stuck around, they could have helped each other through the agony of Xa-.

He broke off the thought, staring determinedly out the windshield as he passed by their old apartment, not even glancing over. The closer he got to Giles', which is where Angel had told him that the witches lived now, the more his stomach knotted.

As he was nearing the park that was between their place and Giles', he noticed a small shape moving quickly down the old path, followed by a larger, more sinister-looking shadow. Sighing to himself, he pulled into the small parking lot at the edge of the baseball field and climbed out.

Guess with the Hellmouth gone, parents figured it would be a safer place to be and didn't shove it into the brats' heads to not run around after dark.

Loping silently across the field, he cut around behind the child, putting himself between the boy and the man following him. The scent of lust and sickness coming from the man made him curl his lip in disgust.

The scent of the boy, however... it was heady and sweet, intoxicating, and Spike had to shake himself before he just stood there frozen in the middle of the park, barely reining in his demon. Making noise so that the boy knew that there was someone behind him, he jogged up the path towards the kid.

"Hey, kid!" he called out, wracking his brain for a reason to approach the boy without seeming just as much a predator as the man following them. The boy walked faster, head down and hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans.

Reaching into the deep pockets of his bomber jacket, Spike pulled out a small Star-Trek figurine, something he always carried, never having had the chance to give it to Xander like he had planned. Striding up to walk in pace with the small boy, he held it out to him with knots in his stomach, nauseous at the thought of losing it.

"Hey, did ya drop this? I picked it up over there," he told him, waving his hand absently towards the way the boy had come.

Deep chocolate brown eyes flickered up to his as the boy shook his head and Spike felt the punch of them knocking him flat on his ass. Puppy eyes, liquid and consuming, dark eyes that drag you down inside until you don't know which way is up anymore, but really don't care.

Xander's eyes.

It was impossible, of course, and he held his breath, waiting for the overwhelming agony to wash over him, almost knocking him to his knees as it did so. The boy stopped when he hunched over, fists pressing against the hollow space under his ribs where the pain hit hardest.

"Mister? You alright?"

That voice, those eyes... that smell.

He whimpered silently, nodding, just wanting the kid to stop talking and back up, but a small hand came up to touch his shoulder and he glanced down into the boy’s worried face. Xander’s face.

Clenching his eyes closed, Spike backed up and tried to breath. Wasn’t him, wasn’t him. Never was. He couldn’t count how many times this had happened to him over the years…although they were usually a bit older. This was the first time a kid had made him feel the overwhelming déjà vu and vertigo of seeing his boy in someone else.

Taking a few calming breaths, Spike shook his head to clear it and straightened up, not looking over at the boy again. “Yeah, sorry bout that. Got a mite dizzy…Asthma y’know?” He coughed once for effect and saw the boy nod slowly, warily, at him from the corner of his eye.

He wondered if the boy was old enough to think he was on drugs or just figured he was insane, because he sure wasn’t buying it. Smart kid.

Without looking over at him again, the boy started walking towards the street, and Spike paused to glance behind them. The man that had been following the boy was nowhere in sight but Spike had his scent. He would find him later, he wanted to make sure the boy got home safely.

Before he could turn around and follow the boy, however, he heard a car door slam and a familiar, so familiar voice yelling out, “Alexander Rosenberg, you get your butt over here right this minute!”

---

The kitchen was bright and cheery, reminiscent of Joyce’s back in the happy times. It looked like a real family’s kitchen, unlike the clean and sterile place it had been when it had been just Giles living there.

His mind determinedly blocking out all thoughts of the small boy getting lectured by his mother…Red as a mother?…Spike continued to glance around the small kitchen and avoid the overly bright and anxious eyes of Tara and Giles and the curious gaze of Ethan Rayne. He had been mildly shocked, only mildly because he was already in so great a state of shock that if the world ended he wouldn’t have blinked, to see the warlock there when he entered the house.

Obviously, he had only recently worn Giles down, from the hesitant but loving glances between the two older men.

No one was offering up any explanations for why Willow’s son looked so much like Xander that he could be his twin and since he was afraid of the answer, he didn’t ask. They sat silent in the small room, as Willow continued to berate the boy for not coming home before dark. Eventually, she grounded him for a week and told him to start on his homework and she would bring him some dinner after she talked with ‘Uncle William’.

After he had heard Willow’s voice yelling for the boy, Alexander, Spike had slowly turned around, the world giving way underneath him. From the look on Willow’s face and the gasp she made when he took a couple of steps towards her, she was feeling the same.

Before he could even open his mouth to say anything, she was in his arms, and he was breathing in the old familiar scent of strawberries and incense. There were some tears, an admonishing smack on his chest as she shrieked out that everyone thought he was dead and some laughter, before they both remembered the dark-haired boy watching them with calm but confused eyes.

Willow had paled, before flushing darkly, swaying on her feet, and Spike had held her up gently. In a soft shaky voice, she had introduced the boy as her son and introduced him as “William”, which was a bit confusing since she had never used the name before. Before he could ask anything about the boy, who still made his stomach knot and the world careen whenever he looked at him, not to mention the name, she had rushed them all into the car and they drove in silence to Giles’.

With a sigh and an exasperated roll of her green eyes, she walked into the kitchen, Alex’s grumbling complaints over being grounded following her till she closed the door for privacy. As she made her way to the table to sit next to Tara and across from Spike, he studied her.

Motherhood had been good to Willow. A bit taller than she had been as a girl, much more filled out, her hair was lightly braided and quite a bit longer than it had been. Still the beautiful red it had always been, though.

Tara looked much the same as she always had, sweetly rounded and calmly serene. The older ex-watcher and warlock looked good for their years, too, trim and distinguished.

The silence stretched out awkwardly as Willow opened her mouth several times, trying to figure out what to say. When Spike could take it no longer, he looked the witch in the eyes and said softly, achingly, “Just tell me it’s real, what ‘m thinkin’. Tell me Xa-Xander didn’t decide to knock you up so that you two could have a baby in your lesbian love nest and just forgot to tell me. Tell me it isn’t just a coincidence that he looks so much like him. It’s impossible, but fuck…tell me it’s him. I don’t care how or why, just please…”

Biting her trembling lips, the girl…no, woman now… nodded slowly, her eyes slowly filling with tears, a look in her eyes begging him, but for what he didn’t know.

Having his greatest hope, his most secret and unattainable desire confirmed made the world freeze in place. The room spun and everyone in it blurred, but every sound came across crystal clear, including the buzzing and humming in his ears. Panting for unneeded breaths, he closed his eyes and tried to fit his mind around the whole impossible, huge situation.

Xander was alive. In an odd sort of way, but alive nonetheless. Clenching his teeth to blink back the hot, scalding tears pricking his eyes, he glanced back up at Willow to find her watching him with a worried and guilty look on her face.

A small delicate hand reached for his and she said softly, “He doesn’t remember anything, Spike. Any of it. His parents, me, you.” A tear trickled down her face and he wiped it away gently, his heart breaking at the truth of her words, a truth he hadn’t considered but should have, since he had seen no recognition in those dark eyes earlier.

“You did what you could, luv,” he rasped out past his tight throat. “Or at least ‘m assuming it was a spell, yeah?”

She nodded, glancing down at the table guiltily, and he tipped her chin back up. “You did what you could, which was much more than any of the rest of us could. He’s alive, Red,” he whispered, awe and tenderness in his voice.

Another tear fell and she choked out, “But it’s not him, Spike. It’s Alex, my son. It isn’t Xander in that room. We keep trying to not jar his memory because we just don’t know how it will affect him. I don’t know if he will ever remember and I don’t know if I can even handle it now if it does happen. I want Xander back but… He’s my baby, Spike! I can’t lose him, either. A-and he’s too young right now to remember what he was to you.”

His eyes closed at the pain and guilt in her voice and a silent, hot tear slid down his cheek. “’M not gonna hurt him, make him remember… or take him away, Willow. He’ll always be your baby. But he’s mine, too, and I can’t just stop feelin’ that, damn it. But I’m not a pedophile, for fuck’s sake. He’s only nine years old.”

Nine. His boy was a baby, not even a decade old. With no memories of him, them.

It hit suddenly, the overwhelming grief of it all. Xander was alive but it wasn’t Xander. And he didn’t know him.

He tried to stand up, to get away, but the tears kept flowing and the sobs starting wracking his body. Not fuckin’ fair. None of it. There was a low murmur of concerned voices, and then there was only Tara, wrapping her gentle arms around him and easing them both to the floor. Soft soothing words were whispered in his ear as she let him cry it all out, the injustice of his world, everything he had been through the past ten years while his boy was alive and well, walking around, growing up. Unknowing.

After the sobs subsided, they sat quietly in the now silent and empty kitchen, drawing comfort from each other over the awful loss of the boy they had all loved. Eventually, Tara started talking, in hushed short phrases, telling him a little of what had went on ten years ago.

“Willow, s-she took his soul into her body from the place where it was waiting. She did it only hours after he died, any later and she would have pulled him from Heaven and she couldn’t do that to him. She told me that night, but we didn’t tell anyone else till it was confirmed. You were gone weeks by then, we tried to find you but you moved too often and we eventually gave up. Knew you’d make it back here eventually. I think she thought it would…be Xander, you know? She wasn’t expecting to be a mother, neither was I. But goddess, we love him. In a w-way that only a parent can understand. There’s still the love we have for Xander but it’s all mixed in with this other love and it’s so confusing some times.”

She touched Spike’s face gently, wiping away some of the tears. “He is very loved, Spike. Wants for nothing. Willow does a great job raising him because she remembers how his other parents treated him and tries so hard to make up for it. She’s s-scared, Spike. She is so scared she is going to lose him and she feels awful about not wanting him to remember, to go from her child back to her best friend. It wasn’t anything we were expecting. I think seeing you here made her realize how unfair it is to not want him back, to remember who he was.”

He nodded bleakly, heart dying just a little more. It was all just…impossible.

But impossible or not, he couldn’t leave. Couldn’t abandon the boy or the others, now that he had them all around him again. Couldn’t go be that lonely dead inside person he had been for over a decade.

So he moved back into his and Xander’s old apartment, aching at the memories and hiding away every memento around that would make it more difficult for him, anything that would trigger a memory on Alex when he was too young to deal with everything that had happened.

Dawn and Oz, and what a sickeningly adorable couple they made, came over often and Spike found a great comfort in the young man’s calm. Dawn mothered him relentlessly and he found he liked the strength that being a werewolf gave the almost-fragile girl he remembered. They, along with visits to Angel and Buffy’s, got him through some very rough times in the beginning, helping him to realize that Alex idolized him and he couldn’t rebuff the child because of the deep pain it caused him to be around the kid.

He got to know the boy, helping him with homework, playing video games with him, teaching him poker. Just talking. Getting to know Alex. Growing more and more fond of the boy who housed the soul of his claimed.

The boy was growing up into a more self contained, strong and confident boy than Xander had been at his age. Most of it was his upbringing, but every now and then, they would see the wisdom beyond his years in those dark eyes, and they could only wait with bated breath to see what would happen.

If Willow ached a little every time she saw a glimpse of Xander in his chocolate eyes, if Spike died a little every time the voice of his lover-turned-child called him ‘Uncle William’, they both hid it well.

And if Spike ever screamed and raged against the fates that had dropped him and shattered him into a million pieces only to put him back together and do it all over again, he did it in the dark confines of the house that used to be filled with laughter and love, but now was filled only with pain and loneliness. And a fierce longing for what had been.