LATE JULY, 2002

Buffy tried like hell to gentle her questions to Giles. It was a challenge. This one revelation did not change everything. In many respects, it merely solidified an already-existing set of circumstances. Yet it was what it was, the unknown once again finding its way into the heart of their lives, mixed and shaken well with the utterly mundane and petty.

"How could they steal Xander? How could Mom and Dad let them?"

Rupert hadn't wanted to break this particular confidence, ever. But the Harrises sudden passing reminded him anew how quickly people can be made to vanish from their lives. He held back still from telling everything. In particular, he vowed to wait some years before telling Xander of how agonizing it was to watch him shaking off a legacy of hate when a legacy of pure love could easily have been his, merely by walking a few blocks. How much of the boy's potential had been utterly squandered by those wastrels?

"The Harrises were moral microbes. Your parents, I have to imagine, didn't know their son was to be stolen."   Buffy knew all that before she'd even asked, of course. But every journey started somewhere.

"Do we know how it happened?"

Giles nodded.

"The--Horaces--were from the same town as The Summers. Joyce was ebullient that she was to give birth to twins, and had told everyone she could. Her late friend Patricia had a feud going with Mrs. Harris. She chose to use Joyce's good news to rub in the Harris couple's barrenness. Mind you, I learned that from the woman herself. Joyce never knew, else that friendship would have needed a zombie spell of its own to exist."   Never Buffy's favorite among her Mom's friends, Buffy found Pat's role in this unsurprising.

"The drinking made them sterile?"

"It can have that effect. But in their case, it was all indirect. To make a long sad story short, in one way or another, their constant inebriation utterly ruined their chances of conceiving."

Buffy rubbed her head.

"I used--I used to reach out for someone, I didn't know who, when I was little. Dawn filled in a lot of that. But sometimes, I catch glimpses of my unspliced memories--and I feel so lonely, til Mom or Dad would pick me up. I can't see the Harrises being quite that way towards Xander."   Giles shook his head.

"They did try. For about three years after fleeing here, they kept themselves well enough, and Xander, according to my sources, was a happy little boy. But eventually, the doll they'd stolen had questions, and needed more than those selfish children were willing to give it. You'd think they'd have taken God's message that they were unfit to conceive, let alone rear a child."

"The theft itself?"

Giles looked down, then up.

"You know that you were delivered by my older second cousin, Giles French."

"The one that named me after the little girl who OD'd?"

Rupert felt this one in his gut.

"At the snow lodge where the two couples vacationed, he kept watch over the newborns while your weary parents rested. One cried and needed to be held. He asked the waiting Mrs. Harris to hold the other. When he turned back, the boy was gone. The Horaces had paid their bills in advance, for once, and were not stopped. They got out ahead of a blizzard. It was all the lead time they needed."

Buffy now wanted to dig up two bodies.   "Xander had a childhood with those two because I needed cuddling!?"

Giles grabbed and held her.

"This is why Joyce admonished me to keep this a secret, at least til all three Sunnydale residing parents had passed. I had almost planned to take it to my own grave. But recent events had me fearful, not merely for our lives, but for the two of you--wellll---"

Buffy finally managed to smile.

"Giles, he had me under a heavy love spell, his hormones at an all-teen high, and wearing nothing but a leather jacket. If it didn't happen then, then someone must have been watching out for us."

He looked at a portrait of Joyce.

"Don't either of you hate her. She was in hell, keeping it all in. The Harrises would call her weekly, making their threats if she should speak. She had wanted to make him a special birthday dinner when he was eighteen. But-heh-Joyce became afraid that he would think she was making a pass at him."

Buffy still felt confused.   "I don't hate her. God, it makes her overprotective mode make so much sense. Wait--does this have anything to do with Dad staying away?"

"Your father apparently said that he had three children, not two, and that living a lie was not in him. He passed the Harris house one day, and saw Xander weeping with a black eye. It was more than he could bear."

For the first time in years, Buffy sympathized with the absent Hank.   "So what about all the hormonal stuff? Him for me, Dawn for him---maybe me having a stray thought?"   Giles grinned.

"Buffy, none of you were aware, and the teen is a creature made wholecloth out of stray thoughts. Add in the call of connection all of you have felt, and you have--feelings."

She braced herself.

"Anything else? Is he the world's first boy slayer?"

"No. Don't be absurd. His role in your life is well defined. He's your Carpenter."

Buffy shrugged.

"His destiny is to replace the shingles on my roof?"

Giles sat her down, and then sat near her. This one was big.

"Buffy--why are you alive?"

"Willow's magic."

He almost gulped.

"Let me rephrase. Who is the one person who has been at your side, every time you have entered the land of the living?"

Buffy shrugged again, narrowed her gaze--then felt her eyes go wide, and her throat go dry.

"He's...my Carpenter."

She lay down in her bed, and Giles covered her before making for the door.

"Giles?"

"Yes?"

"Willow?"

He was thrown off, until he realized what she was asking.

"Willow Rosenberg--daughter by blood and by birth of Ira and Sheila Rosenberg."

"Thank God, Giles."

On the other side of the door, Rupert added a whisper.

"Willow Rosenberg--who has yet to be told any of this."   In her room, Dawn repeated a mantra-like phrase.

"I am not a freak. I am not a freak. I am not a freak. I am not a freak....I am soooo a freak!"