fandomtownies | The Park, sometime after 1st Period

That'd be a guy on a phone. Listening to voicemails. Still not completely believing where he is and still not having a clue ~~and we could end this sentence there~~ when he is.

Parker put down the Blackberry for a second, rubbed her eyes, and stared at the ducks. "Seriously, what the hell?" she demanded. "Why now?" She noticed the guy on the phone, but absently, thinking he looked kind of familiar....

Wait. Really familiar.

Staring like a startled teal deer at a political convention, here.

Xander distantly heard her voice. Some section of his brain usually reserved for making sure he didn't walk into duckponds might even have devoted a spare second to realizing it was one he'd heard not only before, but seconds ago.

It was a really small part of his brain, though, and it was mostly concentrating on keeping him out of the pond, because pretty much everything else that wasn't an autonomic nervous function was focused on the voice that had just started playing in his ear.

"Xander?"

Parker stood up from the Park bench, clutching her Blackberry in her hand, and took a few hesitant steps closer, hoping he'd look up. "Xander?"

It was him. But-- not-him. Older. With an eye-patch. Not their Xander. Torn between wanting to laugh and cry, Parker took a step backward, swallowing. "Sorry, I thought I knew you."

He was... spun didn't even begin to describe it anymore, with the phone pressed to his ear for so long it was starting to feel welded there, and new words coming in from a voice he hadn't heard say new words in ...pushing seven years now. And yet it was a calm kind of way-beyond-spun, calm enough to even make him smile a little as he wondered how long ago they'd been spoken.

When it ended, he pressed the stop-key, overloaded and needing silence for a while. Which finally allowed him to hear his own name, and look up.

No, that was a teal deer look. Teal deer during that scene in the unabridged Princess Bride that starts with 'Mawwwwwwwwwidge.....'

Wait. Wait. Wait. The Xander in front of her finally looked up and saw her, and he knew her. Screw the eyepatch and the age and where the hell did he get that jacket, this was not a Xander, it was the One and Only Xander that counted.

Parker started to grin, hands going up to cover her smile for a second, then flung out in glee, welcome, sheer surprise. "You're back!"

Yeah, he'd still be stuck on this:

:-O

And the stunned-bunny-hit-by-a-tractor-trailer feeling probably wasn't helped by Parker pouncing on him, for once in her life initiating a hug, chanting, "You're back you're back welcome back, oh my god where have you been how did you get here you're back you're back damnit I missed you...."

Hug, he processed. See above re: autonomic functions. It took him a few more seconds and some consumption of his currently-limited oxygen supply before he made it to, "Parker?"

As in his Parker, which it was safe enough to say in his head without getting footwear thrown at him. Not the older, colder reflection he'd met once and exchanged a handful of phone calls with. Not even as old as she should be, like he'd pictured her in his head, growing up the same way he had.

This was the same Parker he'd said goodbye to the night before he went home.

Parker pulled back a little, still laughing and bouncing on her heels. "Is this why I got all your e-mails this morning? And oh my god!" She whapped him on the shoulder. "What were you thinking, letting that Faith person out of jail! She tried to kill you! Are you here to stay? How long? Why didn't you call when you knew you were coming?"

And she had to stop to get her breath, smiling like a maniac, because for once, the stupid Island had done something exactly right, and brought back someone she'd missed, instead of a reflection of someone who couldn't return, or a version who'd never met her or anyone else she knew.

Oh, wow. Bridge.... was going to flip.

"You got all my e-mails?" Give him a break; at least he managed to focus on one sentence.

"Just before First Period. I didn't have time to read them all 'til just now, I skipped ahead," Parker was still patting his arm, proving that he was real and here and not dead, because after that last e-mail, there was nothing....

She shook her head, studying him. The eye was the worst of it, but he'd filled out, gotten a shade taller, maybe? Or maybe he was just holding himself straighter. This was weirder and more familiar than Alanna having a daughter, Anakin having a son. The semi-smacked look on his face testified that at least he hadn't seen this coming either. "You didn't know? You didn't expect it?"

"Parker, I still don't even believe I'm here." Saying her name made it a little more real each time, though.

"You disappeared on us," Parker accused him. Not fair, but there it was. "I got one call through the day you left, and then nothing, just your voicemail, over and over for months, and-- you didn't get any of them, did you." She sighed. Then frowned. "Uh. Did you?"

"Not til just now." If the e-mail he'd sent over the years came through... now, today, all at once... There was probably a nice full box of Where The Hell Are You waiting for him, Xander realized. Though... not nearly as much. "When I got to the island."

"When did you get here?" Parker finally sat down on the park bench again, pulling him with her, adrenaline wearing off finally. "Can you stay? Why are you here, if you didn't even expect to be?"

"An hour or so ago." Again with the managing to focus on one thing and really at this point deserving a gold star sticker for that. "I got sent to check out a new Slayer - didn't know she was here. Don't think anybody did."

The other question... his brain kept sliding off it, like he might have to approach it in the middle of the night dressed as a ninja, climb a tree and jump on it before he managed to pin it down and look it in the face.

Parker paused, thinking of the new kids, and nodding. "I can see that, there's a lot of new kids, they just got here a week or two ago. Any of those girls could be a Slayer. I might have even heard about her, but the name's not sticking with me." She looked rueful. "It's been a long month."

Parker took a breath. "So. Six years for you, right? You're twenty-five now? And I just turned eighteen. Damn, Xander. Totally not fair. Will you buy me beer when we're off the Island?" And don't think about that gap that existed for him, but not for everyone else; a gap with a crater where Sunnydale used to be, and other friends, and raising Buffy Summers from the dead, and his lost eye.

"Going on seven. I turned twenty-six at the end of November." And maybe it was actually saying it, pinning down how long he'd been away, that kicked him into finally believing, for really really real. Let him slide on over into contemplating okay, how the hell do I feel about that?

"I'll buy you any goddamn thing you want, Parker," he said leaning over and pulling her into a hug that was more threatening to her oxygen-supply than his, this time. "Might have to front me the money for a couple years if it's the Hope Diamond, though," he murmured into her hair.

Huh. So much for contemplation.

Parker hugged back, not giving a damn who saw her or what they thought, just glad to be able to do this. She chuckled, trying to get a breath. "Ohhh, I'll settle for knowing where you are, damnit. And knowing you're okay." She shook her head against his shoulder. "No one's going to believe me, we thought it would be forever, or a long time, or... God. Best late Christmas present ever." She slid her arms down his, and pulled back. "So. The answers to the usual questions asked when you get here: 2007. Fandom Island, Virginia. And you're no crazier than you were yesterday."

"Well, that's not saying much."

Parker chortled, and then hugged Xander again, fast, letting him go to make a sign for victory. "It's enough. Oh, people are going to be thrilled when I tell them--" And her voice slowed down as she remembered. "Oh. Oh. Xander, I know it's been a while for you, but-- it's been four months here, so, a few things changed."

"Mime invasion?"

Parker gave him a look, then smirked. "Trolls. Troll girls. You so would have been kidnapped. Not that, though. It's, um." She took a breath and just blurted it out. "Bridge and Rory are dating now."

and then next thing I know I was kissing her *back*, and, and... "I told you people trolls were my schtick! Doubleyew tee eff, Parker?"

Xander shook his head, then lifted his phone. "I know. Bridge told me." Ten whole minutes ago, and when he heard it and smiled, he'd been thinking it was as long ago for them as it would have been for him.

"Oh. Ohhh." Parker studied his face, relieved and not, glad and not, the same mix of feelings that Bridge and Rory's romance always inspired in her. "Good, then. I mean, he shouldn't have to tell you, and she shouldn't, so... yes. That's better." She sighed. Then stared at the phone. And facepalmed. "Can you erase the ones I left?"

"Oh, you wish." Not that he'd got past Parents' Weekend yet, but she totally didn't need to know that. Because he really didn't need to be diving into the duckpond trying to find his phone while wondering if the giant squid was still in there or not.

"Well, crap." Parker almost flailed externally as well as internally. "Fine. Fine. Just remember, I was... very tired. Or possibly drunk. I could have been lying, when I left a lot of those messages. Yes. Definitely. I'm known for that." She grinned at him. She couldn't help it. "God I missed you."

"I'll keep that in mind when I turn 'em in to the FBI." Xander nodded. "I--"

Saw you. And that was a conversation he'd promised himself he'd have with her someday, because it wasn't the kind of thing that was fair to tell somebody from the other side of a computer screen. But... not now.

"--missed all of you guys," he finished instead. He added a snort. "Even Faithful, but if you breathe a word of that to him I really will turn your voicemails in to the Feds."

Parker's eyes widened in amusement and pretended fear, and she gave him another spontaneous semi-hug. "We are sitting down this weekend, if not sooner, and you are telling me everything that's happened to you, and where you've been, and--" Maybe I'll explain those voicemails to you. Or not. "--catching up." She caught a glance at her watch, then groaned in disgust. "But not now. Now, I have to get lunch and get back to school, so I can be sick again later in Dead People Class." She got to her feet. "Don't you dare disappear like that again."

"Don't suppose it would help to point out that I didn't do it on purpose last time..."

"Never." Parker grinned in direct contradiction of her words, though. "You're going to be hearing about this for a while, Xander. Get used to it." She squeezed his hand. "Okay, I'm calling you soon. It's not like I don't have the number memorized."

~~LITTLE DID SHE KNOW HOW RIGHT SHE WAS~~

And now he really had to listen to the rest of those messages. ....slowly, so he could actually try to comprehend them before the OMGWTFnoreallyit'sreal washed over him again.

"I'll be here. I've got a room at the hotel, not that I've actually been up to it yet."

"Go. Do that check-in thing. I'll tell people I saw you." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and backed away, pointing at him. "We're talking about those e-mails, Captain Courageous. Don't think we're not!"

And as he watched her go, he found himself in need of a lot more caffeine than he'd already consumed today. Or possibly sleep, but the other choice involved sugar and chocolate, and was closer.

River had headed down to the park to talk to the ducks. She was wearing her new hairpin, and couldn't resist making odd movements with her head to make the beads attached to the pin spin around her head. It probably looked a little odd.

Not only was she going to talk to the ducks. She also intended to play the fiddle for them. Hopefully they'd be more appreciating than Berthold.

The Park, sometime after 1st Period

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