THE BLUE BOY
by Lynn K. Hollander
Chapter 1 - Little Boy Blue
SUNNYDALE
"Hey," Dawn said. "Why did you follow me? Now what are we going to do? Where's your mom?"
The boy teared and started to cry softly.
"Oh, don't do that. We'll go ask Giles what to do. Come on." She took the little boy's hand and, matching her steps to his, walked off to the Magic Box.
"Little bit and littler bit," Spike said. "Why's he crying?"
"I think he's lost. He followed me from the playground in the park on the way home from school."
"Did you check there after you found him?"
"I was mostly here, so we came the rest of the way," Dawn said. "I'm going to get him a tissue."
"And a face flannel. Hey, kid, what's your name?" Spike lifted the boy and sat him on the counter
The boy looked at Spike, but was silent.
"Maybe your name is on a tag somewhere," Spike suggested, looking inside the boy's collar. The boy's clothes were somehow wrong, beyond looking as if he had slept in them. It took Spike some time to work out what was disturbing about them, but eventually he realized what was bothering him--no knits, no zippers and no underwear. The boy's wide-collared shirt buttoned down the back. It had long sleeves, with buttoned cuffs. The pants buttoned up over both hip-bones and had no pockets. His shoes were pull-on boots of waxed leather, with an unusual sole that came high on the upper, worn over strange felt socks. He wore no jewelry and had no visible tattoos or scars.
"And nothing in your pockets, obviously," Spike said. "I guess you get to pick a name, then. What do you want to be called?"
"What's this?" Giles asked.
The boy shrank away from him and buried his face in Spike's chest.
"It's a boy. Remember? You were one, I was one."
"Why is it here?"
"He followed Dawn home. I think she wants to keep him. Stop scaring him. Ugh," he added, looking down at his shirt.
"Let me," Dawn said, returning, and applied first a tissue, then a damp wash cloth, to the boy's face. Cleaned up, the boy had long, tousled hair that was pale as electrum and still baby fine. His eyes were a blue so dark as to be startling in his pale face. "Better," Dawn judged, lifting the boy off the counter and standing him on the floor. She held his hand again.
Spike took the wash cloth, located a clean area and mopped his shirt.
"Dawn," Giles started.
"I know what you're going to say," Dawn said. "You're going to say I have to avoid the attention of the police and the child protection authorities, because of my precarious legal position. The authorities may ignore the will you all forged for Mom, and take me away from you, but, Giles, he's lost now. He can't wait until I'm eighteen."
"Well, that is, in fact, much of what I was going to say, Dawn," Giles said, wiping his glasses and putting them back on. "However, I was going to add: His parents will be worried about him."
"Oh, yeah. Well, we'll just have to find them."
"Young man, what is your father's name?" Giles addressed the boy.
"Rupert," Spike said. "Stop acting like a headmaster. He's too young to be sent to Eton, I mean he's what? Five?"
"Maybe. A kindergartner, do you think?" Dawn said. "Spike, you watch him while I go get an ice cream cone for him." She picked the boy up and handed him to Spike.
"Hey," Spike objected.
"Ice cream cones are traditional," Dawn said, and ran out the door.
"Then get me one, too," Spike called after her.
"We do need to discover his name and his parents," Giles said.
"He didn't come labeled," Spike said. "Maybe he'll feel like talking after the ice cream."
A customer approached Giles. Spike took the boy to the table in the lower level and sat him on a bench. Looking at the result--the boy's eyes peering over the edge of the table--he frowned. He selected Albrecht Brechenmacher's 1597 edition of Encyclopedie des Dämonen und Unserer Gheists, a good thick read, and moved the boy on to it. "Better?" he asked the boy.
The boy nodded.
"Do you like ice cream?"
No reaction.
Spike decided not to press his luck any further and sat down across the table and picked up his Sunnydale Evening Gazette.
***
Spike's Viper was parked just beyond the Magic Box. Dawn sighed with relief. She had been afraid she'd have to wait around, but Ann Grove had arrived by the time Dawn was returning from the ice cream shop.
Ann got out of the car as Dawn approached. Dawn had never had the problems of envy for Ann's clothes that Buffy had occasionally expressed, but even she had to admit Ann always looked good.
Today, Ann wore very dark purple raw silk, jean-cut pants with a silk broadcloth man-tailored shirt in lavender. Her hair had been braided and wound around her head. She wore black short boots and a black belt. She never carried a purse and although she made and gave away jewelry to lovers and friends, she never wore any but the single platinum earring she wore today. "Hi, Dawn. I haven't forgotten about your school clothes, but I thought we could do that next week, maybe in San Francisco."
"And the open house? Did you forget about that? You know that's important!"
"No, I haven't. It's this week, and we're going. So what's the current problem?" Ann asked.
***
"I called Ann."
"Ann, you must convince her that we should call the police," Giles said, ignoring a new customer at the counter.
"Giles, foster homes are horrible," Dawn said. She handed the boy a vanilla cone. The boy looked at it, but did not take it. "It's ice cream," she said.
"No," Ann said. "Many of them are wonderful. The foster care system itself, on the other hand, can be confusing." She walked over to the table and looked down at the boy. "Oh," she said. "In any case, the foster care system for this one is out of the question."
"What do you mean?" Giles asked. The customer at the counter hit the bell again. Giles left the table and went to him.
The boy floated up off the chair and held his arms out to Ann.
"Oh," Spike said.
"Let's go to the back room," Ann said, slipping her arms around the boy.
Ann sat down on the ugly brown leather sofa. "Hi," she said.
The boy looked at her.
"All right," she said. "Given your looks, let's try this: Guten tag."
No response from the boy.
"That was a long shot," Ann said calmly. "Let's try an even longer one." She continued speaking, but Spike couldn't understand a word.
The boy could: He smiled and spoke. He and Ann spoke together for a few minutes. Eventually, Ann looked up. "He's lost; he speaks a very formal Alvish, with some strange loan words; and he's hungry."
"Alvish?" Spike asked.
"As good as Berengar's, allowing for his age."
"He doesn't look like Berengar," Dawn objected.
"And you don't look like me and I don't look like Olivia and Spike doesn't look like himself--"
"Hey, I put a lot of thought into this look," the vampire protested.
"-- and we all speak English. There's something else about him." She switched back to Alvish.
The boy began to fight Ann's embrace.
"Ann," Dawn said, "You're scaring him."
Ann spoke again, her voice firm but not raised or strident.
The boy started to cry.
"Dawn, step back," Ann said in English.
"No, Ann, he's just scared."
"Spike," Ann said. The vampire wrapped an arm around Dawn's waist and pulled her back.
Ann spoke one word, very softly. A clear chime sounded in Buffy's old training room and the boy's clothes vanished. He turned blue all over and his proportions changed, his head staying about the same size while his torso and limbs shrank slightly.
"Well," Spike said. "That's interesting as hell."
"That's better," Ann said, smiling down at the child. "Lying to me, to us, is not a good idea, and I'm not going to let you do it again." Ann caressed the child's head, ruffling the dark blue down. "Don't worry about it, just tell us the truth."
"He's a baby," Dawn said.
"A toddler, you could say," Ann said. "Walking, definitely, he's got leg muscles and his feet are a little toughened--but still ticklish, aren't they--possibly he's at the start of the active babbling stage, which would be just about perfect."
"Mammal?" Spike asked. "He's got a navel, but then so does Gang Long when he's a boy."
"Mammal enough," Ann said.
"He's not an Arlack Armel, is he?"
"No, he's a different sort. I'm not sure he's a demon at all, but then I'm not sure of what the Sunnydale definition of demon is this week," Ann said.
"He needs a bottle," Dawn said, as the baby's small fist hit Ann's breast. She put the vanilla cone back in the cardboard carrier.
"Right, this should work," Ann said, mostly to herself. "I'll give him a language lesson and feed him. Dawn, what do you have in your backpack?"
"Well, you know, stuff," the girl said shortly. "Private stuff."
"We need a piece of good prose. He needs an adequate grounding in English." Ann unbuttoned her shirt.
Dawn pulled some books out of her backpack, while carefully keeping anything else hidden. Spike looked over Dawn's shoulder. "Pride and Prejudice."
"That's make-up reading for social studies," Dawn said. "Not English."
"It's a classic, no matter why you're reading it," Spike said. "Will that do?" he asked Ann. "I think Giles has some Dickens in the office." His voice trailed off as Ann unfastened her charmeuse and lace bra.
"Perfectly," Ann said. "Dawn, read aloud, if you please. Start anywhere. If you're going to stare at my breasts, Spike, get out of here."
Dawn handed Spike the ice cream cones and took up the book.
"Sorry. No, I'm not exactly sorry." Spike said with great dignity, holding the melting ice cream carefully. "Except for being a vampire, I'm a normal male. That bust is worthy of notice. However, this is beginning to look all witchy and weirdly maternal, so I'll leave you to it." Having had the last word, Spike turned to go, ignoring Ann's soft laugh.
As Spike hurried out, Ann ran a thumb down her breast and arranged the boy against her. Dawn started reading. Spike risked a glance back as he neared the door: Ann, Dawn and the boy were surrounded by a soft violet glow.
Back in the shop, Giles was finished with the impatient customer. "What's going on with the boy?"
"Lunch," Spike said. "And an English lesson."
"I know Dawn wants a real family, whatever that may be in her mind, but we cannot go about plucking children off the streets."
"You're going to have to take that up with Ann and Dawn," Spike said cravenly.
"I will," Giles said, heading for the back room. He walked in, and about 5 seconds later, walked back out.
"I should have known it wasn't as simple as it looked," he said.
Spike nodded. "Ice cream?"
"Thanks."
******