How Green Becomes Wood

Alice listened very intently to the story, although she didn't fully understand the point Xander was trying to make with it. She watched Xander the whole time, occasionally eating a tater tot as he spoke. As the very end of the story, she said, "I don't really think I'm good at being tricky. Or clever. I guess I just try to stay out of people's way all the time... but I'm not good at that either." She looked up at him and smiled a little bit, "but I'm only ten, and I've got time to get better at it. Are your foster parents going to be confused about where you are?"
 
Xander shrugged sheepishly, having lost the thread himself, but tried to rally. "I just mean dragons aren't always beat by a knight in freakishly shiny armor and stuff, but sometimes it's a weirdo doing weird stuff that wins the day. Staying out of people's way... yeah, I've tried that. It doesn't work so well in the long run, but a kid like you, you'll figure out how to be an awesome trickster in no time. Or who knows? Maybe you'll be a knight in armor. Nothing saying you can't be. If you want." He glanced at the clock. "They might be starting to worry a bit, but they'll understand if I say I got to talking. You ready to go back? We can walk together."
 
"Are you a weirdo doing weird stuff?" Alice asked earnestly, finishing her food. Following Xander's gaze to the clock she said, "Yeah, I guess we should. I don't think my dad would notice if I were gone a really long time, but I don't want your foster parents to worry. Hey--Does their baby have a better name than Dylan and Jaxson? They're spelling it with an X, you know."
 
Xander snickered as he stood up and started cleaning off the table. "Nah, I'm more like the idiot wearing dented scraps of metal and a pot on his head and calling it a helmet and picking fights with the real knights, but sometimes I get pointed in the right direction to do some good. My brother is the weirdo doing weird stuff and winning, like the tailor, but way nicer." When Alice told him the name, he groaned. "That poor kid. He's going to grow up to be an ass- a jerk just from having to spell his name a bazillion times. How come parents want to be 'cool' by doing weird stuff with names like that? If you want a weird spelling, just give him a Hawaiian name, or one of those super old ones no one uses anymore. Yeah, she's got a better name. It's three letters, spelled right, and the name of one of her mum's favorite green, winding vines."
 
She laughed a bit at Xander's description of himself, "I don't know why they decided that. It was my stepmom's idea... I bet she'll probably decide to spell Dylan's name 'D y l y n n' or--" She stopped herself and looked up at Xander, "It's good she's not around, I don't want to give her that idea. But she never likes my ideas so maybe I should suggest it."

When Xander described Ivy's name in the most roundabout way possible, she frowned and said, "You asked for my last name and won't tell a kid the first name of a baby without making it a puzzle?"
 
Xander snorted. "No, I was telling you how awesome it was in comparison. But, if you don't want to guess, it's Ivy."

In the hospital room, Alec stood near the window, chewing lightly on the knuckle of his finger as he waited. He'd engaged with Cooger for a while, but when the grown-ups started talking amonsgt themselves, he drifted off to a corner. Where was Xander? What was taking so long? Why had he gone like that? They'd agreed to pretend everything was fine at least until everyone was home again, so why did he go and storm off? He just wished he'd hurry up and come back.
 
"Ivy is a really pretty name," she agreed, "I don't know any book characters named Ivy. Well, Poison Ivy, like in Batman. I bet there's other characters with that name, though. I bet if Dylan ever meets her, she'll be really jealous."

Alice paused, scratching her arm, "You know, they're only days apart, so they might end up going to the same school, since they were born in the same hospital."

Inside the room, Dark kept taking quick glances at the door while he and Daizi chatted with Cooger, and he also took some glances at Alec, who was clearly struggling with Xander's distance. After washing his hands, changing Ivy's diaper, and washing his hands again, he said, "I think I am going to go see where Xander got up to." He believed completely the teen was safe and still in the hospital, but he wanted to make sure he was doing okay.

He stepped out, just in time to see Alice and Xander approaching the room, and so he walked up to them, "There you are," he said in his usual fashion, "I had been wondering. Is this the girl you were telling us about?" Alice looked up, and up, and up at Dark and very instinctively took half a step behind Xander, because even though she did not know him well enough to trust him, she certainly trusted him more than this Rasputin-eyed, tattooed giant.
 
Alec turned when Dark said he was going to find Xander and almost offered to go along but stopped himself. They didn't need a whole search party wandering around. Xander was fine. Would be fine. Something like that. He turned to look out the window again.

"Wouldn't that be something if they ended up like lifelong friends?" Xander remarked, amused by the Hallmark-style beginning of the story. He looked up at Dark as the huge man walked toward them. "Oh, hey, Professor. Yeah, this is Alice. Her new baby brother and sister are destined to be best friends with our mini" He waved a hand lightly between them as he made casual introductions. "Alice, this painted fellow is my foster father. He looks like he could fold a guy in half, but he talks to his new mini with the," he pitched his voice as high as it could go, "highest, squeakiest, sappiest voice you'll ever hear." He coughed once. "Man, that's hard."
 
Both Alice and Dark winced slightly at the screech Xander used, although of course, Alice wasn't able to detect Dark's mild change in expression.

"I do not sound like that." Dark replied. Then he crouched down so he wasn't towering over the child quite so much, "Hello, Alice, it is good to meet you. It is nice to know my daughter already has friends in her future."

"Are you a vampire?"
 
"He sounds like Dracula."

"What?" Dark replied, subtly amused, "no, Dracula is from Transylvania. I am from Iraq, it is a very different accent."

"Oh."

"I promise I am not as scary as I look."

"Um. Normally, when people say that, they're actually more scary than they look." Alice said, daring to take a few more steps out from behind Xander to get a better look at Dark, who was still very patiently crouching to seem small.

"That is true," Dark nodded, and did his best to give her a little smile, "and it is good that you know that, because it means you have good instincts. But Xander is right, I am just big and colourful, although I do not think I am as awkward as he believes me to be."
 
"Oh, he's totally as awkward as I think he is, but he wouldn't hurt a fly unless that fly was hurting someone else," Xander told Alice. "He's the biggest pacifist I've ever met. Literally and figuratively."
 
"What's a pacifist?" Alice asked.

"It means I am against violence," Dark replied, putting great effort into making his voice sound lighter, "My name is Mr. Dark."

This, finally, was enough to make her laugh a tiny bit, "What, really?"

"Yes."

"So you don't just look like the bad guy in a book, you have the name of one too?" She was, now, fully out from behind Xander, and looking more suspiciously at Dark, as if his whole appearance were a costume thrown on over a very normal man.

Dark nodded, and glanced at Xander before looking back at Alice, turning over his arm and wiggling his fingers to prove it is all real, "I think most people grow to look like their names. That is why names are so important. Unless you ask Shakespeare."

Again, Alice looked up at Xander, "Do you think the baby is going to be weird like him too?" Right after Xander would have had time to answer, she said, "oh, wait, I promised to bring food back to my dad and stepmom. I should go. Congratulations on having a baby, Mr. Dark."
 
"Most likely. His wife's just as strange as he is, but in a different way," Xander told her lightly. He offered her a fist bump. "Later, Wonderland. Don't do anything I'd approve of."
 
"Really?" She asked, and then looked really quickly at Dark with a newfound wonderment: one strange person was scary. Two strange people were interesting. But she couldn't follow up the curiosity at that moment, so she grinned a bit at Xander's nickname for her, and snail'd his fistbump before scurrying back to her room.

Then, Dark stood back up, "You are good with her."
 
Xander glanced at him, a little surprised by the statement, but only shrugged. "I guess. Oh, I didn't grab you guys food. It seems like there's always food in the room, and I know Alec wouldn't eat it. Did you want something?" He had only gotten something small for himself. For once, he wasn't actually very hungry, but it seemed weird to go to a cafeteria and not buy food. Especially when the kid was eating.
 
"No, I am okay, thank you. Almost everyone who visits brings us food. But we have to make sure Alec still eats." He glanced over his shoulder at the door and then looked back at Xander, "Are you doing okay? You seemed a bit upset when you left earlier."
 
Xander looked away. "Just needed some air. It gets stuffy in that room." He shrugged with a little huff. "I know. I'm not exactly in a position to complain considering, but I was just... everything's getting on my nerves." He didn't want to talk about it, not really. Dark had enough to worry about right now, and Xander just didn't want to add to that stress. Of course, now it seemed that, as usual, his attempts to avoid adding stress was just making things worse.
 
Dark stuck his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulders at the hospital corridor before looking back at Xander and saying, "Nobody expects you not to find this difficult. Or stressful. We are all having a tough time together."
 
"Yeah, I know," Xander said, lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. "But some are having a way worse time of it than others. I'm fine. Fine enough, anyway. Just trying not to stress out others anyway than they already are. Not exactly my strong suit."
 
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