Lost Little Brother

Summary: Mistaken identity as a baby was the cause of all Xander's pain in the Harris family. WARNING: Mentions of child abuse in chapter 1, both physical and verbal in nature.

Timeline: pre-series for BtVS; anytime before season 3 for CSI: Miami.

Challenge: #1718 'Xander: the lost and found' by marshalos.

A/N: For now, it will be more in the CSI fandom than the BtVS. Who knows if that will change or not. The title is a play on the CSI episode when Speed died – which I hope to avoid this time.

Disclaimer: BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. CSI: Miami characters belong to Anthony E. Zuiker, Carol Mendelsohn, Ann Donahue and CBS. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

Prologue: Learning a Secret

It was dumb luck that they ever found out. Then again, luck seemed to follow Xander Harris around like a stray dog. Usually it was bad luck; this time they weren't sure…but it couldn't be worse than the luck he currently had.

14 years earlier…

After all the trouble Rory Harris went through to kidnap a child so he could ransom the baby back to the parents, and he found out he grabbed the wrong one. Maybe he shouldn't have been drunk when he made the snatch. Instead of getting Baby boy Spegiel, heir to the Spegiel fortune, he got Baby boy Speedle, son of an average set of parents with one older child, Timothy.

But it wasn't as if he could give the kid back now, could he? Oh well, plan B. His brother, Tony said he wanted a kid, but didn't want his wife to lose her figure by giving birth. It was about time for him to leave the East Coast anyway. He owed money to too many of the wrong people. Sunnydale sounded like a good place to start over.

"Alright, little guy. I'm gonna be your Uncle Rory from now on. Let's go introduce you to your folks," Rory said to the baby staring up at him. Something in the child's eyes was a little disconcerting to the kidnapper; it was as if he could stare into his soul and see the badness there.

Shaking it off, he grabbed the kid and got into his trusty '57 Chevy Bel Air, more than ready to get out of town.

Present time…

Willow never thought she'd be grateful to Tony Harris for being abusive to her best friend. But if he hadn't broken Xander's wrist, who knows how long it would have taken them to find out he had leukemia? If they could find a donor pretty quickly, Xander would have a darn good chance at survival.

And his chances were even better now that Tony and Jessica Harris were guests of the California penal system. Neither she nor Jesse were surprised to find out about Tony's abuse, or the fact that Jessica inflicted her own – although hers was mostly verbal.

Xander had broken down in tears as he described what his parents did to him. For some reason, it had gotten worse over the past few months. No matter what his best friends and the officials said to him, he couldn't help but feel ashamed and a little responsible – though he couldn't figure out how he could have avoided it.

Dr. Fletcher flipped open his patient's chart, more for something to do rather than an actual need to read anything inside. "Well, Xander, the good news is that we found a match on the national marrow database. We've contacted the individual, and he's willing to come out here to donate," he remarked in a cheerful tone, hoping to avoid the bad news until the donor got there.

A hope that was soon to be dashed by the young man's question, "What's the catch?"

"The match is too close to be a coincidence." When Xander didn't say anything, Dr. Fletcher continued, "We did some further tests on the blood samples, and it appears that he is your biological brother."

Floored by the news that he had a big brother, Xander asked the only thing he could think of, "What's his name?" What he couldn't ask was how did his brother escape Tony and Jessica, and why didn't his brother take him when he escaped?

Guessing some of the thoughts racing through the boy's mind, the doctor thought it was important to share as much information as he could. "Timothy Speedle. He believes that you are his brother who was kidnapped as a baby almost fifteen years ago."

That answered Xander's other questions. Now he only had one left: how did he end up in the Harris family?

TBC…