How To Get a Happy Ending: How To Get a Happy Ending
by Veggiebelle
Chapter One: The Idea

24" chain, sterling silver. Pale green stone pendant, reputed to house the essence of K'Docmos demon. If still intact, the wearer of the pendant would be safe from mosquito attack. Blood of the wearer's firstborn must be used to wash the pendant in order to activate it. Side effects include extreme hair loss and dry mouth.

Xander checked off another entry. This wasn’t exactly how he wanted to spend a Sunday, or any day ending with a ‘y’ if he wanted to be honest about this, but Anya needed help at the shop again. She'd gotten a box of jewelry from some estate sale - well, more like a box with a tangled ball of chains and cords - and Giles seemed to think that this was some kind of fantastic find. They'd been working on untangling the pieces from each other for most of the weekend. Now, the not-exactly-volunteer guy that he was right now was stuck with the fun of figuring out which piece of shiny metal was which while Giles and Anya were up front with customers. At least he had a manifest so he could match up the descriptions with the actual jewelry, so no actual research-like work was involved. This actually ranked higher on the boredom scale.

32" brown leather cord. Bone pendant housed in a platinum setting. Pendant carved from the tooth of a werewolf. No mystical properties recorded to date.

Yeegh. Hide that one from Willow. Xander checked off another entry on the list.

Why was he roped into this? Right, because he was the dutiful boyfriend. Scratch that, fiancé. He needed to get used to his new-ish title. Ever since they'd gone public with the engagement, the whole marriage thing seemed a lot more real. And by real he meant the hugely scary kind of reality.

What he didn't get was why. What’s with the scaredness? This is what people did. It was part of the whole "being a grown-up" thing he was going for. It was supposed to all be normal. He had the good job, he had the great apartment, and he had the amazing girlfriend, so this was the next logical step. Right?

Maybe it's just the funk everybody's in, he thought. Could be that's the problem. Willow and Tara had some kind of tiff about the insta-party Wil made. Dawn's vampire almost-boyfriend at Halloween just made him remember how stupid he'd been in high school and his demony near-misses, so he was more likely to cut her some slack. Giles was back from England, but in some weird way he wasn't really acting like he was. Anya was peeved that Giles was back in "her" store, despite that they were still partners no matter what continent he was in. And Buffy... She was still somewhere on the road to adjusting back to normal life from whatever hell she'd been in, which was totally understandable. He hated to think about what she'd been through. Of course she was out of it. That was just gonna take some time.

20" chain, white gold. Pendant (see sketch) is a talisman of unknown origin with a pale opaque gemstone. Wearer possesses the ability (instructions attached) to summon a force that causes dance and song to spontaneously transpire. Side effects include, but are not limited to, this short-lived musical time concluding with a happy occasion.

Yep, that one's there, too. Check.

He'd thought that, with Buffy back, everything would be good. They had (well, mostly Wil) saved her from torment or hellfire or whatever horrible existence was "in" wherever she was. So now whole gang was back together again. Just like it should be. And he'd held off announcing the engagement until he thought everything was fine and dandy. Announcement made, cue the happy. But nobody was happy like he'd thought they would've been. Including him.

18", 24K gold chain. Amethyst pendant, rumored to enhance psychic abilities and to open the spirit's eye to higher connectivity with that which resides outside of concrete reason. No conclusive evidence regarding psychic enhancement found.

Check.

And this was a big part of what was bugging him. He should be walking on some cushy clouds right now. Anya had said it herself - heck, she'd been saying it for months - about this being happy news. It would be good for everybody to hear. But that wasn't happening.

He wished there was a way to lift the funk everybody seemed to be in. His own happy ending was on the way, he was sure of it. Mostly, he was sure because it was supposed to be on its way. Even if he wasn't feeling it yet, it had to be there somewhere, heading straight for him.

Happy ending. Hold the phone. He'd seen something like that.

Xander scanned through the list of loot he'd been going through to find the right line and read it back to himself: "Wearer possesses the ability - instructions attached - to summon a force that causes dance and song to spontaneously transpire. Side effects include, but are not limited to, this short-lived musical time concluding with a happy occasion."

Songs and dances and happy occasions out of nowhere. Sounded like the complete opposite of life in general right now. Maybe it could even be an opposite kind of thing that everybody could use right now, and that happy occasion concept was sounding a lot like what he wanted to happen for him and An. He searched through the pile of papers and files that had come with the jewelry to find anything resembling instructions, which turned out to not be all that hard to find. Almost too easy, but Xander chalked that up to karma. After reading through them, they didn't sound too hard to do, even for a non-magic-doer.

Picking up the necklace in question, Xander considered this whole plan that was popping into his head. He was going out on a very large and freaky limb by messing with magic, but the way things were feeling right now, it didn't seem like all that bad of an idea. Chances were decently high that the thing wouldn't even work. Or it could work really well and cause a big town-wide Bronze-like party, and hey, who doesn’t like a good party? But he was mainly hoping that, if it worked, that it started to get all of them back on track to okay-ness.

It was the "happy occasion" part that sold him. That's the whole idea behind the wedding concept, right? So, if it did what it said it did, then maybe he and Anya would have a better shot at that kind of ending. Not that he doubted that they'd have their happily-ever-after, but... Okay, now he was lying to himself. There were all sorts of doubts, but not doubts he really wanted to pay any attention to. He knew that he loved Anya. That's what mattered, and there was zero doubt about that. The doubts were all the lame kinds - was he good enough, could he be any good at all as a husband, and could he and Anya make a life together. Plus, okay, the whole "marrying a former-demon" issue was never far from his brain. He probably should have gotten over that whole thing by now, especially after all the time they'd been together, but he hadn't. Not totally. Fact was fact, and even though he knew she was fully human, she... Xander stopped that thought right there from going any further, like he usually did. What was the point? It's a no-sense kind of thought. He got back to happy ideas. Mainly, the thought of bringing on the happy-being.

Pocketing the necklace and the instruction page, he put the sorting project aside. He could go back to working on that tomorrow. He'd just tell Anya that he'd meet her at home and then try to run this little mojo thing. If it doesn't work, then hey, no big. But if it does, then his friends might feel a little better. And maybe he would, too.


***


Chapter Two: The Coconuts

Anya and Xander stared at each other like they'd each grown an extra head. He wasn't sure if what had just happened was much weirder than that.

It'd started as just an argument. Not even a big one for them. Monkey Trouble wasn't so bad the first two times, maybe even three, but a guy could only take so much of it. Anya didn't exactly agree with that. She kept talking about it being the best movie ever made, and that she HAD to watch tonight. Again. What was it about the primate flicks that she liked so much? For some reason, they'd gotten more and more heated about the whole stupid topic. Then they realized that the yelling wasn't actually yelling. It was singing. And there were coconuts and a little dance-ish thing and... Then it was over.

They were still staring at each other in total disbelief. Anya finally broke eye contact and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Okay, this was not the happy fun time he'd had in mind.

Xander fumbled in his pocket for the chain with the pendant thing. Yep, still there. He pulled it out and looked at it, then at the just-slammed door, and then back at the necklace. It had to be this thing's fault, he thought. But it wasn't supposed to be like this. The instructions had the word "happy" right on the page. And that wasn't anywhere near happy.

He brought out the instructions again and re-read them. Yep, the "H" word was still on the page, right there in black and white (well, more like black and yellow-brown parchment color). He'd done everything right, went through every step exactly like it was listed. But he wasn't getting what he'd ordered. Must be faulty or something.

Was there some way to undo it? He turned the page over, hoping that there'd be some sort of "off button" directions. Nope, nothing. Damn.

Xander decided that this officially counted as a bad idea. Really bad. He should probably to talk to Giles. Fess up about what he'd done, get him to stop the music, whatever it took. He wasn't expecting anything like that love spell type of insanity, but still. This wasn't good, and it sure wasn't feeling happy. It wasn't even feeling vaguely comfortable. He had this nauseous feeling in his insides just knowing that a spell had taken him over, and the feeling was ten times worse because he knew that he was the guy who got it all rolling. But since Giles was back, he could deal with this, and he'd figure out what to do. Time to rally the gang, confess about the necklace and the spell, get the deserved "What were you thinking?!?" looks, and...

Wait. Anya. She'd know something was up. She'd hear the "happy occasion" part and figure out that this might have something to do with the two of them. She might figure out that he had doubts. Doubts about the wedding. About them. He'd been trying to stop her from noticing his lack of confidence about all this, mostly by using the delaying and "waiting until it's the right time" tactics. It'd worked like a charm. But then he did think it was the right time on Halloween, and so he blurted it out, and... okay, he was wrong. It hadn’t been the right time. Not for him. Not yet. But done was done. And, honestly, he'd made her wait long enough. Months. It wasn't fair to her that he'd been dragging his feet for a bunch of stupid reasons that were nowhere except his own head.

There had to be another way to stop this without dragging himself into the middle of it. If Giles and everybody knew that he has something to do with this, then Anya would know about his doubtapalooza. That couldn't happen. And not just that, but they'd all know about his doubts and wedding-worries, and Buffy and Willow had more than enough to deal with already. He wasn't about to force his problems on them. No way. Not right now.

Well, it was just an argument, right? Nothing earth-shattering. It just was a little more... active than usual, complete with coconut-boogie action. But no real harm-doing was done that wouldn't have happened anyway. Not that he wanted it to happen again, though. Ever. But just to be on the safe side, maybe he could get everybody working on it. But to get them working on it, he figured getting the necklace-thing back to the shop would be a good idea, and maybe having it back where it came from might help stop it a little. It was worth a shot. Just as long as nobody knew he was behind it. So An wouldn't know. Hey, the instructions were so easy that it could've been anyone. The fact that he did the instruction-reading shouldn't really matter. Okay, it did matter, but he couldn't risk telling them.

He sat down on the recliner and leaned back. The door to the bedroom was still shut tight. Looked like he'd be getting his shut-eye in the living room tonight.

As he drifted off, he thought he heard the door open. Must be a dream. He heard Anya's voice coming from what seemed like far away and dream-tried to explain. He just wanted a happy ending.

When he woke up the next morning, he found a blanket covering him. Even better, Anya was definitely in a way better mood than she'd been in the night before.

Neither of them mentioned the coconuts.


***


Chapter Three: The Cover-Up

Xander had picked up a box of doughnuts on his way into the Magic Box. There wasn't any official meeting or anything, but the doughnuts were part of his Necklace Replacement Master Plan.

He'd been working it out in his head all morning, deciding what to do about all this. The entire experience had just weirded him out. It wasn't so much that this was some kind of massive evilness, because it wasn't what he'd call horribly bad. But it wasn't good, either. One, it had a little too much of a talent show vibe, which always falls under the "evil" category. Two, when it happened to him and Anya last night, it didn't feel like he had control of what he was doing, and the zero control thing had happened to him way too many times in the past for him to be happy about it. Three, who can have a decent argument when there are coconuts involved?

And four, most importantly, it had to stop before his friends found out it was his fault, and definitely before Anya found out, which meant that it had to stop soon. Whatever that argument song was, it wasn't the "happy occasion" thing the description was talking about, so there was a good chance of some kind of encore action. Much as he wanted to get to the part where the happy started, this just wasn’t the right way to do it.

Willow, Tara, and Giles were already at the shop when he and Anya got there. Xander grinned at each of them like everything was normal, checking their faces for signs of weirdness. Did they get hit by the music whammy last night? Wasn’t looking likely. They all seemed fairly calm, which was a huge relief right there. He plopped the box of doughnuts on to the table and meandered over to the counter, nonchalantly setting the necklace down while his friends grabbed their breakfasty goodness.

Mission accomplished, he sat down in front of the box to grab his share of the leavings. Cruller or powdered doughnut? These are the questions that plague men's minds, he thought. He heard the bell on the door jangle and glanced over his shoulder to see Buffy walk in.

Giles greeted her with a normal "Good morning, Buffy." How cool was it that her being around was a normal thing to see again? He still felt this huge surge of relief every time he saw her since they’d brought her back, relief that she was there and with them like she's supposed to be. Her death and gone-ness seemed more like a really bad dream now, like it never actually happened. He could only hope that whatever hellishness she went through was fading exactly the same way for her.

Still in his doughnut quandary and halfway listening to whatever they were saying about Dawn, he went for the obvious doughnut choice: both. He even went with the Magnolia joke again, because you can’t go wrong with the classics. "Respect the cruller, and tame the doughnut!"

"That's still funny, sweetie." Xander glanced up at Anya's half-hearted response. Does nobody laugh at that joke anymore? No sense of comedy, people. But on the other hand, nobody was talking about singing or dancing or any other kinds of weirdness, so he was feeling close to home free.

"So, uh... no research? Nothing going on, monsters or whatnot?" asked Buffy. Xander shook his head, nervously waiting for Anya to say something about the coconut action, but she didn't. In fact, everybody shrugged a "no" back to her. Xander was pretty darn happy to see the big chorus of No.

But she hadn't grabbed a doughnut yet. In fact she hadn't moved much since she walked in. He glanced back at her as she kept talking - she sounded sort of uncertain. "Good, good. That's, uh... So, did anybody, um... last night, did anyone, oh... Burst into song?"

For a split second, Xander froze. Oh god, he thought. It wasn't just him and Anya. Buffy, too? No. No badness for Buffy allowed. She's been through enough with the hell thing already. C'mon mouth, say something.

But all he could get out of his brain was a random expletive. "Merciful Zeus!" Then he blinked. Huh? Was that the best his brain could come up with?

Not that it mattered, because it wasn't like anybody was paying much attention to him. They all started talking over each other - Willow, Tara, and even Giles. Anya and he both started talking about their argument with the rhyming and the coconuts, but Xander finally cut her off. "It was very disturbing."

The surprising thing was that nobody seemed too upset about the whole thing. Nowhere close to how he was. Maybe the idea was working in a good way after all? But this was too freaky of a happening in general to wait and see if it stayed good for everybody else. Not that there was definitely badness with this, but it'd likely be better if his putting the necklace back had gone ahead and stopped it.

Giles turned to Buffy and asked, "What did you sing about?"

"I... uh... I don't remember. But it seemed perfectly normal."

"But disturbing," Xander said, hoping maybe somebody might have an idea about the off switch he'd been hoping for. "And not the natural order of things. And do you think it'll happen again?" He was for the natural order of things. The natural order that he didn't mess up.

Everyone started to gather around the table. Giles seemed to agree with the flimsy argument Xander was making. "We should look into it."

"With the books," agreed Willow.

Tara looked a little less thrilled about the idea than Willow was. "Do we have any books on this?"

But Xander wasn't going to let any negative thinking slow this thought train down. If anybody could find an off switch to whatever this was, they could. Especially with both a Willow-brain and a Giles-brain on this. He jumped right back into the conversation. "Well, we've just got to break it down, look at the factors before it happens again, because I for one..."

Giles interrupted him. And there was background music.

Replacing the necklace didn't do a damn thing. The song thing was happening again.

Then, Xander had a Giles-in-the-coffee-shop flashback. Bad, meet worse.

Giles was talking - singing - that he had a theory that this could be caused by a demon. Huh? That couldn't be it. Summoning a demon... there's no way. The instructions said zip about a demon. He wouldn't have even touched the thing if there was a chance of demon-summoning.

Then Willow was suggesting that is was some kid's dream, and, granted, they'd dealt with that kind of thing before, but he already knew that wasn't the case.

Xander needed to get the conversation (song?) back on track, and fast. His first try jumping into the song wasn't too great, because all that came out was, "I've got a theory we should work this out." Well, that gets a "duh." Could he be less helpful?

Okay, time to try again. As they seemed to be deciding that this was just way to cheery to be any good, he thought maybe suggesting something so totally wrong that they'd have to think of something better could help. He tried jumping in again.

"It could be witches, some evil witches!" Seeing Willow's and Tara's answering glares, he backpedaled like he'd screwed up. "Which is ridiculous 'cause witches they were persecuted wicca good and love the earth and women power and I'll be over here."

That worked pretty well, he thought. They've got to come up with some better theories now.

No such luck. The next person to offer her own theory was Anya, who thought that the musical weirdness was because of... Bunnies? Okay, he knew that his girl was rabbit-phobic to the max, but there's only so much evil a small furry creature like that could do unless you're in a Monty Python movie.

The spotlights were cool, though.

Willow and Giles seemed to agree that An was nowhere close on that one. Then Buffy finally joined in - she'd been weirdly quiet through all of this - but she didn't have an opinion on it all. "I've got a theory - it doesn't matter. What can't we face if we're together? What's in this place that we can't weather? Apocalypse? We've all been there. The same old trips. Why should we care?"

She had a point. They could deal with this. Heck, they didn't even really need the extra info of knowing who summoned him, did they? Nah. This should be cake. He joined in with the rest of them. "What can't we do if we get in it? We'll work it through within a minute."

Even Giles agreed. "We have to try. We'll pay the price. It's do or die."

Buffy added in, "Hey, I've died twice." Xander looked over at her, smiling to himself. And were you allowed to stay that way? Either time? Not a chance.

Everybody kept going with the chorus-like thing. Even Giles, who'd taken a little time to warm up to it. "What can't we face if we're together? What's in this place that we can't weather? There's nothing we can't face..."

But Anya got the last word (note?) in. "Except for bunnies."

Xander quickly glanced around. That wasn't so bad. But he couldn't actually say that it wasn't so bad. Focus on the negative, people. "See, okay, that was disturbing."

Willow disagreed. "I thought it was neat."

"So, what is it?," asked Buffy, looking at Giles. "What's causing it?

Xander looked down guiltily as Giles answered her. "Thought it didn't matter."

"Well, I'm not quaking in my stylish yet affordable boots, but there's definitely something unnatural going on. And that doesn't usually lead to hugs and puppies."

"Well, is it just us? Is it only happening to us?," asked Anya. "That would probably mean a spell, or..."

When Buffy opened the front door, it was like she'd opened one of his ma's don't-touch-this-or-your-father-will hear-about-it music boxes - they all could hear what was going on out there. Shutting them off from the dry cleaning street party, she stated the obvious. "It's not just us."


***

Chapter Four: The Research

They'd been researching all afternoon, but they'd come up with zero in the way of anything helpful. Well, not a total zero - they found a report of similar stuff happening way back in ancient Rome, but that wasn't exactly much. Xander was surprised to see that Rome thing when Giles showed them what he'd found - the necklace didn't look half that old. After that, he'd grabbed a few books they usually looked at when they were researching magic objects from way-back-whenever when and plopped them on the table, hoping somebody'd find something useful in them.

The research fun had been going for hours when Dawn burst into the store. "Oh my god! You will never believe what happened at school today."

Buffy answered her flatly, barely even looking up from her book. "Everybody started singing and dancing."

Dawn glared at Buffy. "I gave birth to a pterodactyl."

THAT got everybody's attention. Xander smiled to himself. Nice attention-grabber there. You’ve learned well, grasshopper. Makes a guy proud. But Anya took the literalness of what she said like always. "Oh my god! Did it sing?"

Dawn ignored Anya, looking a little deflated by her lack of scoopage, and wandered over to the counter. "So, you guys too, huh?"

"So what'd you sing about?" Xander didn't really want to ask that question, but he had to know if Dawn's experience was better than what he'd dealt with the night before.

"Math. Seemed more interesting when we were singing about it."

Good, Xander thought with relief. Math was a totally different kind of evil badness.

Tara's voice loudly - well, loud for her - interrupted his thoughts. "That's right! The, the volume! The text!"

Giles blinked up at her. "What text?"

"The volume-y... text," Willow answered lamely.

Tara tried to back her up. "You know."

"The... murnenfurm report."

"The what now?" Please. Xander wasn't even close to buying it.

"We just have a few volumes at the house that deal with mystical chants, bacchanals... might be relevant," Tara explained a little too quickly.

"We could..."

Giles, however, was totally buying it. "Well, I'm a hair's breadth from investigating bunnies at this point, so I'm open to anything."

"We'll check it out, we'll give you a call." Willow was grinning as she just about ran out the door.

Tara followed her just as quickly. "Yeah, this could blow the whole thing wide open."

Xander shook his head as they rushed outside into the sunlight. Even he could see through this one. Suppressing the mental image that always popped into his head at times like this, and though he totally got where they were coming from - he and Anya had used way lamer excuses than this one - he wasn't too thrilled about their timing. He'd been hoping that the Willow Brain might help with the figuring out of what the "off switch" to this song weirdness might be. Help bail him out.

He stared at the words in the book in front of him, but so far nothing having to do with what was going on was popping out at him. He looked over at Giles, who was wasting his time looking at a book that was mostly about demons. That's not gonna help us, he thought. But he couldn't actually say that. He kept considering fessing up, but what good would it do? None of what he knew would be of any help, and if Anya found out... Besides, even if the force-thing that he'd called wasn't putting him in a better mood, at least it seemed to be helping Willow and Tara.

He still wanted the off button, though, and not having Wil around? Wasn't going to help. Giving up on the book he'd been wading through, he went back the case to grab a different too-heavy book, one that he vaguely remembered having reports about jewelry things. Or maybe they were just jewels. Hard to keep it all straight.

As he settled back down in his chair, he vented a little in Buffy's direction. "I bet they're not even working."

"Who now?"

"Willow and Tara. You see the way they were with each other? The get-a-roominess of them? I'll bet they're..." Then he remembered that Dawn was there and made a quick sentence-edit. "... Singing. They're probably singing right now."

"I'm sure Willow and Tara are making every effort." For the smart guy he was, Giles just wasn't catching on.

But take it another way... "OH yeah."

"Xander..." Buffy warned. Oops. He looked over at Buffy apologetically - yeah, maybe that was a little too much to say around Dawnie.

"It's okay, Buffy. I do know about this stuff," Dawn reassured her. "Mom and I had the singing talk a year ago. Besides, it's all kind of romantic."

"No, it's not," Buffy and Xander answered in unison. Notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat, but still.

"Come on, songs, dancing around... what could be wrong with that?"

Exactly, thought Xander. At least this song-and-dance stuff isn't dangerous. Weird and disturbing, yeah, but a safe kind of weird.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet, meaning that there were no song-stylings. They ordered pizza and kept going through book after book and then another book. But this wasn't a code red or anything, so Giles called it a night pretty early.

As he and Anya drove home, he could smell somebody out there barbecuing. Hey, not a bad idea, he thought. Might be worth firing up the grill soon. Have the gang over, hang out, maybe have it be a little "Welcome Back From Hell" party for Buffy or something.

Anya still hadn't brought up the argument from the night before, and she was leaning against his shoulder, half asleep. As he drove along, he saw a couple on the side of the road dancing and looking generally happy. He looked down at his girl and smiled. Maybe the good parts of this song-thing he'd summoned were finally coming through.


***

Chapter Five: The Song

The alarm wasn't set, and there was nowhere he and Anya had to be anytime soon. There was research to get to and books the dive into eventually, but the whole thing wasn't looking so bad anymore. Sure, the musical hocus-pocus was still around - a neighbor singing about the mail had awakened them - but it wasn't as disturbing to Xander as it was before.

But now that they were awake, he was hungry. "You want some breakfast?"

"You don't have to get to work?"

"I shut the crew down for the day. My guys start dancing around, I don't think I could deal. It's a flab thing. So, waffles?"

"Will you still make me waffles when we're married?"

"No, I'll only make them for myself, but by California law, you will own half." He grinned and kissed her. Yeah, things were definitely feeling a heck of a lot better than they were night-before-last. "Or I can do an omelet - you know, I've almost got the pan-flipping down, there was just that one... incident, and the fire marshal was..."

As he kept talking about the waffle vs. omelet possibilities, Anya started talking too. Or, wait, she was singing. About her demon days - something he really tried not to dwell on and mostly tuned out until, "... But I'm out of the biz, the name I made I'll trade for his. The only trouble is ... I'll never tell."

Xander suddenly got an urge to jump on the song bandwagon. "She is the one, she's such wonderful fun, such passion and grace. Warm in the night, when I'm right in her tight..." - uh, better clean this up a little - "... embrace. Tight embrace! I'll never let her go. The love we've known can only grow..."

Then he felt his doubts tapping him on the shoulder. "There's just one thing that... No. I'll never tell."

"'Cause there's nothing to tell," they agreed. Well, there wasn't, right? Not stuff that could actually be said, anyway.

Xander thought he heard something go wrong with the music right there, almost painful. Then he realized that he was wearing some sort of shiny pajamas that matched. What's up with that? A second later, he'd forgotten both of those things as Anya's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"He snores."

Hey! "She wheezes," he retorted.

"Say housework and he freezes."

Xander opened the refrigerator. "She eats these skeezy cheeses that I can't describe." No, really. He'd tried. Just the effort of trying to describe them almost made him sick.

"I talk, he breezes."

Oh yeah? "She doesn't know what 'please' is."

"His penis got diseases from a Chumash Tribe!" Now that was low. She had to bring that up.

"The vibe gets kind of scary," they both sang together. Yeah, that's an understatement.

"Like she thinks I'm ordinary." And he believed she was right on that.

"Like it's all just temporary."

"Like her toes are kinda hairy."

"But it's all very well," they both sang. "'Cause god knows I'll never tell!"

But Anya kept right on going. "When things get rough, he just hides behind his Buffy." Xander glared at her. "Now look, he's gettin' huffy, 'cause he knows that I know."

"She clings, she's needy, she's also really greedy. She never... "

Anya interrupted him. "His eyes are beady!"

Xander turned to her, annoyed. "This is my verse, hello? She... "

But Anya was doing whatever she could to stop him from what he was about to say. "Look at me! I'm dancing crazy!" She wasn't kidding. Xander looked at her, fully knowing that this was just her attempt to distract him... until he started moving too. Wait, was he dancing? And grinning like an idiot? Although it was sort of fun.

The anger that'd been building through the song started to melt, and he saw the ice in her eyes fading at the same time. "You know..."

"You're quite the charmer," Xander said to her, smoothing things out a little. And she was, in her own individual way.

"My knight in armor," she sang back at him, and there wasn't much that was a nicer thing to say to him.

"You're the cutest of the Scoobies, with your lips as red as rubies, And your firm yet supple" - here we go again, uh... "Tight embrace!" Hey, it worked the first time.

He nabbed her for another dance, which was again way more fun than he would've thought. He held her close, remembering all the reasons that he loved this girl, and then they walked to opposite sides of the table, The anger seemed totally gone, but... "He's swell," she said to nobody in particular.

"She's sweller." Which she was. Way better than him.

"He'll always be my feller."

"That's why I'll never tell her that I'm petrified." Not after everything, and especially not now.

"I've read this tale, there's wedding then betrayal. I know that come the day I'll want to run and hide."

They climbed on to the table and crawled toward each other, the words he never wanted to say out loud falling out of them both. "I lied, I said it's easy. I've tried, but there's these fears I can't quell."

"Is she looking for a pot-of-gold?" he wondered.

She had her own fears. "Will I look good when I've gotten old?"

"Will our lives become too stressful if I'm never that successful?

"When I get so worn and wrinkly that I look like David Brinkley?

"Am I crazy?"

"Am I dreamin'?"

"Am I marrying a demon?" Yeah, the one thing he could never fully let go of.

They sang together again, weirdly cheerful, even with everything they were saying. The music and the dancing must be making him feel the cheerfulness. "We could really raise the beam in making a marriage a hell. So thank God I'll never tell. I swear that I'll never tell." Which he wouldn't.

Except just he did. Or did he? Now he was confused. No, wait. There's no way he could've said that stuff. "My lips are sealed."

Anya seemed to agree that it was just a figment of her imagination. Their imagination. Something. "I take the fifth!"

"Nothin' to see! Move it along!" Nothing being said here. Nope.

"I'll never... tell!" They collapsed in the chair by the window, laughing. That was actually cool. Even the dancing with the jumping and the kicking.

Then they looked at each other, and the words they'd each sung came hit them like a ton of very large and painful bricks.

***

Xander and Anya couldn't explain the horrible scene from the morning to Giles fast enough.

"It's a nightmare! It's a plague!," he babbled.

Anya talked right over him. "It has to be stopped!"

"It's a nightmare about a plague!"

"It was just like, I didn't wanna be saying things..."

"I felt like we were being watched..."

"But they just kept pouring out of my and they rhymed and they were mean..."

"Like a wall was missing from our apartment, like there were only three walls, no fourth wall..."

"...and MY EYES ARE NOT BEADY!"

"...and MY TOES ARE NOT HAIRY!"

Xander wasn't just at the end of his rope. He was clinging to the half-broken threads. "Giles, you gotta stop it."

"Well, I am following a few leads, and..."

Anya interrupted him. "Plus, our number was clearly a retro pastiche that's never going to be a break-away pop hit."

That's so nowhere near the point, Xander thought. "Work with me, British man. Give me an axe and show me where to point it."

"As ever, it's not quite that simple. But I have learned something quite disturbing..." As they walked down the sidewalk, Giles described the extra-crispy bodies that had been found last night.

Xander was confused. "As in, burnt up? Somebody set people on fire? That's nuts!" And, yes, bad as it was to think this way, it was badness was way worse than the singing thing, so who knows what other damage his mouth would do before they figured this part out.

"I don't know," Anya grumbled. "One more verse of our little ditty and I would've been looking for the gas can."

"Certainly, emotions are running high, but as far as I can tell, the victims burnt up from the inside. Spontaneously combusted. I just saw the one - I managed to examine the body while the police were taking witness arias."

Xander was getting so freaked out that he barely glanced at a gaggle of dancing janitors. "But we're sure the two things are connected? Singing and dancing and the burning and dying?" Please say no, he thought.

"We're not sure of much," answered Giles. Thank god. Might be no connection here, and just some fire demon to slay. That would be something they could deal with, something he could take that handy axe to. "Buffy's looking for leads at the local demon haunts... At least, in theory she is. She doesn't seem to..."

Xander stopped him to defend Buffy. "She's easing back in. We brought her back from an untold hell dimension. Ergo the weirdness. The important thing is that you're there for her."

"I'm helping her as much as I can, but..."

As Giles explained his concerns about Buffy, Xander was only half-listening. Buffy was way stronger than anybody he’d ever met. She'd snap out of it. So Giles wanted them to follow his lead on helping her do the actual snapping out. Fine, whatever; and it wasn’t like they wouldn't follow Giles’s lead already, so that wasn't all that hard to agree to. He absently nodded to the words going by while processing the burning-up information he'd just heard, because right then, he was way more concerned about people burning and dying. It couldn't be connected to the music thing. It made no sense. There was nothing in the description of that necklace that said a thing about flame-age. So, a connection? Not a chance.


***

Chapter Six: The Problem

Xander was the guy with a theory now, and it was the theory of a desperate man who needed any kind of theory he could piece together. He and Anya were barely speaking to each other, and a big part of that was sheer terror about what lyrics might pop out next. As they worked behind the counter of the Magic Box, he went over his attempt at a theory.

Research was pointing towards a demon causing all this. This was, of course, completely ridiculous. Xander wouldn’t summon a demon on purpose. This spell was on purpose, yeah, but a demon? That’s way more into badness than he’d do, even to make everything better. He glanced over at Willow, who was looking at some stuff on the shelves at the front of the store, and wanted to tell her, but he didn’t think Willow would do badness to make things better either, and so he didn’t know what she’d say. So, the main part of his theory is that the demon was drawn to Sunnydale by the magic he’d gotten going. So that made this indirectly his fault instead of completely his fault.

As Anya handed him a glass vase without even turning her head, he felt like he was in some kind of thought-bubble. He wanted to pop it. He wanted to slash his way out of self-recrimination land, vent though he knew that he belonged there. He wanted to admit what he’d done, but Anya was already mad enough about other things. He wasn’t ready to make it worse.

The bell on the door jangled, which took care of the thought-bubble pop. Xander turned to see Spike dragging in some kind of Pinocchio-on-steroids. "Lookie lookie what I found."

Xander walked around the counter, taking off his jacket. In the mood he was in, he hoped that there would be something to punch in the near future.

His focus was interrupted by Tara’s question. "Is this a demon guy?" When did she get there?

Willow obviously didn’t see her come in either. "Tara!" Xander watched her respond with a very un-Tara-like avoidyness. Did they have another fight? Was the fight his fault because of the music thing?

"Works for him. Has a nice little story for the slayer, don't you?" Spike pushed the thing forward. "Come on, then. Sing."

The music struck back up, making them all tense up. It turned out to be a fake out, because all the puppet-looking guy said was, "My master has the slayer's sister hostage at the bronze because she summoned him and at midnight he'd going to take her to the underworld to be his queen."

"What does he want?" asked Giles.

Wood Head Guy pointed at Buffy. "Her."

Spike rolled his eyes. "If that's all you've got to say, then--" Twisting, the puppet-thing pushed Spike to the ground and ran out the door.

Spike straightened back up and glared out the door. "Strong. Someday he'll be a real boy."

Buffy stared at the just-slammed door. "So. Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday."

"I just left her for a few minutes," Tara tried to explain.

"It's not your fault." Buffy answered, turning to Tara. She looked at Giles. "So what's the plan?"

"Plan, shman. Let's mount up!" Xander was ready to get this thing good and over. It was a demon. Demons are killable. Dawn needed help, so there was no question in his mind. And, okay, if this was actually the thing that was causing the musical numbers, then a little violence would take care of it.

"No."

They all turned to stare at Giles. "Uh, Dawn may have had the wrong idea in summoning this creature," protested Anya, "but I've seen some of these underworld child-bride deals, and they never end well. Maybe once."

Willow couldn't believe what she was hearing, either. "We're not just gonna stay here...?"

"Yes we are," Giles answered. "Buffy's going alone."

For once, Spike said something close to what Xander was thinking. "Don't be a stupid git. There's no--"

Giles interrupted him. "When I want your opinion Spike, I... will never want your opinion."

Willow tried again. "A little confusion spell would..."

"No!" This time, it was Tara who said it. Xander didn't think he'd ever heard her say anything that strongly before. With everybody's attention now focused on her, Tara retreated a little. "I don't think that'll help."

Spike turned back to Buffy. "Forget them, Slayer. I got your back."

"I thought you wanted me to stay away from you. Isn't that what you sang?," asked Buffy.

"Spikey sang a widdle song?" Even with everything that was happening, Xander couldn't help but find the mental image of Spike singing very funny.

"Would you say it was a breakaway pop hit or more of a book number?," asked Anya.

Xander glanced at her. "Let it go, sweetie."

Spike ignored them both, his attention totally focused on Buffy. Like usual. "Fine. I hope you dance 'til you burn. You and the little bit."

Buffy turned to Giles looking a little lost. "You're really not coming."

"It's up to you, Buffy."

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Your best."

Xander watched Buffy walk out the door. He wanted to follow and he should be helping - damn it, this was all his fault, he should be helping - but he'd promised Giles that he'd back him up if he took a stand. But this wasn't the right time for stand-making. This was the time to kick demon butt.

He turned around, looking at his friends for a little back-up of his own. Tara and Willow had retreated to the table, and everyone seemed stuck doing a whole lot of noting. Nobody seemed to wanted to talk about this. Nobody wanted to talk, period.

Why were they frozen like this? Why weren’t they talking? This room was full of some of the people who meant most to him. What’s up with this? It was like the funk everyone was in through these past few weeks had ballooned into something completely unmanageable and very, very bad. And, yeah, he was feeling the guilt, because he brought the helium tank.

Xander finally overheard Giles musing to himself. "Will this do a thing to change her? Am I leaving Dawn in danger? Is my slayer too far gone to care?"

This was Xander’s chance. Time to talk Giles into helping, and letting them all help. "What if Buffy can't defeat it?"

He was glad that Anya agreed with him, but not so much about how she said it. "‘Beady-eyes’ is right, we're needed. Or we could just sit around and glare." Beady-eyes? Forget it, not dealing with that now, he thought.

But in some weird way, the group decision had been made. Xander grabbed his jacket as the group left the shop. "We'll see it through, it's what we're always here to do. So we will walk through the fire." they all said. Sang. Whatever.

As they rushed down the street towards The Bronze, Xander tried to not look too closely at the damage he'd caused. Fire trucks zoomed by, cars were flaming away, and people they passed were just plain scared out of their minds. Focus on Buffy and Dawn. One step at a time.

They might be making good time, but the music whammy caught up with them anyway, making them go all chorus-like again. "And we are caught in the fire. The point of no return. So we will walk through the fire. And let it burn Let it burn. Let it burn. Let it burn!"

This united front thing? It felt good.


***

Chapter Seven: The End

Xander was right behind Giles as they ran in, with the girls following. He’d been hoping to help with some puppet-mashing, but from the looks of the three wood-looking guys on the ground, Buffy had already taken care of them.

Instead, Buffy was focused on the demon on the stage who had to be the Bad Guy. Dawn, sitting next to him, looked like she was okay so far. She’d been dressed up for some reason, and considering the last time she’d been dressed up for a ceremony, Xander hoped this was nothing Key-related.

Buffy wasn’t giving the guy the pummeling Xander was hoping for yet. She right in the middle of a solo musical number. Xander tried to focus on what Buffy was singing. "To be like other girls. To fit in this glittering world."

Giles assessed the situation. "She needs back up. Tara, Anya."

Xander and Willow moved to the side with Giles, watching their respective girlfriends (fiancée for him) run behind Buffy as she kept singing. "Don't give me songs. Don't give me songs."

Wait, Xander thought. Aren’t we supposed to be Buffy’s back-up team?

Watching Anya doing the backing-up as Buffy kept singing distracted him. "Give me something to sing about. I need something to sing about."

The beat sped up, and Buffy, Anya, and Tara danced right along with it. Hold it. Was this dangerous? Does this cause the spontaneous combusting? He wanted to run out and stop them, but he didn’t. He didn't know why. He didn't know a lot right now.

As the music slowed back down, Anya and Tara peeled off, leaving Buffy alone. "Life's a song you don't get to rehearse. And every single verse can make it that much worse." Buffy held up her hand towards them. "Still, my friends, don't know why I ignore the million things or more I should be dancing for."

The music sped up, and Buffy kept right up with it. "All the joy life sends. Family, and friends. All the twists and bends. Knowing that it ends. Well that depends...On if they let you go. On if they know enough to know...That when you bow, you leave the crowd."

Ends? Leave the crowd? Xander was confused. What the heck was she taking about?

Buffy stopped, not looking at any of them, and the music-from-nowhere changed to a barely-there kind of sound. "There was no pain. No fear, no doubt, 'til they pulled me out of heaven."

Xander stared at Buffy, hoping he didn’t just hear what he’d just heard. Heaven?

Buffy kept singing as the shock of her words began to sink in. "So that's my refrain. I live in hell 'cause I've been expelled from heaven. I think I was in heaven."

Heaven. Buffy was in heaven. That perfect place with the angels and the major happily-ever-after... She was there.

"So give me something to sing about. Please. Give me something..."

Xander couldn’t move. What could he say? What could he give her to sing about? He didn’t have anything for himself to sing about. He’d done a spell and maybe summoned this demon and made beyond horrible things happen trying to find something to sing about. And when he had opened his mouth, he wished he hadn’t.

Things were speeding up again, and Xander finally noticed that Buffy was still dancing. He wanted to move, and it looked like they all did, but they all didn't budge.

As smoke began to rise from her, somehow Spike was there. Not only that - he was singing. "Life's not a song. Life isn't bliss. Life is just this. It's living," he sang. "You'll get along. The pain that you feel Only can heal. By living. You have to go on living. So that one of us is living."

Dawn had stood up as Spike sang, and she was actually able to speak instead of sing. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it." A couple of notes rang over their heads, and then the room got a little too quiet.

"Now that was a show-stopping number," said the demon, breaking the silence. "Not quite the fireworks that I was looking for--"

"Get out of here." Willow had finally found her voice.

"Mmmm, I smell power." The demon regarded her, then stood. "I guess the little missus and I should be on our way."

"That's never going to happen," Giles countered.

The demon chuckled. "I don't make the rules. She summoned me."

"I so did not," Dawn was looking more indignant than scared. She looked at Giles, pleading. "He keeps saying that."

"You have my talisman on, sweet thing," it reminded her. Xander looked closely at Dawn. The necklace he'd used was around her neck. He couldn't make any more half-baked excuses about this not being his fault because the proof was right there in front of him.

"Oh, but, no... I... I, um, uh, this, at, at the Magic Box, on the floor, I was, I was cleaning, and I forgot, but... I didn't summon anything." Dawn was nervous about something, but Xander obviously believed her, mainly because he knew exactly who did it. He was now just waiting to see how bad things were going to get for him.

"Well now, that's a twist." The demon seemed to believe her as well.

"If it was in the shop," Giles mused, "Then one of us probably..."

This was it. He couldn’t stay quiet anymore. Whatever badness came out of this, he’d earned it all and then some. He raised his hand.

Anya looked at him incredulously. "Xander?!"

How was he going to explain this one? He went with a shortened mostly-truth. "Well, I didn't know what was gonna happen! I just thought there were gonna be dances and songs. I just wanted to make sure we'd... we'd work out. Get a happy ending."

The demon was way too amused by this. "I think everything worked out just fine."

The question had to be asked. Xander took a deep breath. "Does this mean that I have to... be your queen?"

"It's tempting. But I think we'll waive that clause just this once." It stood. "Big smiles, everyone! You beat the bad guy."

It spun around and started singing. Great. "What a lot of fun. You guys have been real swell. And there's not a one who can say this ended well. All those secrets you've been concealing? Say you're happy now, once more with feeling. Now I gotta run. See you all in hell." With a final bit a flashiness, the demon zipped out of existence and back to wherever it was he came from. Make that wherever it was that Xander had summoned him from.

Xander glanced at the people around him. Everyone was shell-shocked. There was so damn much to process... Buffy was in heaven, we'd pulled her out, and oh, hey, all this the last few days was all my fault, gang. Surprise.

Dawn was the first to say something. "Where do we go from here?" After all that they'd just experienced, the fact that she sang it instead of just saying it? Not that much of a shock, even with the demon gone.

Spike, surprisingly, joined her. The guy that just saved Buffy from certain flame-age while he'd just stood there stupidly and watched. "Where do we go from here?"

"The battle's done, and we kind of won," began Giles, and then Tara's voice joined his. "So we sound our victory cheer. Where do we go from here?"

Xander looked at Anya, and all the doubts, all the fear, and all the big-time confusion he'd been feeling were echoed in what they sang with her. "Why is the path unclear? When we know home is near." Isn't it near? Or, at least, shouldn't it be?

He wasn't alone feeling this way as everybody sang together, "Understand, we'll go hand in hand, but we'll walk alone in fear."

"Tell me..." Xander could hear Giles's voice over theirs.

"Where do we go from here?"

Hell if he knew.

Other words kept coming out of him, something about trumpets and curtains, but he wasn't paying much attention to the last gasps of the magic controlling them. The spell - the demon - had already done enough damage.

He'd summoned a demon. He was a demon-summoner. And because of it, he'd almost killed one of his best friends after just helping to raise her from the dead. And, oh, by the way, they'd ripped her out of some kind of eternal paradise when they did that. She could've been happy forever.

He watched Spike leave, and then Buffy right after, probably thanking the dead guy for saving her life. He couldn't exactly be upset about her doing that. After all, he himself had been the guy who'd nearly killed her with this lame-brain summoning. It just added that little bit of salt into an already gaping wound that it was Spike who'd saved Buffy at the end after he'd just about caused her third death. That wasn't what he was supposed to do. He was the bringing-back-to-life guy, not the cause-death-and-destruction guy. Or at least he'd always thought he was.

And to add just a little more guilt on to the huge pile he already had, he realized that he didn't feel totally bad for what they'd done, even knowing what they took her away from. He felt horrible, yeah. But not 100%. Because they had her back.

The last notes faded away, leaving a really heavy silence. Willow was crying, and nobody would look at him or anybody else as they quietly filed out the door. They passed a very stunned-looking Spike right outside the door, and Buffy was nowhere to be seen. He didn't really care what was making Spike look so shocked. He had bigger things to think about. Like the giant can of worms his stupid idea had just opened.


This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=5699