Summary: AU; If she was having trouble dealing with the news, Buffy knew that Willow wouldn't take it well. C/X.

Author's Note: AU notes... No Fluke, Xander and Cordelia leave Sunnydale together after Graduation, no Angel The Series.

Disclaimer: "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and all associated characters and situations are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, used for entertainment purposes without permission or intent to profit.

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"I'll Think Of A Reason Later"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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This was beyond belief. This went beyond apocalypse-y into something that shouldn't even exist. It was something that had to have come from a parallel universe of evil; a universe where they drank nothing but decaff, food had tentacles, all the evil villains really did have bad mustaches and other things like that. It was, as far as Buffy Summers was concerned, the ultimate wrongness. Worse, she had to make sure her best friend and housemate didn't see it, because there was no telling how the other woman would react. Buffy was certain that if she herself was having trouble dealing with what she was seeing, then it would probably send Willow Rosenberg into another 'destroy the world'-type meltdown and since the one who had talked her down from the last one would be part of the problem this time it would be 'goodbye, existance', Buffy was sure.

"Hey, what are you reading?"

It was too late, Buffy realised with horror, Willow had seen what she was trying to hide and now she wouldn't stop until she knew what it was. This was going to be even worse than that whole 'Dracula' fiasco.

"Uh, newspaper?" Buffy answered cautiously, trying to slip it out of sight and hoping that Willow would let it go.

"Oh, great, can you hand me the horoscopes? I want to check mine," Willow remarked as she passed her housemate on the way to the coffeepot.

While Willow was making her first cup of the day, Buffy asked, "How can you believe in those things?"

The redhead raised an eyebrow, "We have to deal with prophecies, vampires, demons; how can you not?"

"Simple, mine told me I'd find true love and I'm still what, exactly?" Buffy retorted hoping the conversation would be enough of a distraction.

"Okay, so they're not perfect," Willow shrugged, setting her morning cup of coffee on the table. "But like with prophecies, even if they're vague, it's better than going into it all blind, right?"

"I don't know. I'd like... I'd prefer to be surprised."

The evasiveness and stammering made Willow suspicious, "Buffy, you hate surprises, remember?"

The blond mentally swore, "Yeah, hate surprises, that's me, no-surprises girl, but that's because they're always bad surprises, right? Like all my birthdays, bad surprises. I'm sure that if I got good surprises, I'd like being surprised."

"I like it when people don't try to lie to me," Willow remarked, pulling out a chair. Sitting down, she put her elbows on the table and knit her fingers together, "You're lying to me, Buffy; I don't like that."

Buffy managed to force herself not to wince, the first steps on the path to 'World End-y' Willow had been taken and now she had to find a way off of that path and onto a better one without the other woman finding out what was going on. Of all the Slayer powers - strength, stamina, Vamp-sensing, annoyingly vague prophetic dreams - why couldn't she have some kind of 'do this so this will happen' way of seeing the future?

"Buffy..." Willow drew out the other woman's name. "What's in the newspaper?"

Buffy folded the paper in her hands and laid it on the table, trying to subtly slide it under her breakfast plate, "Nothing... important..."

The redhead reached a hand out across the table, "Then you won't mind handing it over, would you?"

"Um, yes?"

"Is that 'yes', you'll hand it over or 'yes', you mind?" Willow raised an eyebrow and wiggled the fingers of her outstretched hand slightly.

"Would 'No' work better?" Buffy tried asking.

Willow's response was to lift Buffy's plate into the air with a wave of her other hand, uncovering the paper, "Buffy, give me the paper."

"I... uh... ugh, I don't want to; I'm not sure that would be a good idea," Buffy admitted, drawing the paper up to her chest and holding onto it tightly, almost childishly.

"It's the Entertainment section, Buffy; you're holding the Entertainment section. What could be so bad in there? Another Kardashian wedding, or divorce for that matter?"

Deciding to rip it off like a band-aid and get it over with, Buffy held out the newspaper and closed her eyes, "Well, it's a wedding anyway."

Maybe reincarnation was a thing and her next existance would make up for all the nasty parts she'd gone through with this one. If she was going to be truthful with herself in what might be her final moments of life before Willow went all black-eyed and evil and destroyed the world; there was a part of her that was actually hoping that if they were both reincarnated in another world, she and Angel might have a chance for what was between them to work out happily.

Willow took the newspaper and frowned at the wrinkles that had developed. With a faint huff, she tapped it with a finger and gave a firm nod when the wrinkles had disappeared to leave it appearing as though freshly printed. Noticing the name of the paper turned Willow's frown to a smile for a moment, even after all of these years, Buffy still needed a connection to Los Angeles, even if it was the LA Times. Seconds later, Willow saw what was now being considered Entertainment news in Los Angeles when a wedding was involved.

'Chase Marries Star Trek Co-Star and Long-Time Friend', the headline blared in size seventy-two font. The part of her that had once been a hacker and computer geek idly identified the font as Belizio, but it was ignored by the rest of her; the rest of her was more concerned by the picture that followed the headline. It seemed to be a publicity photo of the kind that studios sent out in information packets or promotional material, because the people in the photo were in costume for their television show roles. The 'Chase' that had been specified in the headlines was Cordelia Chase, former Sunnydale resident before it went to the pit literally, former classmate, and not as former bane of Willow's existence for most of it; she was wearing a black jumpsuit with red side panels that started under her arms, going all the way down, and was easily identifiable despite the green face-paint which she wore. Standing next to her, though, was what had gotten most of Willow's attention; or rather who.

Alexander Harris, called 'Xander' by just about everyone, had been one of Willow's childhood playmates, best friends as they got older, and secret and not-so-secret crush when they'd became teenagers. Somewhere along the way, somehow, something had happened though. Halfway through their Junior year in high school, Xander and Cordelia had begun violating the natural order of things, along with Xander's membership in the 'We Hate Cordelia Club', by becoming involved with each other. It had only gotten worse in Senior year, by then they weren't just dating like normal teenagers or even making out where they thought they wouldn't get caught - between the library bookshelves where Willow herself had, in fact, caught them being an example; they were actually so far gone as to consider themselves 'courting'. When they went somewhere, Xander wasn't just Cordelia's 'date', he was her 'escort', including to school functions like the Homecoming Dance and Prom and in doing so completely shattering all of Willow's fantasies about Xander taking her to those events that she'd had over the years.

Then came the final blow, insult upon injury; when Cordelia announced that she was leaving Sunnydale for Los Angeles after graduation, Xander announced that he was going along with her. All the people that had cared about him couldn't talk him out of it; not Joyce Summers, not Dawn, not Willow herself; he was bent on being with Cordelia wherever she went. The day they had graduated from high school and stopped the Mayor's attempt at ascending into a greater demon had been the last time she had seen or heard from Xander until now. Now she was seeing him standing next to Cordelia, wearing the same kind of jumpsuit with the addition of one of the wildly-colored Hawai'ian shirts he'd always favored worn over it, with an arm around her. Too angry, shocked, horrified and disgusted to do anything else, Willow just began to scream incoherently and shred the newspaper in her hands.

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Author's Note: I don't know why, but I kind of picture the character Xander would play as an engineer on a 'Star Trek' series to be something of a mix between Wash from 'Firefly' and Harper from 'Andromeda'... In case anyone wonders about Xander's Hawai'ian shirt, I figure it's something that started by accident, with him forgetting to remove it before walking on set for a scene and the director not calling him on it as a bit of a joke and it became a running gag in the series.