Xander looked at the theme park surrounding them. He'd only ever seen it on TV before and it was usually quite crowded, but this Disney World was free of crowds with only park employees and mascots occupying the park. This wasn't the real Disney World, this was the Disney World that only existed in the hearts and minds of the children who dreamed of going there, it was Walt Disney's imagination made flesh.
"I've never been to Disney World, what ride should we go on?" he asked, before taking a deep breath and enjoying the smell of popcorn and cotton candy that was carried on the breeze only slightly marred by the smell of his own sweat.
"All of them!" Dawn exclaimed excitedly as she grabbed his hand and drug him into the park.
Xander laughed and tried to outpace her, an impossible task. "Is there somewhere where I can clean up? I slept in this suit and I'm sweatier and more funky than I like."
"Sure, there's a five-star hotel hidden in the park for their wealthier guests, and I can get you a change of clothes while you shower," Dawn said, switching directions and pulling him towards Cinderella's castle.
"I thought that was just an urban legend," Xander said.
"It is, but it's also true," she assured him, "just like you can order the brown stuff in the restaurant even though it's not on the menu. Now come on, we need to get you cleaned up so we can go on at least a couple of rides before we have to go back."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"It's been over an hour," Buffy complained, "what's taking them so long?"
"Dear… Disney World," Joyce pointed out, a hint of parental amusement on her face.
Buffy frowned. "Should we expect them to be gone until Monday then?"
Joyce opened her mouth, paused and then frowned.
"Assuming they come back at all and don't just stay in there for all eternity of course," Buffy suggested.
Joyce turned and looked at her daughter. "You're joking," she realized and smiled, not sure of the last time she'd heard Buffy so relaxed and carefree.
Buffy shrugged. "Xander's not here, so someone has to." She grinned, feeling so much lighter now that she wasn't hiding things from her mother.
"No, they really don't," Giles said dryly, but was unable to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up.
"I hear something," Willow said.
"It's a small world, after all!" the pair sang as they came down the stairs. "It's a small, small world!"
"Where did you get a tuxedo?" Buffy asked in disbelief.
"And mouse ears," Xander pointed out gesturing to his head, as the pair both had a set of plastic Mickey Mouse ears.
Willow realized she was staring and quickly pretended to be fascinated by her notebook, scribbling out a couple of questions, but unable to stop herself from repeatedly glancing at him.
"You can take things out of… wherever you were?" Giles asked, fascinated.
"Don't expect me to bring out bags of gold," Xander said, "this kind of thing takes energy."
Dawn smirked while she swung their linked hands. "Of course, if you hadn't left your old suit behind than this one would probably have dissolved like morning dew in the noon day sun."
Xander froze for a moment before he cautiously poked his tux, checking to make sure it was solid. "Forgot about that aspect of things."
"We can come back to that subject later," Giles suggested.
"You have your list ready?" Xander asked cautiously, not looking forward to the grilling he was about to receive.
"No," Giles said, waving for them to have a seat as he settled into the recliner.
"No?" Dawn and Xander chorused.
"I have too little solid information to ask any pertinent questions," Giles admitted as the two sat on the couch, Dawn hopping onto Xander's lap while Buffy and Willow settled in on either side of him, Willow's face a little bit redder than was probably healthy as she admired the way her best friend filled out a tuxedo.
"You've had an hour or so to relax and figure things out, give him the highlights and then tell us how you'll make Dawn human again," Buffy suggested, feeling the arm of his suit to check how solid it was, before yanking her hand away as Dawn swatted at it.
"I think I can give you the gist in two hundred words or less," Xander said thoughtfully. "Once upon a time there was an artist who lost someone close to him, so he buried himself in his work until he died and was reincarnated. Not sure how the whole reincarnation thing is supposed to go, but in his case it was a continual thing, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. In lives where he lost someone close to him, he'd bury himself in his art and… some of the skills of his former incarnations would bubble up. Pretty sure it was at least a hundred incarnations in before he was skilled enough that his creations gained any form of life, but once he'd reached that point, in every life where he lost someone the story repeated. He's just a guy who can't let go and doesn't want to pass on, I guess."
"A remarkably stubborn and talented man," Giles said as he stroked his chin in thought.
"He doesn't know he's been reincarnated over and over, he never remembers, as most people don't," Xander said. "I only know because I remember a lot more than he does, as I got a front row seat of it coming and going. It was all below conscious thought, which apparently was where I was hanging out."
"And making Dawn human?" Joyce asked, seeing that everyone was satisfied with his explanation for the moment.
"I still retain some of his skill," Xander replied, "so I should be able to carve the pieces needed to fill Dawn's chakra points, I just need to get to the right spots to tap into the underlying reality for the materials I need."
Everyone just stared at Xander.
"What?" Xander and Dawn chorused.
"You're throwing around some pretty heavy concepts there Xan," Buffy said, "I don't understand a word you're saying, but even I can tell that."
"Oh," Xander said, "well they seem pretty straight forward to me."
"Me too," Dawn agreed.
"You actually understood all that?" Buffy asked her younger sister incredulously.
Dawn nodded. "Of course, it's simpler than soothing the troubled dreams of a hypochondriac."
"I thought Suey person was a young girl," Buffy said confused, as she realized the new source of Dawn's knowledge.
"Suiseiseki," Xander corrected her firmly, "and young doesn't mean simple or stupid. She could hardly help heal souls if she was simple."
"Not without screwing things up anyway," Dawn agreed. "We were created with the knowledge we needed to fulfill our roles… they were I mean."
"Do you realize how rare and precious the knowledge you have is?" Giles asked eagerly. "There are scholars who study their whole lives to learn a fraction of what you now possess."
"Yeah, the pitchfork wielding mobs kinda gave it away," Xander replied with a sigh. "Rozen learned the hard way that not all knowledge should be shared… it's a shame he forgot it so often as well."
"If scholars have studied all that stuff, shouldn't you just be able to look up what they wrote?" Dawn asked.
"They tend not to share, unless there is a great need anyway." Giles frowned in thought. "I think I see your point."
"So, what does Ampata have to do with all this?" Buffy asked.
"Our foreign exchange student?" Joyce asked.
"Actually, it was the person who ate our exchange student," Buffy replied.
"That's awful, she was such a nice young woman," Joyce said with a sigh.
"Ampata was male, she was the one who ate him," Buffy explained. "She was an Incan princess who needed to feed on life force to keep from crumbling into dust. Not sure what her name actually was, and since she'd taken his place, we just call her Ampata."
"We'd just started dating and I had to stop her from eating Wills, and rather than eat me she let herself expire," Xander explained.
"I still can't believe you were going to do that," Willow said with a shudder, causing him to loop an arm around the shy red head, Dawn shifting to her lap to give her a hug.
"Two lives versus one, both of which I cared for, it was a no brainer," Xander said, giving her a squeeze.
"And how does this all factor into making Dawn human once more?" Giles said, trying to get them back on topic and away from such depressing events.
"Ampata was centuries old and had quite a bit of power, thanks to what had been done to her," Xander explained. "That means she made a strong mark on the world and sacrificing herself for love only increased it. There are enough points of congruence between her and Dawn's situation that I can forge an artifact to fill Dawn's Third Eye chakra."
"So… we set up a mirror on the spot where she died and you reach in and grab something you can carve and stuff in Dawn?" Buffy asked, confused.
"Basically," Xander agreed. "I'll need to set up a workshop and get some tools, but that's easy, just time consuming."
"You can use Geppetto's workshop," Dawn suggested, from Willow's lap knowing that the girl was still upset even if she was doing a good job of hiding it.
"That would be a good place to set up shop," Xander agreed. "I'll have to get real tools and modify them, but his shop has the right resonance for what we want to do."
"What do you need in the way of tools?" Giles asked.
"I won't know until I see what material I'm working on," Xander replied. "In the meantime, I can get in some practice with woodworking tools since I'll need to regain some skill."
"You can really fix this," Buffy said in wonder as she stared at Xander. "I mean, I know you were saying you could, but Giles warned me about getting my hopes up and about chaos magic, but you actually know what you're doing and are so confident…"
Xander grinned and gave the relieved slayer a hug. "Yes, I know exactly what to do to fix this. But keep in mind, even if I didn't do a thing, Dawn would eventually become human again anyway, the Rozen Maidens were designed to become humans after all."
"That is such a relief," Buffy said, squeezing him tightly.
"Yeah, but I have no intention of remaining this short for the next couple of decades," Dawn said firmly, "it'd keep me from going on all the really good rides for a start."
"You were singing It's a small World because you couldn't go on the other rides," Willow realized.
Dawn huffed. "It's my world and I still can't ride the Matterhorn!"
The laughter that followed was filled with relief.
That night
"How was patrol?" Joyce asked Buffy, as she and Willow entered the kitchen where Joyce and Giles were drinking coffee and examining an amazing wooden statue of a hawk, sure it looked a bit unfinished, but if she'd seen it outside on a tree limb, she would have just thought the wind had mucked up its feathers.
Buffy beamed; happy she didn't have to sneak around anymore. "Two early risers and we met up with Angel, who had a lead on a couple of vamps who had set up shop at the docks, planning on feeding on any drunken dock workers. So, six vamps all dusty tonight."
"I have the addresses and times," Willow told Giles, handing him a notebook.
"Excellent," Giles said, as he looked over Willow's notes and copied them down for his reports.
"Mom, Giles," Buffy said, suddenly tense, a stake in her hand as she focused on the statue, "I need you to back away from the table slowly."
Joyce and Giles slowly backed away from the table while looking for whatever was worrying Buffy.
"What's wrong?" Giles asked, wishing he had a weapon on him.
"That statue… it wasn't in that position a second ago," Buffy explained, preparing for it to attack.
"Oh," Joyce said, relaxing. "Xander said it'll stop doing that when it figures out what position shows it off to best effect."
"What?" Buffy asked, confused.
"Xander finished it about an hour ago," Giles explained. "It's not precisely alive… and his explanation was hard to understand, but basically it's not moving… it just hasn't settled into which position it'll always have been posed in."
"Xander made that?" Willow asked in disbelief. "Where is he?" she asked excitedly.
Giles hid his smile behind the notebook he was using.
"He's in the back," Joyce said, pouring herself another cup of coffee.
The two girls rushed off, leaving the amused adults behind.
"I can't believe I was ever that young," Giles said, "though my father has assured me I once was."
"Mine still has photos for blackmail purposes," Joyce told him with a smile.
Beta by: Abyssal Angel and Mist of Shadows