THREE

"We fell in love whilst sharpening stakes to a jaunty whistle?" Buffy asked
Xander as they walked down the corridor. "It was supposed to be romantic.
The whole point of the thing was to make our relationship look perfect and
wonderful. And what kind of sick name is Buffy Muffin?"

"As opposed to Xandy-pie? At least you had ample time to prepare. I had two
minutes." Xander retorted. "It would have helped if you at least gave me a
little bit of information before making fools of ourselves in front of
Willow."

"Well, apparently I underestimated your talents for spontaneous
story-telling." Buffy said as she walked towards her locker. Xander waited
beside her as she opened it. "And what's this with me lusting over you for
years?"

Xander winked at her. "You're not the only one who gets to have all the
fun."

"Fine." Buffy chucked her books into the locker. "It's too late to undo the
damage anyway. We'll just have to go on with this until next week. And
please, do not adlib without giving me prior notification."

"This relationship is so restrictive."

A student walked past and gave Xander the thumbs-up sign. "Way to go, man!"

Buffy and Xander stared at the student as he walked away. She turned to
Xander. "Strange. That's the third time that's happened in ten minutes. I
wonder what's that all about." Xander shrugged his shoulders.

They continued walking down the corridor, before they encountered another
student carrying leaflets. She smiled cheerily at them and handed them one.
"Oh, you two are so cute. Are you going to our annual Charity
lunch-and-dance?"

Buffy stared at the leaflet.

The girl giggled childishly and whispered to Buffy. "I heard what you two
did. I wish I had a relationship that passionate."

Buffy's eyes opened wide. "Excuse me?"

# # #

"The whole school knows? How did this happen?" Buffy nearly screamed. "It
wasn't supposed to go this far. I only meant for Willow to know. And maybe
Giles. It wasn't supposed to get out. How did it get out?"

"Maybe it had something to do with you sucking my face in the cafeteria."
Xander offered helpfully. "Geez, who would notice something like that? I
mean, aside from the several hundred students having lunch."

"Okay, so maybe that was a little stupid. Anyway , they should have been
minding their own business. How was I to know everybody would suddenly be so
interested in my personal life?"

"Well, this is actually doing wonders for my reputation. You won't believe
some of the rumours I've heard about us." Xander grinned at her. The smile
dissolved under Buffy's glare.

"This is just great." Buffy stared down and paused. After a while she
looked at Xander. "Fine. We're in too deep now. If they want a loving,
passionate couple, they're going to have a loving, passionate couple."

"Err… not that I'm complaining or anything, but don't I get any say in
this?"

"No." Buffy read the leaflet again. "I think we have a dance to go to."

# # #


Buffy and Xander were in Buffy's room. She on the bed, lying on her
stomach, looking down at Xander who was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Several pieces of paper were lying all over the place.

"Okay. Pop quiz." Buffy picked one of the pieces of paper and read from it.
"When did we have our first date?"

Xander closed his eyes and tried to think of the answer. "23rd June."

"Good. Where did we go?"

"Taco Bell." Xander grinned at Buffy. Buffy laughed and smacked his
shoulder lightly with the paper she was holding. He moved out of her range
before telling her the answer. "The Garden."

"That's a good boyfriend. And what did we order?" She tossed aside the
paper and picked up another one. Seeing that there was nothing important
there, she crumpled it up and feebly threw it at Xander. He dodged and the
projectile landed beside him.

"What's the point of all this? I doubt anybody is going to ask me, 'Hey
Xander, when and where did you have your first date with Buffy and ,
perchance, could you tell me what you both ordered?'" Xander picked up the
crumpled piece of paper and threw it back at Buffy, missing wildly.

"I'm just trying to avoid another situation where we end up whistling
jaunty tunes on our first date, Xandy-pie." Buffy replied sweetly. "Now,
what's our song?"

"Liar, liar, pants on fire?"

* * *

Willow knocked on the door twice. She waited for a while before knocking
again. It was a while before Joyce opened the door. "Hi, Willow."

"Hi, Mrs. Summers. Is Buffy home?" Willow asked after Joyce invited her in.

Joyce nodded. "Yeah, she is. She's with Xander, upstairs."

"With Xander, huh?" Willow said. "I'm still not really used to the idea of
them, you know, together. It's strange, isn't it? I mean, one minute they're
friends, and the next minute they're in the cafeteria and you have no idea
what I'm talking about, do you."

Joyce gave Willow a confused look. "What are you talking about?"

"She hasn't told you?" Willow covered her mouth in shock. She hoped she
didn't let slip something Buffy wanted to tell her mother personally. "I
honestly thought … oh dear."


Buffy was about to ask Xander about something else when there was a knock
on her bedroom door. She quickly gathered all the papers around her and
stuffed them into a random drawer before opening the door. Willow and her
mother were standing there.

"Hi mom. Hi Willow." Buffy said monotonously. Xander lamely waved from his
position. Buffy moved aside to allow Willow to enter. Willow had a sheepish
look on her face and Buffy felt something bad just happened. Or was about
to.

"Could I have a word with you, Buffy?" Joyce asked. Buffy nodded and
stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Willow sat down beside Xander
and kept on looking guilty.

"What's that all about?" asked Xander.

"Well … have I got a story for you. In fact, I think many years later we'll
look back on this and laugh." Willow began. "I sort of told Buffy's mom
about … you two …"

"You did what?!"

"Not so loud!" Willow tried to calm him down. "It was an accident. And I
honestly thought she knew. I really, honestly did. You think I'm the type of
person who goes round babbling things to people's mothers?"

"Well, you're doing a pretty good job so far." Xander moved towards the
door.

"Where are you going?" asked an alarmed Willow.

"To listen at the door." Xander placed his ear at the door and listened
hard. Willow , out of curiousity and guilt, followed suit and joined him in
eavesdropping. Outside, Buffy and her mother were having a rather
interesting conversation.

"It's not that I don't approve - Xander is a very nice boy. But I am a
little concerned that you didn't tell me. I had to find out from Willow,
when I should have been hearing it directly from you." Joyce began.

"Willow told you?" Buffy made a mental note to kill Willow. Or at least
maim her. "Well, you see … Xander and I … our relationship is…." She stopped
when she heard a slight movement behind her bedroom door. Her mother ,
however, did not seem to notice.

Buffy suspected that Willow was probably honing in on the conversation. She
couldn't tell her mother truth. At least not now. She continued. "… really ,
really … great. In fact, we were going to tell you today. Until Willow
spoiled the surprise for us."

"You really like him, don't you?" Joyce's face softened.

"No, I just pretend."

Joyce laughed. "I always thought you two made a cute couple. I'm so happy
for you."

Back inside, Xander breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, that went better than
I expected. No fatalities so far."

Several seconds later, the doorknob turned. Willow and Xander quickly
retreated and pretended that they were doing something other than
eavesdropping at the door. Buffy stepped inside, and leaned against the
door. "This just keeps getting better and better…"

"Buffy, I'm so sorry." Willow attempted an apology. "Truthfully, I
seriously didn't know that …"

"Oh, really, there's no need to apology." Buffy said as she walked to her
bed. "Thanks to you, my mother is probably already sending out wedding
invitations. I think it's safe to say that you've been absolutely
wonderful."

"Maybe I should … let you cool down a little…" said Willow, knowing very
well what Buffy could do when she was in a bad mood. "I'll see you in school
tomorrow. When you're feeling … a little less violent. I mean, not that
you're violent now. Or ever. It's just that…"

"Adding coal to the fire…" Buffy tapped her feet impatiently.

"And I'll go right now. Bye." Willow gave a tiny wave and fled.

Xander turned and looked at Buffy. "So, how did it go?"

"You should know very well, since you were listening at the door." Buffy
replied with a tiny grin.

Xander nodded and smiled, since he was found out. "But, correct me if I'm
wrong, wouldn't it be better to just tell your mother the truth? It'll save
us a lot of trouble. And humiliation."

"No. The less people we let on the secret to, the better. Besides, my
mother would probably think that what we're doing is petty and childish."

"You mean it isn't?"

"All right. So maybe it is. But the last thing I want right now is to
involve my mother in any way. Hopefully, she'll leave us alone most of the
time."

"Am I the only one who thinks this is going a little bit two far?" Xander
asked. "I mean, the whole school knows, and now your mom knows … don't you
think it's a little bit too much?"

"Oh, come on." Buffy laid back on her bed. "She thought she was great last
year, but this time we're going to come out on top."

"You're really obsessed with this, aren't you?" He said as he sat on the
bed beside her. "I don't think it's really healthy."

"I don't think of it as an obsession. I like to think of it as dedication."

"My Buffy Muffin's a psychotic freak." Xander flashed her one of his warm
smiles.

Buffy thought he was actually cute. In his own, weird, Xander-ish way. "Is
that so bad?"

"No. It's actually turning me on."

Buffy gave him a look and shoved him off the bed.

# # #

"So, Buffy," said Joyce as she and Buffy were having dinner. "Are you and
Xander going out this weekend?"

"You know, all you've been talking about for the last twenty minutes is
Xander. Aren't you being a little enthusiastic about this?" Buffy asked
after taking a sip from her glass.

"I want to play an active role in my daughter's social life."

"Have you been reading Psychology Today again?" Buffy asked, cracking a
smile. "And if you absolutely must know , yes. There's this lunch-and-dance
thing on Saturday, and we're thinking of going."

"How sweet," responded Joyce. "What are you going to do after that?"

"Well, we're thinking of getting married and having eight children. You
don't mind having eight grandchildren, now do you?"

"All right. If you don't want me to know everything, I perfectly
understand. I'll leave you alone. I respect your privacy," said Joyce, a
little bit offended. "and yes, eight grandchildren would be fine."

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