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Work in Progress. If you like this story, check out my other stories on the Fanfiction Net, Twisting the Hellmouth, and Fonts of Wisdom websites. Other sites please ask before using.
by Marcus L. Rowland
XXIII
"Jay," shouted Dee, "You just missed a call. San Francisco want you or Kay to contact someone called Rosenberg in Sunnydale. Says there's no hurry, but today would be good."
Jay finished changing his trousers and started to clean cephalopod entrails from his shoes, and shouted "Okay, on it."
Kay came into the rest room with mugs of coffee, his clothes spotless as always.
"Think I'm gonna have to get those trousers incinerated," said Jay. "So how come you get to shoot the cephalopod and I'm the one gets slimed?"
"Because you're the one that insists on opening doors. Did I just hear Dee mention Sunnydale?"
"Yeah, Willow wants us to call. Probably wants to check how things are going with her inheritance."
"Maybe. Didn't think she was that concerned about money."
"Being rich changes people. I kinda liked that girl, it'd be a shame..."
"So call her, find out what it's about."
"Okay, okay." Jay got his cellphone and punched in Willow's number, identified himself, and listened for several minutes, occasionally interrupting with a "yes", "nope," or "maybe," and one "absolutely not." As the conversation went on he began to grin.
"Well?" asked Kay, when the call was complete.
"It wasn't the inheritance. She said to say 'Hi', and she's inviting us both to a wedding."
"I thought she was gay... oh, California, right."
"Not her, some friends. That Anya girl, the ex-demon, and her boyfriend."
"Xander. What about them?"
"Willow has some memories of how the wedding went in her previous lives, says it'll be a disaster without our help."
"So? Saving marriages isn't exactly part of our mission."
"Not that sort of disaster. She says that if it goes wrong all hell will break loose, almost literally. They've got a plan to fix it but it needs us to lend a hand. What she wants isn't actually difficult if Zed will okay it."
"Okay, I'll bite... What's the plan?"
"You're gonna love this..."
"We really need to celebrate," said Buffy, looking round at the group assembled in The Magic Box, "and I know just the place."
"The Bronze?" asked Xander.
"No, somewhere much better," Buffy said mysteriously. "It's about twenty minutes out of town. Come on, it's Friday night, nobody has to be up early tomorrow, and I've booked tables."
"And I'm paying," said Willow, "If I'm gonna be rich I might as well enjoy it."
"See, honey," said Anya, "That's the capitalist ethic at work. Make money then enjoy it."
"Yes, that's how I understand it," said April.
"Yeah right," said Xander, "and sponge off your rich buddies."
"Nothing wrong with that," said Spike, "better than sucking them dry anyhow."
"Lighten up, Xander, it really is a special occasion," said Buffy. "Warren's out of the way, even if I didn't get to do it myself. I suppose I ought to feel sorry for him, but after the way he screwed up my life, and what we know happened to Tara in Willow's other lives, it feels like a huge weight's been lifted off my mind. I want us all to feel the way I do."
"Okay," said Xander, finally grinning, "let's party."
"C'mon everyone." Buffy led them outside, where a huge black stretch limo was parked. "Willow laid on transportation."
"Wow," said Xander, waiting as Anya locked the shop. Dawn climbed aboard first, sitting next to Buffy and Spike in the front row of seats. Tara, Willow, and April quickly took the middle row, leaving the back row for Xander and Anya. As soon as everyone was in the car it set off towards the outskirts of Sunnydale.
"So what's out this way?" asked Xander, "thought it was just farms and wineries."
"Oh, we just need to go a little further than that." The car reached a clear section of road; its engines roared and it started to accelerate, taking off and rapidly reaching cruising speed a little below the speed of sound, a few hundred feet up. Anya gasped and held on to Xander's arm, he didn't complain.
"Holy crap," said Xander. "Where the hell is this place anyway? Krypton?"
The black glass window between the passengers and driver's compartment slid down, and Jay looked back at the passengers. "Everyone comfortable?" In the driver's seat Kay selected a CD track and Elvis began to sing 'Viva, Las Vegas.'
"I can't believe this," said Joe McVitie, "Three weeks we've been planning to deliver this backup generator, and they can't even remember to keep the loading bay clear for us."
The gigantic Sunnydale Power low-loader waited behind the hospital as the staff tried to find out who owned a van that was blocking the bay. Eventually the superintendent called the police, and a patrolman smashed a window to get inside the van and move it. It was only when he was getting out that he noticed the smell and found the body.
"You must have been planning this for days," Xander said as he looked around the restaurant table at the Scoobies, Spike, Jay, Kay, and April.
Willow said "After Buffy's birthday disaster it just seemed like a neat idea to go somewhere nice and have a proper party. I didn't want it to be anywhere in Sunnydale, but it'd cause too many problems if we went somewhere that took a lot of travel time. Then I remembered how quickly we got to San Francisco and asked Jay and Kay to help. They'd already promised to give Dawn and Spike a ride, it wasn't much more trouble to get a bigger car."
"Caesar's Palace. Wow."
"Actually," said Willow, "there is another reason for coming here. Something we need to discuss."
"We?" Xander realised her tone was suddenly a lot more serious.
"Anya, this concerns you too. Okay, this is a little difficult to explain..."
"What is?" asked Anya.
"You know I've lived through several different versions of my life, especially the months since Warren first started messing us around."
"So?" asked Xander.
"Most of the differences related to things Warren and his friends did. But there was one thing that was pretty constant in some of them, something that's coming up in a few days, something that Warren was never involved in. Your wedding."
"Okay, so we get married."
"That's the problem, you don't. Things happen, and the wedding ends up as a disaster."
"What?" Anya and Xander chorused.
"I can't say exactly what happens, because my memories aren't that clear, I never saw all of it, and I was too wrapped up in my own problems to pay full attention. I know that it isn't either of you that causes the problem. I think someone... something... crashes the ceremony and messes with people's minds. There's a big fight. Whatever, the ceremony goes horribly wrong and you two don't marry; in all of my memories that go that far you're still trying to get your lives back together when I become a vengeance demon."
"That's a hell of a thing to tell us," said Anya.
"There's a pretty obvious fix. Even if the ceremony goes wrong, it won't mess up your lives too badly if you're already married."
"What?" asked Xander.
"It won't mess up your lives if you're already married."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Las Vegas, Xander. Wedding chapels. We finish our meal, we go to one, we have a nice ceremony, you two are married, and we change the ceremony in Sunnydale to affirmation of your wedding vows."
"But I want a proper wedding," said Anya, "With a dress and bridesmaids and flowers and maids of honour and a honeymoon. I can't believe you're serious."
"You can do all that at an affirmation ceremony."
"Anya's right," said Xander, "I know you mean well, but it just wouldn't be the same."
"Think about it for a while," said Willow, "and have another drink."
"..now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride." Xander and Anya kissed enthusiastically, wobbling a little as they did so.
"You don't think that was a little unethical?" Tara quietly asked Willow.
"It was a lot unethical, but I'm gonna tell them what I did when they've sobered up properly, let them take it out on me. I know it was a really sneaky trick, but I didn't actually do anything to influence their decision except get them drunk. It's just good that Kay knew one of the staff there and got him to spike their drinks." Secretly she was relieved that Jay and Kay hadn't gone along with her original plan, to neuralyze Xander and Anya every time they said 'no' until they agreed to marry. It would have probably worked, but it made the ethics of getting them drunk look snow white, and Tara wouldn't have been happy.
"Anya is gonna want to kill you," whispered Dawn, "for the hangover if nothing else."
"I know," said Willow, "but it had to be done."
Xander and Anya finally broke their embrace and stood a little unsteadily in front of the altar, while everyone showered them with confetti and flowers and the chapel's photographer took pictures. Jay and Kay took care to stay out of shot. Finally Anya threw her bouquet out towards them. Buffy, Willow, Tara and Dawn all automatically reached up, but it was April that caught them.
"You know what catching them means?" asked Willow.
"No. What?"
"Okay, you need to do a little more reading on marriage customs."
"It means you're the next one to get married," said Dawn.
"Oh. Is that a legal requirement?" asked April.
"No, just superstition."
"Oh. Okey-dokey."
"You sounded a little disappointed," said Tara, when she was sure nobody else was listening.
"There is someone I like, but they don't know and I'm not sure it would work."
"Who?"
"Promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Of course."
April whispered a name in her ear. Tara looked startled, then thoughtful, then said "Okay... kind of unconventional, but maybe not impossible. Want me to drop a few hints?"
"Better not. Maybe after the other wedding... I don't want anyone distracted."
"Okay. You know, the more I get to know you, the more I'm sure you're a perfect member of the Scooby Gang. Your brand of weirdness is right at home here."
"Thank you... I think."
"Sorry, it's just... my standards of weirdness have had to change a few times in the last couple of weeks, before that I might have found the idea a little disturbing."
"I understand."
"Good. Come on, I think we're heading back to Sunnydale."
Xander woke, felt Anya beside him, and wondered why his head felt like it was about to explode. Gradually his memories of the night before came back, and he tried to separate his dreams from reality. Lots of booze... lots and lots of booze... and a wedding? That couldn't be right, they were back in their own apartment, how could they marry without going on honeymoon?
He looked at his hand, and groaned as he saw that he was wearing a gold ring that hadn't been there before. Beside him Anya was making the same discovery.
"Do you remember what I think I remember?" asked Xander.
"If it's getting married then I guess the answer is yes."
"Okay. Step one, Mrs. Harris, I get both of us water, Alka-Seltzer, and coffee. Step two, we find Willow and she dies a horrible lingering death for conning us into drinking so much before we made a decision..."
"No. Step one, I get to the bathroom and throw up, then the rest of it." Anya ran out.
"Well, that went well," Willow said an hour or so later.
"What do you mean?" asked Tara. "I don't think Anya and Xander plan to talk to you again... to any of us again... ever."
"I'm sorry, I tried to make it so that they only blamed me, but they didn't buy it once they realised no-one else had been given spiked drinks."
"You did your best.. but they were holding hands while they were yelling at us," said Buffy, "so I think the marriage is gonna be okay."
"That's what I was thinking," said Willow.
"What about the ceremony?" asked Dawn.
"Either she has us as bridesmaids," said Buffy, "or she finds new girls and arranges new costumes in less than a week. If she doesn't invite us she's gonna have to change the seating plan too. I have a feeling she's gonna come around."
"Would you like me to talk to her?" asked April, "Maybe I could explain the economic issues."
"So far I think you're the one person here she isn't blaming," said Willow, "let's try to keep you out of it as much as possible."
"Okey-dokey," said April, looking a little relieved.
"Hey, that's Xander's car again," said Dawn, looking out of the window, "Maybe they thought of something else to shout at us."
Xander and Anya came back into the house, carrying the morning paper.
"Okay," said Xander, "while you were all busy messing with our lives last night, things just got a little weirder. I think we've got something else to worry about."
Buffy and the others crowded round to read the story.
"Distinguished former transplant surgeon murdered at hospital...." said Willow. "What does this have to do with us?"
"Read down the page to the part about the stolen body," said Xander, "and the kidney spontaneously combusting as they were examining it."
"Someone stole a corpse to steal the kidneys," said Buffy, "and the next thing they know it's three days later and there's a doctor's body in a parked van, with neck wounds and severe blood loss... Okay, so the corpse came back to life and killed the doctor? Not exactly novel in this town, apart from the kidney part. Must have been turned, started to come back as the doctor was taking the kidney. Kidney's part of a vampire, so it combusts in sunlight."
"Think about the date, Buffy. They don't say whose body was stolen, but remember who died in that hospital that night?"
"Oh crap," said Buffy, "Jerry must have started to turn him before we got there."
"Warren," Willow said flatly. "He's back, and this time he's a vampire."
To Be Continued
