Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Four

The Xeppo

New Sunnydale, the world without shrimp - October 2007

As Anya swept the floor of the kitchen, Jack rocked happily in his chair in front of her. It was a Saturday, Xander was in the shower, a suit cleanly laid out for him on the bed. Today was a big day. Of the days in his life Xander had worn a suit: homecoming, the prom, his cousin Rory's wedding, his first (unsuccessful) wedding day, and the day that Anya wanted him to act out an odd sex fantasy about James Bond. None of those days had gone over pretty well. if he remembered rightly, his cousin Rory's wedding had included him picking his father off of the bar and having to make sure he didn't throw up on his rented shoes. He shook his head at the memory, grabbing his towel off the rack and looking down at the clothes he supposed he'd have to wear. He wanted to look smart, this was an important achievement. An honour that he still couldn't believe he was being given.

Meanwhile downstairs, Anya had finished sweeping. She sat down in a heap and picked up the baby. He lay patiently in her arms as she grabbed a fresh bottle from the side and started feeding him. But whilst he was preoccupied and Xander was taking far too long to get dressed, she would talk to him. "Today is a big day for daddy. He's being made the mayor of New Sunnydale. That's the town that we live in." She'd probably told him this a thousand times, but he never looked bored, so Anya just kept going. "It used to be a bigger town, but then the First Evil decided to destroy the world so we had to stop it. But that meant that we had to destroy the town too. So now it's New Sunnydale. And it's called Sunnydale because..."

"How do I look, An?" Xander said as he came down the stairs and into the kitchen. He was still tweaking his tie because it was too tight, Anya looked up at him and smiled.

"Very handsome, doesn't daddy look handsome Jack?" She swore she could see him nodding. "You know he's so smart already?" She said to Xander, as he bent over and stroked the side of Jack's face and kissed Anya's lips.

"I know he is. You er, ready to go?" He asked, peeling back and putting his shoes on. He was smiling nervously, his top lip teetering on the edge of creepy. He knew that today was a good thing, that being made mayor was crazy and a great honour, that he wanted to do to the best of his ability. But a little bit of him was scared. He remembered the last mayor Sunnydale had had, and though he was nothing like a three hundred year old demon who really just wanted to be a big snake. It was still affecting him. What if he wasn't good enough to raise both his family and keep the town running smoothly? Although that's exactly what he had been doing for three years now. He put on his braver smile and helped Anya up.

"Yeah, just need to get the stroller out." She replied, handing the baby to Xander and walking out to the car where the stroller was neatly folded up. They were walking to the town hall because they lived barely five minutes from it. Xander followed her out.

"Hey An, let me do that." He said reaching out to help her, but struggling because he was still holding Jack.

"No, I have to do it myself. What happens when you're at work and I have to do on my own?" She snapped back, "why don't these things come with instructions?" She argued with the plastic, trying to force it open.

Xander reached over and clicked something small on the side of the stroller and it popped open. "You just have to-" Anya glared at him.

"You know what I mean though? I'm not used to all this stuff, modern inventions. Give me something made out of wood I can push, something that doesn't fold. I never thought I'd be raising a baby in the twenty first century, Xander. I never thought about any of this stuff." She said, taking Jack from Xander and settling him in the stroller, at last.

"I know. And you're doing an amazing job." She pleaded with him in her eyes, "I mean it. I don't know how half of this stuff works either, it's just about practice. We'll get better at it." Xander put on his brave smile again, he knew she was tired. But she still wanted to come today, still wanted to be there for him. He was about to suggest that she didn't have to come again but he couldn't, the look in her eye told him she needed to be close by today.

Xander stood very sweatily at the lectern. He shuffled through his cue cards again, there was nothing new on any of them, because he'd already read them through twice. He looked out on all the people that were waiting for him to speak. He was disappointing them with his silence. "Uh uh um, I am pleased to be here," he cleared his throat, "I-I mean that I um." He loosened his tie, his red face almost pulsing. He looked at the crowd again, Anya sat all the way over on the right end of the audience, the stroller beside her. He glanced down the row at his friends. Buffy was smiling, urging him to go on. Everyone else looked a little like they'd rather be doing anything else but this. Anya was yawing, she was tired, he didn't blame her for that. It was Buffy's smile that made him go on. If, after everything she was currently going through, that she could come and be here and smile, meant that she believed in him.

He started speaking again, more fluidly this time. "Sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Let me start again. I am very honoured to be named as your mayor for coming year. I hope I'm better than Sunnydale's last mayor, but then again big snake guy was doing wonders for the town's homeless population." The audience laughed, most of them remembered the day of the ascension. Most people who chose to live in New Sunnydale were familiar with the old one, most other people listened to the warnings. "I aim to keep this town out of harm, to try and keep you all safe as well as happy. Something my friends Buffy Summers knows all too well. I thank her for making me brave. I would also like to thank my wife Anya for sticking with me and moving halfway across the world just so I could start working on the formerly Sunnydale site. She is, and always will be, the love of my life." Anya decided at this moment to stand up and curtsey a little until Xander gave the audience a final nod to say he was finished and they started to clap.

He was slowly climbing down from the stage as everyone rose from their seats. Their faces smiling and their applause wild with enthusiasm. Xander stopped walking when he felt eyes on the back of his neck. He scanned the crowd for anything unusual but he was coming up short. Then he spotted it, out of the corner of his eye. A small movement in the trees surrounding the town square. He looked again and he could've sworn the trees were getting closer. "Buffy look!" He yelled pointing behind him as one of the trees grew a bumpy, vamp-like face and started walking towards the stage on its roots. "Anya run! Take Jack home." He continued, but she just looked back at him, stunned.

The crowd began to disperse, running in all directions, leaving the Scoobies in a tight circle surrounded by killer trees. "What the hell do we do now?" Dawn said, but Tara just shrugged. She couldn't think of a single spell they could use to get them out of this. They couldn't just portal away and leave the situation. Get it, leave the situation? Because they're trees.

As the Scoobies back into one another and dreaded what was going to happen next, Anya glared up at the especially bumpy tree in front of her. "What do you want?" She yelled, and all the trees suddenly stopped moving. The largest one slouched, well as much as a tree can slouch. It sat back on its roots and frowned its deep furrowed brow of bark and thought for a moment.

"Can you get a move on with the thinking?" Dawn said, struggling as the ground was beginning to rise beneath their feet. A cacophony of roots was writhing in the earth, making the gang stand on their own tiny hill in the centre of the town square. The main tree held out a branch to stop the others from attacking. This mutiny of sorts had reached its negotiation point.

"I have thought." The grand tree surmised, "we wish to negotiate a peace, who is your leader?" Xander raised his hand slowly, well he hesitated then realised that as mayor of New Sunnydale that role fell to him. The tree didn't look all too impressed. Xander puffed out his chest and was nudged forward to face the trees by someone, probably Willow.

"That is I." He said, then shook his head when he heard how dumb that sounded.

"We trees have rights, you know. And we'd really like some days off now and then." The tree looked around at his colleagues, the guards of the town hall, and they all nodded in agreement. "We can't be on the clock all the time, Barry needs to wash his trunk sometimes." He pointed to the tree next to him, who cowered with embarrassment. The main tree leaned forward, whispering in Xander's ear in his booming, gruff voice, "he has a bark condition."

"Oh well, that makes sense." Xander agreed, despite the utter oddness of this situation, he was just going with it. Apparently he'd seen worse.

"You are a good man. Now, does the mayor's office have benefits for all their employees, I'm thinking dental?" He opened his mouth wide to show Xander an array of jagged teeth, mostly made from bark and pine cones. As they continued discussing various other details of the trees' employment, they walked off towards the town hall. The rest of the gang looked on bewildered, Xander was just casually talking to a tree like he did it everyday. And the other trees were retreating, their roots falling back and lowering the group back onto solid, flat land.

They looked around at themselves, "did that just, happen?" Tara said.

"Maybe we're dreaming?" Dawn replied, staring at the seemingly walking tree in the distance.

Jack fussed from the stroller and Anya picked him up which distracted the girls. But Buffy was still looking at the rest of the trees. She was thinking about how she'd never seen this before. She was being a total Giles-head, as she'd mentally named it, analysing if there were demons inside the trees or if the trees themselves were enchanted. She shook her head to clear her mind, she wasn't working, she wasn't supposed to be investigating. Even if it was all inside her head. She had to admit, she did sometimes miss researching demons.

At the end of the day, the trees walked away happy. And Xander and Anya collapsed onto the bed, fully dressed, not even having the energy to slip beneath the covers. They fell asleep almost instantly. Tired from parenting, and tree-wrangling. But Anya was sure, after watching her husband stay calm in an emergency situation, negotiate with some quite-literally-living trees, and put out a public apology for the disturbance to the crowd. Which just further proved that he was going to make a great town mayor.