by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
Manhattan, 1992
"Flying home?" Niles asked Miss Babcock, offering her a broomstick.
"I'm walking, actually. You know, that thing where you exercise?" C.C. patted his stomach pointedly and swept out the door, head held high, that hideous olive overcoat she loved so much flowing out behind her on a breath of Chanel #5. "Nighty-night, Butler Boy."
Niles frowned. As soon as she was gone, he pulled out his overcoat and put it on, slipping out the front door after her.
The last thing he did was to reach into the Ming vase on the front hall table and pull out the object hidden there, a long wooden stick pointed at one end. He slid it into his coat pocket and started after her.
He hurried to catch up as he saw her enter Central Park. Good God, did she think she was invincible, walking through the park two hours after dark?
Sure enough, it wasn't two minutes before he saw the shadow creature trailing her. A lone beautiful woman would need the luck of the Irish to make it through Central Park at night, and C.C. wasn't Irish -- or, at times, particularly lucky. Unless you counted brains, beauty, wealth, and a great set of -- Okay, focus! he told himself sternly as he fixed his eyes on the creature trailing the oblivious C.C.
Niles crept up behind it. He tapped it on the shoulder, his heart pounding wildly with fear, and as the monstrous face swung around to look down at him, Niles swung with all his strength and plunged the wooden stake into the creature's heart. With a look of shock, the vampire disintegrated into dust. Niles kicked his feet to get the dust off of his wingtips.
Ahead of him, C.C. walked on unknowing. Niles stayed behind her until he saw her go in the door of her apartment building, then took a taxi home. No sense tempting fate.
California, 1999
"C.C., there's a Mrs. Chase on the telephone."
"Thank you, Maxwell. Ardelia, darling, is that you? How are you? Yes, I know. How's Corinna? Sorry, Cordelia, whatever. I can't wait to see you at the wedding next week! Whyever not? Darling, I thought you were going to be a bridesmaid! Ardelia, don't be absurd, there's nothing to fear. I admit my husband's a little odd, but essentially harmless. Listen . . . all right, all right. No, I can't tomorrow. Today? It's a little late -- well, all right, but I can't stay long. Yes, darling, I can't wait to see you either. Kiss kiss, hug hug, sweetie darling."
C.C. hung up the telephone with a grimace of distaste. Before she could speak, Niles asked her, "So if you don't want to see her, why are you going?"
C.C. glanced at him in surprise. "How did you know what I was thinking?"
"Elementary, my dear Babcock. You said kiss twice, hug twice, and called her sweetie darling right after telling her you can't wait to see her," Niles explained. "So dish. Former bridesmaid ditches you and you run to her side despite the fact that you'd obviously rather stay home and molest your new husband in the pool house." He slid an arm around her waist.
C.C. leaned her head against his shoulder. "Ardelia's always been a little unusual. If you think I'm unstable, you should see her. We were old friends from college, until she married some rich investor named Chase and moved to his hometown, a little place about two hours from here called Sunnydale. She has a daughter, Cordelia, who's in her senior year of high school. I asked Ardie to be one of my bridesmaids, but now she says she can't because it's a moonlight wedding and she says there are monsters at night. She's babbling some nonsense about witches and werewolves and all your basic Sci-Fi-Channel-in-October lineup."
"So why the angel of mercy act?" Max asked as Niles cringed at C.C.'s description.
C.C. shrugged. "She is an old friend, so I promised I'd have tea with her. Social duty, then I can beg off on business excuses until they finally lock her up." She grabbed her purse. "Tea is at four, so I doubt I'll be back before dinnertime. Have Angelica save me a tray and I'll be home hopefully by eight or nine." She kissed Niles on her way out. At the last minute, she whispered, "Have the gardeners leave the pool house unlocked for us tonight."
Niles nibbled on her earlobe and murmured, "How about if I lay out that sexy new red swimsuit of yours?"
C.C. smiled. "How about if you turn off the floodlights so no one but you knows whether I'm wearing anything at all?"
Niles groaned in agony as she swept out, laughing softly to herself.
Ardelia Chase's dark eyes sparkled with tears of laughter. "Oh, C.C. And you always seemed like the proper one. I wish I'd been there. An elopement at a hospital, to a butler! What a riot!" She dabbed at her eyes with a little lace hanky. "I'm so sorry I won't be at the big wedding next week."
C.C. lifted a delicate floral-patterned china cup to her lips as she formulated her reply. "Ardie, isn't there anything I can do to make you feel better?"
Ardelia reached forward, wrapping her fingers with their long, red-laquered nails around C.C.'s delicate wrist until C.C. winced in pain and nearly dropped her teacup. "Cancel the wedding," she whispered. "Or make it a daytime wedding so nobody has to be out at night at all."
C.C. jerked back, a splash of tea burning her hand. "Ardelia, you are being ridiculous! There will be two hundred people at this wedding. It will be perfectly safe." What a nutcase! I wish Niles were here -- zingers and all!.
"Once, I'd have thought so too," Ardelia answered with a faraway look in her eyes. "Now I know better. So many have disappeared, C.C. Do you remember Diana Pendleton?"
"Of course. She was always lookout when we had boys in our hall after curfew. Of course, that's because nobody wanted her." C.C. hooted with laughter, but her mirth tapered off abruptly at the look on her old friend's face.
"She wasn't looking out well enough," Ardelia said ominously. "Gone."
C.C.'s eyes widened. "Dead?" she asked numbly.
"No one knows. Kidnapped from her car, and only her purse and a few drops of blood as evidence."
C.C.'s eyes cut nervously to the window. Late afternoon would soon give way to twilight, and if there was a psycho killer loose in this town, C.C. wanted to be well away before he had a whack at her. "Look, Ardie, it's been fun, but it is getting late -- "
"Hi Mom!" A stunning brunette of around seventeen bounced in, ponytail swinging, a Prada knapsack with a few textbooks slung over her shoulder. "Back before dark, as per instructions. Of course, it's all moot because I'm going to the Bronze with the gang tonight." Cordelia Chase wrinkled her tiny nose in disgust. "Oh, God, when did Xander's loser friends become 'the gang'?"
"I know the feeling," C.C. murmured with a smile.
The girl's eyes widened. "Oh my God, you must be Ms. Babcock! Is it true you married the butler? I mean, that is so forties!"
So are you, Babcock, Niles' voice murmured inside her head. Dammit all to hell, even when he wasn't there she was insulting herself!
"Anyway," Cordelia added perkily, shrugging off her jacket to reveal a cheerleader outfit. "I'm just here to change and then I'm meeting everybody at school. My car's acting funny, Mom, can I take yours?"
Ardelia's hands tightened on her teacup. "You know I hate you going out at night," she murmured anxiously.
"But everything cool happens at night! Look, I'll be with Buffy, and you know nobody messes with her, because she's always kicking some vamp -- I mean, somebody's butt."
"Call me when you get to school," Ardelia said anxiously. "Maybe you should take a cab so somebody will be with you the whole time."
C.C. leapt at this chance to escape. "I'll be happy to drive her, Ardie. I should be going anyway."
"This is so cool! What is this?"
"It's a '57 Chevy. It was my wedding gift to my husband."
"The servant?"
"Hey, don't knock the feather duster 'till you've tried it."
Cordelia fell silent with a look of disgust. "Oooh, wait! Pull over. There's Xander, my boyfriend, and his loser friends. Guys!"
C.C. eyed the three. One, obviously Xander, was a tall, fairly attractive dark-haired young man with polyester clothes that screamed "future french fry manufacturer." One was a petite blonde with slightly slagged hair, but otherwise fashionable and annoyingly young and pretty. The third was a short redheaded girl wearing, of all things, a denim miniskirt and lime green tennis shoes.
C.C. raised an eyebrow at Cordelia. "These are your friends, and you doubt the qualifications of my Oxford-educated butler?"
"Hey. Xander knows what to do in a broom closet."
"Yeah," agreed C.C. "That was my downfall, too."
Cordelia waved enthusiastically. "Hop in, you guys. Isn't this car cool? This is Mom's friend Ms. Babcock. Ms. Babcock, this is Buffy, Willow, and Xander."
Doesn't anyone in this town have a normal name? C.C. thought, somewhat hypocritically. Acknowledging the introductions and cringing as Buffy hopped over the side into the car, removing a chip of paint with her spike heel, C.C. steered them toward the high school, which loomed in the distance like a nightmare from the better-off-forgotten teenage years.
"So," Cordelia said brightly. "You killed a vamp. I can tell by your hair."
Buffy shrieked and grabbed a comb out of her little pink patent-leather purse. "Willow!" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I didn't notice," wailed Willow.
Buffy shot Xander a look.
"Hey," he said, "I like the slagged look."
"Uh -- killed a vamp?" asked C.C.
The four looked at each other in horror.
"Um," said Buffy.
"Uh," said Xander.
"Video games!" said Willow. "Vampire video games. We get really into them," she explained cheerfully. "Sometimes hair gets slagged. All part of the fun."
C.C. rolled her eyes. She concentrated on guiding the car into the parking lot. "Is there a phone inside? I'm running late. I should call home."
As she exited the car, the only one of the five to bother opening the door first, C.C. reflected on the unique pleasure of having someone actually care whether or not she was late coming home. Okay, so she just wanted to call and torment Niles some more. Maybe a few pointed references to a possible one-woman stop at a rest area . . .
C.C. trailed the teens toward the building. As she did, a shadow flitted across the manicured lawn out of the corner of her eye. To her surprise, it was a familiar face.
C.C. started across the grass, hands outstretched. "Diana! Darling, I heard you'd gone missing! That must've just been Ardelia being silly. Although, you do look a little pale -- "
"Ms. Babcock, no!" screamed Buffy as Diana Pendleton took C.C. in her arms.
C.C. felt a sharp pain in her neck as Diana's bleach blonde hair brushed her face. "Ha ha, very funny, Di, let me guess. You're into that embracing your inner wild woman crap -- Diana, this hurts, let go. Okay, why are you not -- ugh -- letting -- ow -- go?" C.C. shoved her away harshly . . .
And screamed. Diana's lovely face was a demonic mask, her lips stained scarlet with C.C.'s blood.
My baby, C.C. thought in agony, her arm flying protectively toward her stomach as the other arm was thrown up to shield herself. Niles! Dear God, I'm going to die and there are so many things I never told him! Then the monster that had been her sorority sister was grabbing her by the lapels and hauling her toward that gaping, horrific mouth.
Suddenly C.C. was thrown backward, tumbling hard on the grass as a whirling figure came between them. C.C. rolled away and curved her body protectively over her stomach, watching in horror as tiny Buffy flew at Diana, kicking and punching with a violent grace.
Buffy drew something long and sharp out of her sleeve and jabbed it in Diana's chest. Before C.C.'s very eyes, her former college dorm mate exploded into a heap of dust.
Then, all sensation left C.C.
She awoke in a place that smelled like her father's study, and someone with sandy hair spoke to her in a soothing English aC.C.ent. "Niles," she murmured reflexively, reaching up to caress the face. Then, as her vision cleared and her brain began to function, the man smiled kindly. "No," he said gently. "My name is Giles. You had a bit of a run-in, I'm afraid."
C.C. drew back her hand from his cheek and leaned up on her elbows, giving a terrified look around her.
"Just lay back, you're safe here," the man called Giles said gently. "Who is Niles? Is he someone we should call?"
"It's her husband," Cordy said helpfully. "She married her business partner's butler. Can you imagine?"
A look of recognition lit Giles' face. "Good lord. Surely you aren't Ms. Babcock? Why, you're my sister!" He smiled in delight.
C.C. gaped at him. "What the hell are you talking about?" She looked at Cordy. "What the hell is he talking about?"
Giles smiled again. "Well, my sister-in-law. It's my brother Niles that you married. We would have met anyway at your formal wedding on Saturday."
"Oh," said C.C. weakly. Her neck ached horribly, and she lifted her hand to find an ace bandage taped there. She tried to sit up, but was overtaken by a wave of dizziness.
Giles caught her before she could roll off the table she was lying on. He lifted her, stuffing a rolled-up sweater more securely beneath her head. "Just relax, Ms. Babcock, and go back to sleep. I'm going to call Niles. I'm sure he'll be here as soon as he can."
C.C. nodded weakly and smiled.
"Your brother scrubs toilets?" Cordelia asked in disbelief. But C.C. was already unconscious again and couldn't whack her. Giles merely issued a dignified glare from behind wire-rimmed glasses.
The door to the library burst in. Everyone inside, with the exception of the unconscious C.C., tensed and whirled in an instinctive fighting stance.
The man who entered had dark blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, and a stocky, Armani-clad body. He entered at a run, falling across the body on the table. "Babcock! Darling, baby, angel, trollop, what have they done to you?" He gathered the limp body in his arms. "Don't leave me, precious, take me with you. I'll be a vampire too, only don't go without me . . . " C.C. began to stir, shifting restlessly and moaning. "Babcock! You're alive!"
"I, ah, tried to tell you, but you sort of -- wigged, as the children would say," Giles said quietly, clapping a hand to his brother's shoulder. "She'll be fine."
Niles gently lay C.C. back on the table and embraced his brother. "Thanks for looking after her, old man."
Giles smiled and started to say something. Then, a soft, high-pitched sigh from C.C. had both men leaning over her. "Babcock," Niles said tenderly. "You should know better than to visit your family after dark. You always come home looking like death warmed over."
"Shuddup, dish jockey," mumbled C.C., raising her arms and draping them weakly around him.
Niles sat on the table and gently lifted her so she lay quietly against his chest. Still exhausted from the loss of blood, C.C. drifted in and out as Giles introduced the teenagers and caught him up on events.
"Vampires," Niles said softly. "Christ, old man, I knew that was your line, but I never imagined it would touch us. Her. She's so well protected." He shuddered. "Every once in a while I used to follow her home if I suspected she wasn't taking enough care, but now that we're married, I never thought . . . " He caressed her face.
C.C., who was sleeping again, woke at her husband's familiar touch on her cheek. She inhaled his scent and knew him before she even opened her eyes. Nobody else's arms had ever felt this right, this strong. Well, maybe in that Harrison Ford fantasy after she saw Temple of Doom . . .
"Paco Robanne and lemon bowl fresh," she murmured drowsily, clinging weakly to him. Suddenly, a thought jerked her to full awareness. "Niles, the baby!"
"What is it?" he asked instantly, supporting her as she struggled to sit up.
"I think it's okay," she said, "But I was so scared. What if that thing had hurt our baby?"
Niles smiled and held her tight. "Either of my babies," he said softly. "I could never live without either of you."
The library door burst open again, and a dark-haired couple flew in. "Man," said the female in a nasal whine. "This is such a nightmare. I can just hear my principal telling me I'll never get into college. Hey, what do you know, he was right! And I so don't care!" Fran and Max skidded to a halt.
"C.C.!" Max gasped, hurrying to her side. "Old man, what happened to her?"
"Well, it seems -- " started Giles and Niles at once.
"He means me," said Niles. "You see, Mr. Sheffield, it seems my lovely wife is going through this experimental phase and acquired quite a hickey from an old friend who hates crosses and sunlight."
"C.C.'s going through a lesbian phase?" Max's jaw dropped. "C.C., for shame! And you married with a baby on the way. You couldn't have done this in college like everyone else?"
Niles looked plaintively at his brother. "Your turn."
Giles cleared his throat. "Ms. Babcock's personal proclivities are not under issue here. That was my brother's unique way of telling you that Ms. Babcock was attacked by a vampire."
Max and Fran looked at each other. "Huh?"
"It's true," C.C. protested, standing on unsteady feet. "Look!" She pulled the bandage from her throat and tipped back her head. Her hair fell back to reveal large red bite marks.
Max and Fran gasped. "Niles!" Fran wailed. "You never told me you had a brother!"
Max and Giles, who knew each other from way back, shook hands. Then, Giles turned. "Niles, Ms. Babcock, you're welcome to stay at my apartment tonight."
"No!" Niles said firmly. "I'm taking her home where she'll be safely guarded."
"Is she well enough to travel, do you think?" Giles asked, two tiny frown lines appearing between his eyes.
"The pool house awaits," C.C. reminded her husband, nudging him.
"She's fine," Niles assured them with a grin. "Watch this." He turned to her. "Hag."
"Dust Buster."
"Trollop.
"Mr. Clean."
"Frighten any children lately with that ugly face, Babcock?"
"You mean the picture of you I keep in my purse?"
"See?" Niles said proudly. "She's in fine form."
"You gave me an easy one," C.C. conceded. "Hit me hard."
"Okay. You're so old that -- "
C.C. fainted dead away.
Niles lifted her. "How far is your place?" he asked Giles with a sigh.
Buffy disappeared to "patrol" as the procession slowly wound its way through downtown Sunnydale and to the other side, where Giles lived alone in a nondescript rented condo. Giles, in his tiny European junkmobile, went first, with Xander, Willow, and Cordelia with him. Next came the '57 Chevy with a very nervous Niles at the wheel and a still-drowsy C.C. curled up beside him. Finally, Fran and Max in the Aston-Martin pulled up in front of Giles' home.
Although it was a perfectly ordinary and featureless apartment complex on the outside, they noticed at once that Giles' door was heavily locked and barred. As he worked the complex mechanisms he'd installed for his own protection, Niles supported C.C. against his shoulder and Fran and Max looked around anxiously. Sunnydale, they'd already guessed, was no place to be out after midnight.
"Hey, Paranoia Man," Xander said sarcastically. "Did it ever oC.C.ur to you that we could be dead from a big vampire gang bang before we ever get inside your nice, comfy, vacuum-sealed home?"
C.C. lifted her head. "Gang bang?" she said with interest.
"Go back to sleep," Niles told her irritably. Off the astonished looks of their companions, he explained, "She learned from Heidi Fleiss herself!"
Everyone shook their heads and held up their hands in self-defense as Giles, oblivious to everything, finally got the door open. With a loud whoosh, the door swung inwards.
"Ah," Max sighed. "So comfy. So British."
Fran grimaced. "It's dark, gloomy . . . oh. Right. British."
"Tea, anyone?" Giles asked politely.
All hands went up.
"Niles, perhaps you'd just lay C.C. on the sofa, there. Willow, stay out of my magic books, they aren't toys. No, Xander, I do not have any potato chips. Where is Cordelia?"
"In here," yelled Cordelia from the bathroom.
"Call of nature?" Willow asked.
"Nearest mirror," Xander replied.
"Hey! Lemme in there!" yelled Fran.
"Call of nature?" Niles joked.
"Nearest mirror," he and Max chorused, chuckling.
Suddenly, the door blew open. A tall, dark, menacing young man stood there. Everyone whirled into their fighting stances, then relaxed as Giles waved a hand. "Angel. Please come in."
Angel, darkly gorgeous and artistically brooding, ran a hand through his spiky black hair and stepped over the threshold. Behind him, tiny blonde Buffy whirled in. "We got trouble," she announced.
"So what else is new?" Xander shrugged.
Buffy's shoulder was set at an awkward angle. "Giles, gimme help," she said. "Angel, hang on tight."
Angel grabbed her firmly around the waist, bracing her against his body. Giles took hold of the wounded limb and gave it a good wrench. Buffy flinched, but her dislocated shoulder was in place once more.
Niles, Max, and Fran all cringed and yowled in sympathetic pain.
"Whazzat, lover?" inquired C.C., opening one eye halfway.
"Nothing, Kitten," he soothed.
There was a loud whistle. "Ah, tea's ready," Giles said in satisfaction.
When they were all seated comfortably, Giles turned to Buffy. "What did you learn patrolling?"
"That next time I'm gonna ram my heel so far up Spike's butt he'll be able to taste leather, complete with the dog doo I slipped in when he yanked out my shoulder."
"You saw Spike?" Giles asked.
Angel spoke. "Drusilla found me in the park. She was raving with visions, all about a prophecy of four lovers who will cause the earth to tremble and Sunnydale to be invaded by legions of madmen."
"Wait a sec -- who are Spike and Drusilla?" asked Fran.
"Vampires," explained Giles. "Spike is a particularly vicious specimen, once a countryman of ours," he added, sweeping his arm to include Max and Niles. "Drusilla is his ladylove, as mad as they come, and much given to having visions."
"But who could these four lovers be?" asked Fran.
Everyone shook his or her head in wonderment.
C.C. yawned and tucked herself further into Niles' embrace as Fran perched herself on Max's lap.
"May I take C.C. upstairs to rest?" Niles asked politely. "I'm afraid she's still woozy from blood loss."
"Of course," Giles agreed. "First door on the left."
Niles half-walked, half-carried his weary wife up the stairs.
"Niles, I'm scared," she yawned, sitting down on the bed. "Please, will you stay with me?"
"Only if you promise to rest."
"Okay," she agreed, crossing her fingers behind her back.
Niles snuggled up next to her, and she began persuasively raining kisses on his face and neck. He disengaged her busy hands and pushed her away. "Rest," he said firmly. "You're not well."
"No," she agreed cheerfully, "I'm fantastic. Please, just a little, to drive away the scary stuff?"
"Well . . . I suppose, when you put it that way . . . Aren't these clothes awfully constrictive?"
"Yeah," purred C.C.
Their lips and hands met, and their bodies soon followed.
A loud thumping caused those below to jump. "What was that?" demanded Max.
"They're being attacked!" cried Giles, leaping to his feet and grabbing for a battle axe mounted on the wall.
"No, no, everybody sit down," Fran soothed, waving her hands reassuringly. "Niles is just givin' C.C. a little good medicine."
Just then, they heard from upstairs a loud male groan and a female "OH!" But before they could express their disgust, they were distracted -- by a thumping and rattling that encompassed the entire house.
"Boy can they go at it!" yelled Fran, as bric-a-brac went flying all around. "I've heard of the earth moving, but this is ridiculous!"
"Earthquake!" roared Giles. He shepherded his guests into doorways, which he had heard was the safest place in a quake.
Slowly, the world stopped shaking and returned to its normal, non-trembling state. "Lovers with the power to make the earth move," Angel murmured.
"Don't ever let them do that again," growled Max, sitting gingerly down as though he feared the sofa would slide out from under him.
Niles came down the stairs still straightening his tie a couple of minutes later. "She's resting comfortably," he assured them.
"How can she, after that earthquake?" asked Giles.
"What earthquake?" Niles asked innocently.
"Damn," said Angel, awestruck. "My hat's off to you, man."
The next morning, Fran and Max, having spent an uncomfortable night on the sofa, awoke in none too pleasant a mood.
"What time is it?" Max mumbled sleepily.
"Noon," she mumbled. "Oh., wait a sec, I'm upside down." Fran sat up and looked at the clock again. "Six a.m.," she moaned. "The last time I was up this early, it was because I had a date at seven."
"You went on a date at seven a.m.?" Max asked in astonishment.
"No, p.m. It takes time to look this good."
Max chuckled and gathered her into his arms. "I believe we're the first up," he murmured in her ear, his breath tickling her neck.
Fran giggled and squirmed. "And I believe you're just up!" she said coyly.
Some time later, there was a shriek of, "Oh, Mr. Sheffield!" and another earthquake.
Giles yowled pathetically as the sofa in his office slid across the floor and he struck his elbow on the edge. Then, just when he thought it was safe, an aftershock sent a stack of books tumbling on his head.
He threw on his bathrobe and stomped down the hall. Rapping sharply on the bedroom door, he yelped, "Will you two knock it off?"
Niles yanked the door open, obviously recently awoken from a sound sleep. He growled irritably, "That wasn't us. That was an earthquake!"
Giles' handsome face creased with worry. "Get dressed," he said urgently.
The Sheffields, Niles and C.C., Giles, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordy, and Willow's boyfriend Oz, a bizarre and silent young man with blue hair -- today -- all sat around a table in the high school library before homeroom.
"Are you tryin' to tell me," demanded C.C., her je ne sais quois fully restored by several hours' sleep, "that every time we have sex, there's an earthquake?"
"In a nutshell, yes," Giles assured her.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh," exploded Fran.
Niles, C.C., and Max all looked at her. "Ditto," they agreed.
"Okay, first of all, ewwwww," said Buffy.
"Ditto," mumbled Giles, rubbing his sore elbow.
"Second of all," continued the young slayer, "We've figured out that you four are the prophesied lovers with the power to make the earth move. But what about the second part of the prophecy? It says in this book that the town will be invaded by legions of crazy people, and the only way to stop it is for the group to be fully united in every way."
"What does that mean?" asked C.C.
Giles shook his head. "Evidently, there are some unresolved issues in each of you. That, coupled with the powerful love that exists among you, is causing the current disturbances. Sunnydale is a very powerful mystical place, where everything you four feel will be exaggerated. Your, ah, passions, for example, are literally making the earth move. Example: aC.C.ording to the morning paper, last night at 12:23, there was a 3.3 richter scale quake. This morning, there was a 2.9."
"That's really fantastic!" said Niles enthusiastically.
"You mean," asked Fran, "This powerful evidence of how much we all really love each other?"
"No -- " he said. "I mean, our quake was bigger than yours!" Niles jumped to his feet and enfolded his wife in an enthusiastic bear hug.
"Only a little," muttered a sulky Max.
But Niles and C.C. were already mentally elsewhere. His hand slid into her hair and she leaned into his embrace as they kissed, and her hands slid under his jacket. Beneath their feet, there was a low, faint rumbling.
"Knock it off!" roared their audience in one voice.
"Geez!" added Buffy for emphasis.
Fran gave them each a good solid whack with her Prada purse. "Whadda, we gotta hose you people down?" she demanded. "You're gonna trash the whole town that way!"
Giles coughed delicately as Niles and C.C. separated. "It may be advisable for you to remember that lives are at stake every time you two decide to, ah . . . "
"Bust your moves," contributed Buffy.
"Good metaphor!" approved Willow.
"Tenderize the T-bone," said Xander.
"Boy metaphor," said Willow, wrinkling her nose.
"Dance the funky fandango," contributed Oz.
Everyone stared at him. "Huh?" they all said at once.
Niles and C.C. went to sit down, and found themselves three seats away from each other as Giles, Buffy, and Max all interposed themselves. C.C. leaned forward to cast her husband her trademark wicked grin, which he returned with an endearing, crooked smile.
"No! Down!" said Fran.
"Tell that to him," panned C.C. After years of playing the ice princess to Fran's tarty charm, she was fully enjoying the focus being on her charms for once.
Max cast Fran a sulky look. "I can't believe they made a bigger earthquake than we did," he griped, looking adorably wounded.
"Don't worry," said Niles sweetly. "It was bound to happen, when I was working with bigger artillery." His mock-sympathetic twisting of the knife drew a delighted cackle from his wife.
"Can we get back to the point?" moaned Giles.
"I thought his 'point' was the point," C.C. piped up. Niles hooted approvingly.
"I have such a bad feeling about this," muttered Buffy.
Her bad feeling was fully justified. Two minutes later, there was a trembling under their feet. "I didn't do it!" said Niles.
"None of us did," Max said nervously. "Maybe it's just an aftershock from our quakes."
A huge brunette burst through the door. "Nilesy!" she roared.
"Frieda!" he howled in terror and crawled under the table.
"Aunt Frieda!" cried Fran in delight. She'd always had a weak spot for her unconventional, five-times-married aunt.
"Outta my way, Frannie. I got a bone to pick with Niles." To the astonishment of everyone present, she grabbed Niles by the belt and dragged him out, kicking and flailing wildly, from under the table. "Is this why ya left me, Nilesy? My big, hunky butler? Was it that big-hipped bleach blonde tramp who stole you away?"
Niles gathered his usual aplomb around him and said soothingly. "Now, Free, it just wasn't our time. What we had was lucrative -- I mean, lovely -- but it was just too good to last."
C.C., who knew all about the Frieda-Niles liaison, watched with sadistic glee as her husband attempted to extricate himself. But when Frieda's hands started roaming toward a cringing Niles, who looked back at his wife in gibbering terror, she felt it necessary to make her presence felt. A sharp kick up Frieda's bum was just the medicine prescribed.
Frieda jumped ten feet in the air and turned to face the formidable blonde. This was not C.C., flirtatious, mischievous, a little neurotic. This was Miss Babcock, the terror of Broadway, formidable and used to getting her own way.
Frieda, however, outweighed her at least threefold.
"Now," said Miss Babcock, with a dangerous gleam in her icy blue eyes. "As much as I love to see Niles suffer, if I see you putting that big meaty hand on his body one more time, I'm gonna serve it for dinner, and god knows one of your hands would feed all the starving children in that place in Africa where all the children are starving."
Frieda put her hands on her hips. "Now listen, you fat brunette -- "
C.C. howled in outrage and had to be physically restrained. At first Niles did so, but another earthquake started and he was forcibly pulled off of her by Max, and Fran sat on the still-shrieking C.C.
Suddenly, a Queens-accented voice sounded from the door. "Frannie! How's my little tiger?"
"Danny!" shrieked Fran. "I thought you were dead!"
"So did I, but it turns out I was just really bored with Heather Biblow," Danny assured her cheerfully. "So, ya ready to dump Rex Harrison over here and come back to the bridal shop?"
"Now just a bloody moment," protested Maxwell. But then, two slender arms wrapped around him from behind. "You feel familiar," cooed the British voice of Chloe Simpson.
"C-Chloe!" he stammered. "Really, no I don't, in fact I feel quite unfamiliar, you know, not like the Max you knew at all -- "
"Really? Come over here and let me feel again."
Chloe's arms snaked around him. "Niles, heeeeellllpppp," he moaned.
"Got my hands full, sir," came a muffled voice from under the table. Not only was the butler fending off Aunt Frieda, but Sophie, Fran's very curvy, very friendly cousin, had arrived. Niles had barricaded himself in with overturned chairs.
In a matter of minutes, the room was full of grabbing, shouting, wailing people. The New York Rangers, including Fran's ex-boyfriend Mike LaVoe, had crowded in and were chatting with Fran. She was showing them baby pictures of the twins while still perched on the table atop a wildly struggling C.C., who was screaming hysterically, "I'll rip out your implants with my bare hands," to Sophie while flailing her arms under the table hoping her fist would connect with her husband.
Seeing an opening free of exes, Niles carefully poked his head out, waving his hanky as a white flag of truce. "Have you noticed," he said casually, as if he were discussing the weather, "how the entire room is filled with the Sheffields' ex-lovers, and yours seem to be nonexistent?"
"Actually," Giles intervened with a sigh, "I believe that would be the ex-Babcock contingent out on the front lawn. They've formed a cricket match, and the winners intend to carry her off with them."
"Two cricket teams?" Niles demanded in disbelief. For a moment, he disappeared in a sea of females, but soon emerged, slightly rumpled. "Two cricket teams?!?!"
C.C., finally liberated when Fran went to break up a fight between Jules the jewel thief and Tony the mobster, sat up and crossed her legs gracefully. "Not all at the same time," she demurred modestly. "Oh, is that Colin? Oh, I think he just hit Chandler with a cricket bat!" Wading through the crowds, she stuck her head out the window. "Hit him back, Chandler!" She egged them on with a coquettish wave.
She grinned at Fran. "All this fuss over little me," she said sweetly.
"Isn't it great?" Fran grinned back at her.
Fran was not grinning a moment later when Maxwell flung himself at C.C.'s feet. "C.C., my love," he cried in desparation. "Forgive me, my dearest, it was you I loved all along! Never Fran, never Sarah, not really, but you! From the first moment I saw that glistening brunette hair, like fine chocolate, to your exquisite blue eyes, your lovely, round, luscious, tempting -- "
"Maxwell!" shrieked C.C. "Control yourself!"
Across the room, the real Max swivelled to see himself groping his business partner and about to be punched out by his butler as soon as Niles pried him away from the homicidal Fran.
"Now see here!" he said authoritatively.
"Huh?" Fran stared at him as he materialized at her side, disheveled but quite clearly Max, as Max #2 was fighting off Niles while being fought off by C.C.
C.C. finally got between Niles and Max#2. Niles arched against her back, trying to get a shot at Max, while Max pressed firmly against her front, determined not to be intimidated by anyone whose job involved rubber gloves.
"Ya know," said C.C., sandwiched between the two men, "this might not be all bad." Off Niles' outraged look, she sighed. "Awright, awright. Max, go away. I love Niles, not you."
Suddenly, the second Max disappeared. C.C. whirled around, clapping her hands in delight. She ran to the window, shouting, "Knock it off, I love Niles!" In seconds, only the pathetic remains of the front lawn remained as evidence to the fact that C.C.'s admirers had battled there.
Buffy charged into the fray. "Fran! Fran!" she yelled. "Who do you really love?"
"Max!" yelled Fran. Nothing happened.
"No, no, say it all. Say, 'I love Max!'" shrieked Buffy.
"Why?"
"Because I tried killing them, and it doesn't work!"
"I love Max!"
Suddenly half the room disappeared. A chair crashed over as Mike LaVoe fell off of it and vanished into thin air, and Jules the jewel thief went up in a puff of smoke, leaving Giles' silver watch and all five of Frieda's wedding rings behind.
Max turned to Chloe. "I love Fran!" he announced, and Chloe melted, screaming, like the Wicked Witch of the West. "I love Fran!" he shouted again. Several more women vanished.
"You're not gettin' rid of me that easily!" howled Frieda. Niles, precariously perched on a bookcase, yelled, "Go away, you great humpfronted whale, I love C.C.!" Frieda disappeared. Sophie, who'd been bellydancing around the bookcase, also vanished, as did the few remaining Ex-Lover Demons in the room.
Giles collapsed in exhaustion. "And the rest is silence," he said, relieved.
C.C. helped Niles down from the bookcase. "Why in the hell," she demanded, "was that blonde singing 'Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum?'"
"You tell me, little miss 'There's-more-than-one-way-to-score-in-cricket!'" The two exited, still arguing.
"Well, Niles and C.C. are back to normal - er, abnormal!" Max said, laughing as he slipped an arm around Fran.
"That's frightening -- and by the way, who were those identical twin sisters hanging all over you and Niles?"
"Oh, Arabella and Isabella? I -- " Max saw the look on her face. "I don't remember."
Fran chuckled and let him lead her out the door.
Buffy gazed at all her friends and made the wise pronouncement:
"Grownups are so scary."
"You may kiss the bride," the priest announced. "On the lips," he hastily added.
Niles did so, and thoughts of any other love than the fragrant, white-gold demon-angel in his arms were very far from his mind. For C.C.'s part, the episode in Sunnydale had served only to increase her passion for him as she realized that this man she loved had been adored by many women, but had chosen her. Plus, almost twelve hours of celibacy nearly had her frothing at the mouth.
From the front row, Fran and Max smiled and shared a brief kiss of their own. "Niles and C.C. happily married," she sighed. "Isn't that -- "
Max quirked an eyebrow. "A sign of the apocalypse?"
"Yeah," she agreed. As they rose to leave, Buffy ran up to her with Giles not far behind. Maggie, Brighton, Gracie, Willow, Oz, Cordelia, and Xander all hovered to the rear. "Come on," enthused Buffy. "We're gonna go to the hotel and t.p. the honeymoon suite!"
"Oh, Max, look at the cute toilet paper, it's got little hearts all over it! Buffy, does that come in leopard print?"
"I am never," murmured C.C. in contentment, "ever, leaving this spot." She secured her legs more tightly around her husband's waist as he propped himself up on his elbow, lazily smiling down at her.
"Fine by me," he said, dropping a kiss on her soft, rosy mouth.
That plan was hastily abandoned when the door flew open and Max, Fran, and a crowd of teenagers all burst in. Niles and C.C. dove under the covers.
"Oh, God! Scarred for life!" shrieked Buffy.
"I am so traumatized," Grace announced. "I'm gonna be in therapy until I'm a hundred."
"I didn't know they were that big," Willow said innocently. "I thought they were maybe the size of a hot dog or something."
"Um, here!" said Max, tossing the bag of heart-painted toilet paper on the bed and fleeing. The rest of his entourage hastened to follow.
Alone again, Niles and C.C. dissolved into reluctant laughter. "Demons, pah!" she said. "Who needs 'em? We've got family."
Niles gathered her into his arms. "Come on, honey," he said with a grin. "Is a 3.3 on the richter scale really the best we can do?"
"Mmm," she murmured. The vampires had one thing right . . . a little nibble on the neck and Niles was going to want to live forever.
The End
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