Work Text:
I can't sleep tonight
Everybody saying everything's all right
Still I can't close my eyes
I'm seeing a tunnel at the end of all these lights
Sunny days
Where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong
Xander was tossing and turning in his bed. Again. He had been having trouble sleeping lately, and he couldn't understand why. The twins, the final proof of Anya's complete humanity, slept very peacefully, and Anne, their oldest, was already five. And lately, everybody had been telling him how lucky he was, with a wife, his own house and three wonderful children. And he was. Lucky.
An old song from his past was playing on the radio.
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning
Willow had stopped by last weekend. It had been several months since they last met, she lived in a different state with Tara. It had been fun catching up. For some reason they had ended up staying awake the whole Saturday night, reminiscing their past together. School, Slayerette stuff, graduation, college and work, Giles's departure to London, Buffy's death. Maybe memories indeed are gilded by time, but it seemed to Xander that life had been always happy back then. There had been sadness, a whole lot more of it than should have been in a teenager's life, but life had been... happy. Most of the time.
I can't stand myself
I'm being held up by an invisible man
Still life on a shelf when
I got my mind on something else
Sunny days
Where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong
Giles... Xander remembered the old Watcher very well. He had meant quite a lot to the boy. He remembered the tweed-clad man every day, a scent of old books here, a glint of weapon blade there, bringing back memories of him. All of them good, without exception. But he chose to leave for England a year after Buffy stopped working for the Watcher's Council.
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning
Oh, where did the blue skies go?
And why is it raining so?
It's so cold
Choices... That's what life had been back then. His whole adolescence had been about choosing his whole future, at a time when he had been all too young and immature to make those choices. Friends and foes, truths and lies... His life now was what his choices had brought to him, and he was... happy. He loved his children, and his wife... He had a nice house, a nice car and a steady job.
I can't sleep tonight
Everybody's saying everything's all right
Still I can't close my eyes
I'm seeing a tunnel at the end of the lights
Sunny days
Where have you gone?
I get the strangest feeling you belong
It was what everybody wanted from their lives. Wasn't it? Still, he couldn't help feeling restless, and he didn't know why. The words 'I lied when I was seventeen' kept nagging at the back of his head. Everything was all right, yet he was unhappy. Where had he chosen wrong? Had he lied when he was seventeen?
Why does it always rain on me?
Is it because I lied when I was seventeen?
Even when the sun is shining
I can't avoid the lightning
Oh, where did the blue skies go?
And why is it raining so?
It's so cold
Why does it always rain on me?
Why does it always rain on....
"No, Larry, I am not..."