There are people who say that you wake up in the morning knowing when it's going to be the last day of your life. Andrew thinks those people are full of crap because he's woken a bunch of times knowing for sure it would be the last day of his life and he's been wrong every time. He didn't die in Sunnydale or in Mexico or in Sunnydale again, he didn't die in Rome or in New Orleans or any of those times. He's 25 and he keeps not dying. Maybe he's special. Andrew thinks, mostly, all the great and evil forces in this world can't be bothered with killing him.

"Dangerous, having women on a ship," the stranger in the tavern said.

Jack snorted into his glass of beer. "Have you ever met Anamaria?" As the stranger shook his head, Jack nodded. "If you'd ever met her, you wouldn't say that."

"Aye," muses the stranger. "So she runs you?"

"What woman doesn't run you, somehow?" asks Jack philosophically. "She's a damn fine steersman -- woman, too."

"Knows her stars too?" The stranger slurps down his rum. "And with all these fine qualities she must be turrible ugly. Like an old crone, is she? Too much sun and wind shriveled her down like a walnut?"

"Oh no," says Jack loyally. "Quadroon though she be, she is lovely. Tends toward old hats -- not to my taste -- but lovely."

"She sounds a right prize. Could ye maybe ..." the stranger trails off, then looks down at his hands. "Introduce me?"

Jack eyes him levelly. "Ah no, for she can't abide short men."

With a sigh, for he cannot deny his banty stature, the stranger turns away for another pint. Jack heaves himself off the bench, headed for the jakes. "Another one, damn me if it wasn't. That's fifteen and we've only been in port for two days. It's gettin' ridiculous."

Cheat on your wife with your best friend. Say that the odour lingering on your clothes and sticking to your skin is a new cologne. Pretend the sight of his rumpled hair in your fists as he slides your cock into his mouth doesn't flash before your eyes every time Hermione touches you. Convince yourself that you don't love him, and even if you did, it would never work anyway. Tell him, in between kisses that leave you sweating and bruised, that he'll never die.

This was so *not* in the plan, but I couldn't resist one of your opening lines :-)

---

"He's not the only man I've ever loved," I told Mulder as we sat on the sofa. My voice sounded scratchy, and it was difficult to get the words out -- for more than just the reason of my fatigue. The clock read 2:43, but I tipped my head sleepily in Mulder's direction. I'd already dozed off once before, and Mulder had covered me up with a blanket. Now, I stared at him, as he sat just inches away from me on the sofa. The stub of his ticket to England sat on the coffee table, along with a postcard of the Tower of London beefeaters he'd thoughtfully brought back for me. No crop circles, though, he said, the trip had been a waste of time, and he couldn't wait to get back to Washington, D.C. I'm glad you're back, I had told him, and I'd meant those words honestly.

"Where did that come from?" he asked. In the soft glow of the lamp, his features softened. He still wore his t-shirt and jeans from earlier. I wondered what he'd been doing in the half an hour or so I'd fallen asleep suddenly on his shoulder.

I shrugged. "I thought you should know, I mean, that you should know that about Daniel."

"That he wasn't the only man you've ever loved?"

"Yeah."

"What is this, Scully? Confession night?" Mulder put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the sofa. "Are you going to list all your boyfriends for me?"

I shook my head. "Mulder."

He sighed heavily. I noticed then, the weariness at the corner of his eyes, the way his hair flopped down across his forehead. He looked so tired and I couldn't help myself; I reached out and carefully brushed the wayward strand of hair away from his forehead.

"You need rest," I said softly. "You've had a long day. To and from England in such a short time. And all for nothing."

He looked at me wryly. "Don't remind me." He stretched his legs out, resting them on the coffee table. Some file folders fell to the floor, but he made no move to clean them up. Sometimes, I loved being in the chaos of Mulder's apartment, the fact he was seemingly oblivious to the mess he lived in was strangely relaxing for me. "But you were busy." He shot a wary glance in my direction. "With this Daniel Waterston. Whom I'd never heard of until this evening and yet, you say you considered spending your life with him." Mulder shook his head. "The things I don't know about you, Scully."

"I didn't hold back on you on purpose," I said. "I never thought about it. It never mattered. Daniel and I, we were over when I met you."

"Starting over?"

"No, nothing like that, no," I said, taking a deep breath. "It's just, there never seemed, you know, the right time. I mean, you never asked, and I don't know, how was I supposed to bring it up? I'm not even that person, Mulder, I'm not even that person who loved Waterston."

Mulder swung his legs off the coffee table and walked over to the fish tank, and retrieved a little Buddha figurine from beneath it. I stared at him in surprise.

"You're not even the person I left behind just over two days ago," he told me gently. He handed me the Buddha. It felt smooth, cool and solid in my hands. I turned it over slowly. "The question is, Scully, what it all means, what you got out of all this soul-searching, voodoo conjuring time away from me."

I took a deep breath. I put the Buddha back on the table and wiped my suddenly sweaty palms against my wool skirt. "I think you know," I said. And then I reached over, cupped his face in my hands, and he went still for a moment. I said, "Remember Orison? Remember Donnie Pfaster?"

Mulder looked back at me, his eyes wary and dark with memory. "Yes," he said, "of course, I do."

I touched my forehead to his. "Remember how that song kept playing?" I asked in a low and even voice. "'Don't look any further?'"

"Yes, yes, of course." Mulder sounded a little impatient. I smiled then and he touched my lips lightly with his finger.

"That maybe we already have what we're looking for? That perhaps that value in the possession we search for is already present, that we merely have to take a look around, realize the possibilities--"

Mulder's eyes widened. "Have you found what you were searching for, Scully?"

This is lovely. I don't normally read X-Files, but I think you've captured the tone of canon Mulder/Scully here: there's a sort of sleepy resignation that works very well. And I'm glad that my line was such an inspiration!

Anya died and went to heaven. Heaven, she quickly found out, was boring. Beyond boring. It was ennui personified. Sure, there were a few interesting moments in the beginning, trying to get an appointment with God to find out how she got here (after all she had been an evil demon much longer than she had been a fairly decent human being.) That argument with Karl Marx about the superiority of capitalism had been intriguing, even if Marx was an old curmudgeon with a beard that rats could nest in.

She missed Xander. Every day she missed Xander. She missed his whiny and time consuming friends, even Willow. She missed working in the Magic Box. Heaven's lack of commerce was going to drive her up the wall. She needed something to do, and she'd be damned (or not, apparently) if she was going to join the choir. All those hymns, Anya shuddered at the very thought of it.

She just needs to find a project, something to keep her busy. Something to help her forget everything she'd left behind. There wasn't really a need for vengeance in heaven so she'd have to open a store, that's all there was to it. Then she'd get to hold money again, yet another activity she'd sorely missed. Anya was excited, this was exactly what she needed. She could probably even get Jesus to lend her some support. He had to be easier to get an appointment with then God.

Hope it's not too horrible. I'm very sleepy and have no one to check it for me. Not to mention, I just don't usually write things. In fact, the whole reason I wrote it was so I could also tell you that your icon is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

There are certain dreams that affect even the waking body. When Willow wakes up in the morning, feeling the creepy crawlies still loose on her skin, she shudders with the after-effects of something she can't remember, except she knew it was bad. When Willow gets out of bed and looks at herself in the mirror, she sees the shadows in the corner of her eyes, and wonders when it will be good again.

Cool. Thanks.

And it looks like I didn't get your email--strange. What time tomorrow? Remember you're six hours ahead, and I won't be back on campus & through with dinner until about six my time. Which is noon your time. Lemme know. :)

Of course, you are right. Eight o'clock my time it is, then. Seeya then.

You go out on the Girls' Nights to not be with men. But unfortunately the room is full of them.

This has been the worst idea ever.

You sip at a drink while you try not to watch Gillian flash-dating guys who are not your brother. Opposite of you, a bald man tells you his name is Will and you cross your arms in front of your chest because you don’t want to listen to his story and you don’t want to tell your story either.

In fact you’re not quite sure what your story is at this point. But you’re ready to get defensive if he questioned you about your drinking habits.

Of course you want to get drunk but you don’t need a lecture now. Your love life is just sad, your clerk and your sister-in-law are the closest thing you have to friends and your drink doesn’t even have a fucking little umbrella you could keep your hands busy with.

This is when you decide to stand up, ready to say “Thanks, but no thanks” and go to another bar. A bar where you could meet the sarcastic but sensitive hotel manager with a loud taste in clothes and a daughter who could pass for her sister or the former plastic surgeon turned family doctor who is sweet, selfless and tries too hard for her own good.

From the other side of the bar, the organiser gives you a warning look. Is she afraid you’d make a scene? A waitress approaches your table. Dejected, you sit down again and order another drink.

Ooh! Amy fic! I'm a happy fangirl.

As for getting the first sentence wrong, I'm actually most excited when people are taking them in totally different directions than the original stories went. And the sentence you chose was from an E.R. fic, so you're actually not that far off.

They started out hating each other. Okay, so hate's a strong word. They started out with too much to prove, courtesy of other people, to care much about each other.

She's never--okay, to be brutally honest, sometimes she has--wondered if Lauren and Rebecca would ever have successful playdates. Though usually, while she's envisioning, she gets stuck in her chambers, explaining the word meaning of the word "playdate," until he tells her it's time to go somewhere.

They always have to go somewhere, somewhere where his brisk strides compete with the sound of her heels on the floor. Somewhere where there's always something occupying her attention. And he'll never demand her full attention, because that would be unprofessional and he'd be afraid she'd analyze him. He thinks she'd attempt to make him communicate in multisyllabic words, like, "connection," and "emotion," and maybe something with the same meaning as, "I'm afraid all women are actually Mia in disguise waiting to leave me over and over again."

But, really, he's a little bit wrong. She doesn't need to analyze him, he's Bruce and in her courtroom every day, and in her life, which is not yet the same thing as her courtroom.

She just wants not to have to go somewhere, to just sit for awhile in a place where he and the coffee are.

She's learned not to be too ambitious, to embrace caution. Maybe this new thought about embracing the importance of a little caution happened the first time she thought seriously about embracing Bruce.

They had started out hating each other, and someday she'll be just crazy enough to find out where they'll end up.

The basement apartment was chilly in winter, but on days like that one, when August was taking out its humid frustration on the Midwest, the concrete trapped the weak spray of air conditioning, and the basement was the most comfortable part of the house. Giles removed his glasses and wiped the sweat from the bridge of his nose. He sighed, allowing himself the small luxury of a moment's resentment. As of today, Buffy was in Rome, Willow in Buenos Aires, and he in Cleveland.

Cleveland.

Sometimes he found his sense of obligation tiresome. He found it particularly so on August days when the air hung thick and wet, fogging his glasses and plastering his shirt to his back. Still, there was a Hellmouth to monitor and he was the best suited for the assignment. He'd deduced that the entrance to the Hellmouth lay in the bed of the Cuyahoga River. The magical energy was dispersed somewhat by the river and the adjoining waters of Lake Erie, making it less attractive for powerful demonic beings like the Master. That fact notwithstanding, the portal had an undeniable effect on the area and its residents and drew lesser demons like a Siren. He'd come to recognize the newspaper stories of late-night stabbing deaths in the Flats and inexplicable drownings as attacks by vampires and water demons, even if no one else in the city did. They seemed even more stubborn in their denial of the existence of evil than the denizens of Sunnydale had been. How any of them had witnessed a river on fire and not recongnized it as a clear portent of Apocalypse was truly astounding. A river. On Fire. Baffling.

He'd lost little time beginning his investigation into the mystical history of this Hellmouth. It'd taken a little while to locate the arcane bookstores-- the ones of any use, anyway-- and as he stood outside the tiny brick storefront he'd briefly debated chucking it all to take the next flight to Heathrow. He wasn't sure what to expect from the stooped elderly Polish woman sitting behind the counter, and he had stood blinking in the threshold as his eyes adjusted to the dim overhead light.

She had eyed him appraisingly. "What are you looking for?"

"I was hoping you'd have some, erm, books. In-in particular, about-- well, ah, about the river."

She nodded and led him past the charms and cheap pentagram necklaces to a bookshelf in the back of the store. Her collection of reference books was small but impressive, and over the next six months he spent countless hours notating, annotating, and cross-referencing everything he read about the river. He became such a fixture that the old woman -- whose given name, he learned, was Maria Magdalena and whose surname was a juxtaposition of consonants better suited to an unlucky Scrabble draw-- let him stay even after she locked the door and her granddaughter Eva swept the floor and tidied the displays.

Hmm, nice. I like your Giles, and the way Cleveland is a character as much as a setting. And you definitely win for Story Most Different From the Original.

I am so sorry for this.

"So, who *do* I have chemistry with?" I said. Zhaan recrossed her legs and smiled up at me.
"People from the antimatter version of your own world, I suppose. It's a good thing, Crichton. Look what happened to poor D'Argo and Aeryn. I wouldn't want you to have sex with your counterpart from the antimatter universe and explode, even if Pilot did find a way to harness the energy and feed it to Moya.
The rainbow lights from our crewmates' passage strobed around us. Little particles of Aeryn and D'Argo were scattered on our bodies. Zhaan reached for me again.

Willow has barely gotten out of bed since she tried to destroy the world. She hasn't spotted vines or poltergeists coming out of the walls yet, but the Scoobies keep throwing themselves at her, and she doesn't think that's her personal charm.
"You're so evil and supernatural," Buffy says, licking her collarbone.
"Uh, guys? Have to eat," Willow tries.
"I've got something right here for you," Xander counters. This is so not good.
"Bathroom?" She hates how her voice squeaks.
"Willow, I really must insist that you..." Giles, and no, no, no, she didn't want to know that about him.

Hi. I wrote ficlets. But I didn't post them here. Because there were too many. So I stuck them in a post. Which. The instructions say I should mention.