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Virginia was humming slightly to herself, and looking through her wedding magazines. She looked up every so often to make sure that no one was coming after her.

She didn't care what Wolf said. She wasn't going to be paranoid. She wasn't going to hide. She was going to live her life, deranged weirdos or not.

She was, however, going to be careful, and aware of her surroundings.

Which, honestly, wasn't much different from what a single woman had to do in New York, biking to and from work alone and all.

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She quickly sprang to her feet and ordered an ice pack from the bar and brought it back.

"I really am sorry," she apologized again, holding it out to him. "God, I'm like bad luck for you, aren't I? First, a beer bottle in the gut and now I whack you with something. Sorry!"

Xander accepts the ice pack and gingerly holds it to his temple.

"No worries," he assures her. "It's a step up from the kind of luck I usually get. I feel sorry for Mickey Mouse when he shows up, though."

"...Xander, the universe hates you," said a redhead that came over and sat down across from them. He waved at Virginia. "Hullo."

He turned back to Xander. "Every time I see you you're either embarassed or in pain and usually I am, too, so I guess we're even."

"Heya, Red," Xander says, glaring good-naturedly. "Yeah. Yeah you are. We are so even." He turns to Virginia, wounded. "Could the universe really hate a guy as cool, calm, and good-looking as I am?"

"Yes. The universe tends to be a bit indiscriminate," Virginia said sagely. "It decided, for instance, that I had to be a heroine and that I should fall in love with a man who tried to eat my grandma."

She nodded towards Ron. "And who is this cool, calm, and also good-looking friend of yours that you both claim the universe hates as much as you?"

Ron flushed scarlet at being called cool, calm and good-looking.

Xander smirkety-smirks.

"He's Ron Weasley, of Lightning Scar Kid fame." And he pauses, backtracking a bit. "Whoa, whoa-- tried to what your grandma?"

Ron frowned and looked petulant at Xander. He may have gotten over being in Harry's shadow back in fourth year, but he still didn't like being introduced as a sidekick.

He suddenly turned back to Virginia.

"Wait, what? Your grandma? What he said." Ron pointed sideways at Xander with his thumb.

"Um, well, the grandma thing is a long story. And before I tell it...so you're Ron," Virginia said, grinning bemusedly at the boy. "Wolf's told me all about you."

She went on, "Lightning scar kid?" Her face crinkled up as she thought carefully. "You mean those kiddy books with the kid who's a wizard? Never could get into them. Rowling's got good ideas, but her prose is awful."

Xander grins contritely at Ron, then says to Virginia, "Well, yeah, Rowling may not be terrific, but Ron is so much more than the prose!" He nods.

Ron wrinkled his nose. "All I care is if she got the chess scene right," he said stubbornly. "And the eat of the grandma? Can we stay on that weird subject? Considering that I was out alone by the lake the first night I met with your fiance, I'd like to hear about this eating people thing."

"He didn't eat her. He just tried," Virginia said, biting her lip. "And! And that was after he spent years and years locked up in prison for sheep worrying, being fed beanstalk soup and not being allowed to run anywhere. The wolf in him was going nuts. He mellowed out and changed. Calmed down a bit. He's a lot more at peace with himself now. Plus, if you knew my grandma..."

Xander nods. He knows how it is with the whole werewolves-freaking-out-and-needing-to-find-the-serenity deal. He just hopes that Wolf doesn't relapse-- or, if he does, that it's far away from everyone else.

"So, how's that working for you now?" he asks Virginia. "We used to keep our werewolf friend chained up when things got hairy for him-- well, actually, he did it himself. He's a good guy."

"There's a potion for that in my world. There's...someone we know that uses it. Makes the change easier, even if it still happens," Ron said.

"Actually, he had himself locked up for the first full moon here, but for the second he just spent the night hunting demonic bunnies and he was fine," Virginia said, almost surprised at it herself.

Xander looks at Ron, interested.

"Really?" he says. "And it really works?"

To Virginia, he says, "Oh! Um, doesn't he ever ... run into people, though?"

"Far as I know, yeah," Ron said to Xander and then he looked back to Virginia for her to answer Xander's question.

"Well, see he's not a werewolf, he's a half-wolf. There's a difference. Wolves in his world can walk around as humans. Most of the time? Just means he's got a large appetite, likes meat, has a almost-supernatural sense of smell, and is completely horny nearly every minute of the day."

She added, "Plus he has a tail. And other than that he's pretty normal. When the full moon comes, the animal instincts come closer to the surface. If he doesn't try to fight them, he actually has a pretty good grip on them. He just runs around in the woods and hunts a bit and he feels fine. It's when he tries to be human all the time that he has trouble. The more he fights it, the more the wolf fights back during the full moon."

Xander nods and listens, wincing at the part about horniness.

"... Other than that being way too much information, that's cool," he says. "Different from my world, I guess. As far as I know, Oz doesn't have a tail. Nor is he-- okay, not going there, la la la!"

Virginia laughed. "Oh come on, don't tell me you're one of those repressed individuals."

"Xander's just awkward about it 'cause he thinks he's--"

Xander grabs Virginia's wedding magazine and smacks Ron on the side of the head.

"Do you mind?!" he hisses. He looks at Virginia sheepishly. "Uh, changing the subject! Boy, I had a weird dream a few nights ago! This giant crab was chasing me ... in loafers! Weird, huh?"

Virginia chuckled. "You two are like Abbot and Costello or something. Or two Stooges bereft of your proper Curly."

Xander glares at Ron.

"I'll Curly you, you little-- hey, get back here! I wasn't done threatening you!"

He hands Virginia back her magazine. "Uh, here you go."

Virginia laughed as Ron ran off.

"So what was it you were smacking him over?" she asked pleasantly. "Whatever it is, I promise I'll keep it a secret better than he was about to."