Taking a moment to look around, Xander let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding on to so tightly.

“So…um, I guess your Lorne, right?”

Watching the clearly uncertain young man, Lorne slowly nodded, and took a sip of his drink. “That I am Sweet Cheeks, so what can I do you for?”

Blushing, Xander, cleared his throat. “Ah, that is, Angel suggested that I come see you. He said that sometimes you can see the future, or rather a person’s future, if they sing for you…”

“That I can. Although, can we please not bring up his name, as much as I like him, and I really do, he just tends to create so many problems for me. So what were you planning on singing this evening?”

“Is there a list I could look at or something…” Xander asked hesitantly trailing off.

“Not as such, the system is set up so that any song you name will be pulled up when you step up on stage. Now as long as you’re not as horrible as your other friend who can’t carry a tune to save his life, it’s all good.”

Xander cracked a smile at that.

“See kid, it’s not that bad. So what song and artist?”

Pausing a moment Xander considered it before answering a tad uncertainly. “How about Cher’s ‘Song for the Lonely’?”

Staring at the young man, Lorne just considered him silently for a moment, before nodding. “All right, just go up on the stage, even though we aren’t open yet, it’ll be fine. If you aren’t able to finish the song that’s fine too. So don’t worry about it.”

Nodding Xander slowly made his way up on the stage, and picked up the microphone, he listened to the opening notes.

‘When you're standing on the edge of nowhere
There's only one way up

so your hearts gotta go there

Through the darkest night
See the light shine bright
When heroes fall in love or war they live forever

This is a song for the lonely
Can you hear me tonight?
For the broken hearted, battle scared
I'll be by your side

And this is a song for the lonely’

Finally reaching the end of the song, Xander set the microphone down and slowly made his way down off the stage. Pausing to idly wipe his sole eye dry.

Lorne shuddered as the last of the images slowly faded away from his mind’s eye.

Speaking softly he ordered a drink for the kid, while he made his way down off the stage.

“Sit kid, and have a drink. It’s rather obvious that you need it, not to mention that I need mine as well.”

Slowly sipping at his drink, Lorne considered all that he’d picked up and decided to be careful with what he said.

“You want the good or the bad first kid?”

“Might as well hear the worst first and get it out of the way,” Xander said sipping at his own drink with a slight frown.

“Well, the first is that you’re going to be doing a lot of traveling.  Mostly because your friend’s spell did a lot more than even she realized. So you’re going to be the main person who has to help retrieve, and also spend some time helping to train the new girls all over the world.”

Xander nodded and let out a soft sigh at that. “I figured that was pretty likely. So what else?”

“You’re going to be dealing with a lot more issues like you did in the past. Just don’t walk away kid, you’re the one thing that can keep things going the way they should, rather than how certain others want it.

But it’s going to cause you a lot of headaches and heartaches to do so. You’re a wild card that no one expected.

So you ready for the good news, since you got that fun done with?”

Xander slowly nodded.

“The good news, is that there is happiness ahead for you. It’s going to be awhile till you heal in your heart and mind to be ready for it, but when you do, it’s going to be there for you. Don’t run away from it. Even though there will be others who say they need you, they can handle what’s going on. So don’t loose that person when you finally find them. It’s not going to be who you would think, but they will be able to understand you far better then you would expect.”

“Thanks Lorne, I’ll keep it in mind,” Xander said softly. “But I doubt that it’s going to happen.”

Watching as the young man walked out of his bar, Lorne knew that he’d be back one day. Plus that cute little blonde detective, was going to have quite a lot of work to deal with to get through to him.

The End