Every night, when I closed my eyes, his image would be branded to the backs of my eyelids. That same smile, so gorgeous yet so deadly. Those deep blue eyes, like the treacherous oceans you find, the ones which sometimes have those desolate lighthous...
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"This time you'll be lucky — but the question is will you? Fail once, fail twice, superstition's out to get you," Grace read again.
"He's trying to make us doubt ourselves," Simon gritted teeth. Grace put an earthing hand on his arm; it seemed to have a calming effect on him.
"Fail once, fail twice..." Lorelei muttered.
"Superstition," Xander contemplated. "What superstitions have to do with numbers?"
"Six hundred and sixty six is the devil's number," Simon aided unhelpfully.
"That would be great," Lorelei began sarcastically, "except we don't have six hundred and sixty six buttons, do we?"
Simon shrugged sheepishly and Lorelei felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at him, so she shot him a joking smile. At least she hoped it was a smile, but she suspected it looked more like a grimace.
"Seven's a lucky number?" Xander said. "Maybe it's seven?"
"Guys we have to hurry," Grace bit her lip worriedly.
"It's chronological," Lorelei reminded Xander. "He wouldn't have gone from button two to seven, skipping a load of numbers, 'cause we only have ten buttons that are correct."
Xander looked at her, nodding, his eyes alight with thought.
"Three?" Simon suddenly said. The others looked at him and he began to doubt himself.
"Why?" Xander asked him before Simon dismissed his abrupt epiphany.
"Uhhh... well, Lazarus wrote 'this time you'll be lucky' and I remembered my mum always says 'third time lucky'," Simon explained, becoming more sure of himself with every word. "And that's a superstition, right?"
The others looked at him quietly, in apparent shock. Suddenly, Xander grabbed the sides of Simon's face and stared him in the eyes.
"You, my dear friend," he enunciated with incredible intensity, "are a fucking dipshit for not saying that sooner."
Then he let go of Simon's face and patted his cheek lovingly. "Good on you," Xander smiled truly. Simon's face broke out into a grin as Lorelei reached for the third button and pressed it. The corners of her mouth quirked up in a slight smile; a support system as strong as theirs was hard to penetrate.
However, according to Lazarus, it may have been hard... but it wasn't impossible. With that thought, the slight smile Lorelei wore fell like a heavy curtain.
