Sunnydale, California, December 2002 (The Next Night/Tuesday Fandom Time)
It was just the sun going down. It shouldn't be a big deal except for how it totally was with the crazy vampire from before the dawn of time, the one that hadn't dusted after Buffy staked it which was not how these things were supposed to go, out there. Not to mention Giles constantly counting down the minutes to sunset, and Xander nailing sheets of plywood over every window in the place. That last detail should have been reassuring except that Kennedy could only think of the last time she'd been in a house with the windows boarded up. That had felt like being under siege too, and that had... not gone well.
It didn't help much either that Molly was practically vibrating with nerves and Annabelle wouldn't put that stupid notebook down; Kennedy was pretty sure she'd taken notes on Anya's throwaway comments about the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.
It was a whole ton of extra not-helping that while all of this prep work was going on, the three of them were just sitting there, on the couch, watching.
And waiting. Again. Not being treated like competent equals, not part of the gang, just like helpless charges who needed to be protected.
Hello, resentment. This really, really wasn't what Kennedy thought she'd signed on for.
Giles
Giles? Was pacing. And keeping up the whole counting-down-the-minutes thing. Since he knew how much Kennedy loved it and everything.
"The sun will be going down in seventeen minutes," he reported, looking at his watch. Because this was such a huge change from the nineteen minute warning he'd given out two minutes ago.
Kennedy
Kennedy had tuned out the actual count about twenty-three minutes ago, but from her spot on the couch-- hands clasped just to keep from fidgeting, except for the one traitorous knee that she couldn't stop restlessly bouncing-- she gave him an exasperated glare anyway. By this point it was reflex.
She felt Molly, next to her, shift uncomfortably the way she'd been doing every time Giles updated them on sunset.
As for Annabelle... Kennedy had thought she'd be taking notes on this, too, like she had been on every other freaking thing ever. Not so much; Annabelle was completely quiet, almost unmoving.
Everyone had their own way of dealing with tension, right?
Xander
Xander might have been putting finishing touches on the broken and now boarded window more to have something to do with his hands and brain than because it needed three more nails, but that didn't mean he'd missed the tension in the room, or even could.
"Hey, junior slayers, don't look so worried." Good start, as motivational speeches went, right? "I mean, sure, we don't know where Spike is, or how to fight The First, or if and when this supervamp is gonna attack us all." ...follow-through, not so hot. "But the house is all boarded up, safe as...houses. Now all we gotta do is trap the critter in the pantry, and it's game over."
Kennedy
Okay, humor in bad situations, Kennedy got the concept. But seriously, how could you manage to be that goofy about it in a situation this dire?
...also there was a movie reference there and she was pretty sure she hadn't seen it to get the joke.
Which was a digression; the point was, cue more or less identical looks of really, WTF? from her, Annabelle, and Molly.
Willow
Willow caught the looks and then gave one of her own to Xander. "Xander? Newbies? Maybe ease them in to the whole 'jokes in the face of death'thing?"
Granted by saying so she'd acknowledged that there was a death that they were facing, but hopefully that'd been obvious enough that she hadn't made it worse.
Xander
"Who's joking?" Besides Xander, who had given up on hiding until it went away, so laughing in the face of danger was all he had left. "If Joachin Phoenix could pull it off with a baseball bat and a tinfoil hat, it should be a piece of cake for a houseful of Slayers."
Buffy
Buffy thought that a simpler route, one that didn't involve M. Night Whatshisface, was probably the better one to go.
She very simply told the new kids, "You'll be okay."
See, simple.
Giles
"Fourteen minutes," Giles contributed. Helpfully.
Willow
"Okay or even better," Willow said. "It's like our guarantee, except without any money back because you didn't pay and I'm pretty sure we're lacking the ability to throw money away like that but that just goes to show how sure we are that we won't need to be doing any money backing and Buffy can I speak to you for a minute?"
Not that Willow was fighting off panic or anything.
Buffy
By now Buffy recognized what that babble meant. "Yeah," she said, and to the others, "If you'll excuse us."
Then she nodded a little bit away from the others, trying for some privacy without being too far away from what was going on. Yes, yes, Giles, fourteen minutes, got it.
Kennedy
Any significance to the babble was as of yet lost on Kennedy, except that she thought it was freaking adorable, and she miiiiiiight sort of be directing her attention their way, totally subtle really, because it was less panic-inducing than listening to Giles's countdown any longer.
...not listening! Just, um. Looking. Because.
Willow
Oh how Willow loved having Buffy as her female best friend. Even if that gratefulness also came with a healthy dose of guilt. "I just... I want you to know, I'm really sorry about letting you down. Before, here, with the magic going all eeeh and me going all aaah and everything getting all rrrr...."
What? It made perfect sense to Willow. Though in case the apology part wasn't clear enough she added, "I'm sorry I can't help."
Buffy
It made total sense to Buffy. Was it not supposed to? Though, okay, the timing might be slightly off. "No one expects you to make everything right," she told her.
Willow
Well, nobody except Willow.
"Okay, I can't do everything, but I should be able to do something." Willow really hated not being able to make everything better. Or fix things. Or be unable to do something that she wanted to. "I have so much power. But when I try to use it..."
Buffy
"Don't, okay?" Buffy said, more as a warning than anything. The last thing they needed now was her getting all veiny and world-destroying.
Willow
"Okay." Willow said, though it wasn't, really, for her guilt complex. Especially since - "But you need help, Buffy. I know you. And I know you'd never admit it. But you need help."
And Willow wished like heck she could be the one doing the helping, or at least more helping than she currently was.
Buffy
That whole not admitting a need for help was... exactly the reason Buffy didn't ask for help now. Also because it was harder to be put-upon and self-sacrificing when people kept helping.
Instead, she shrugged, and stole Willow's words. Hey, they fit. "I'll be okay. Okay, or better. It's like my guarantee."
Kennedy
"Hey."
Leave it to Kennedy to ruin the moment, right? In her partial defense, she was expecting Giles to tell them they had, like, two less minutes to incoming badness and just didn't want to deal with that right now.
Thus jumping up off the couch (she could swear she heard Annabelle facepalming) and walking over to ask, "Are we getting weapons? Trained fighters, badness coming... I've heard worse ideas."
Yes, that was directed at Buffy. She wasn't entirely without priorities, okay?
Buffy
Ooh, that was potentially a bad idea. They were young, and hadn't been working with weapons long, and... "Uh, I don't know about that-"
Annabelle and Molly
"We'll be armed when the Slayer feels we're ready," Annabelle put in from the couch, earning her an exasperated god, you suckup look from Kennedy.
"I feel pretty ready," Molly offered tentatively.
"You're frightened," Annabelle told her. "You must learn to control your fear."
Kennedy
Why, for some bizarre reason, did that make Kennedy think of Anakin Skywalker? "Yeah, hey, you know what would help with that?" she asked, giving both of them a look now, then turning back to Buffy. "Weapons. We're sitting ducks without them!"
"We're with the Slayer," Annabelle insisted. "Safe as houses."
Kennedy waved one hand toward the boarded-up living room window. It felt familiar in an unreassuring way, like the time she and Dru and Dinah had barricaded themselves up in Dru's boarded-up house only to get attacked by a zombie and a bunch of werewolves and flying soul-sucking demon snakes. Yeah, that had gone really well.
"Do you see the house we're in?"
Annabelle
Maybe she shouldn't have said that; Annabelle shrank back into herself and reached for her crucifix necklace with one hand. Her voice was tiny and quiet when she asked, "It'll come straight for us, won't it?"
Buffy
Fine, make a good point. See if she cared.
Except for how she did, which was why she was turning to say, "We should load them up, Giles."
Meanwhile hoping no one did anything like hurt themselves with them. That would be bad.
Xander and Andrew
Once the loading-up was under way (and Xander was sure none of the kids was going to shoot herself in the foot with anything he'd handed her, at least), he wandered into the dining room to check on....whether Andrew was still an annoying little twerp.
"Listen to me, man -- I've got a bad feeling about this!" Somewhere, Anakin Skywalker gritted his teeth and checked his bank balance.
Yup. No change there. "Of course you've got a bad feeling. You're tied to a chair. Also, you're bad."
"No. Well, yeah. I mean I was, but not anymore, and anyway, bad above and beyond the bondage issues. My Arachnid Boy-sense is tingling. This is gonna get hairy. Weird with a beard. Better untie me."
Buffy
Yeah, that was happening. Yet for some reason, Buffy decided to humor him for oh, as long as she was going to humor him. "And that'll help us, how?"
Andrew and Xander
Andrew sighed, tried to make a dramatic gesture, and...failed, because, you know. Tied up.
"OK, I know what you're thinking. Andrew. Bad guy."
"That's because I said what we're thinking," Xander interjected helpfully. From anyone's POV who was not Andrew.
"You think I'm a super-villain like Professor Perdition or Ragnarok or The Brain Teaser."
"I was thinking more third slimy henchman from the left, the one who finally gets killed by his boss for screwing up the master plan one too many times." Xander just kept helping.
Andrew just kept going. "I admit I went over to the Dim Side of the Inertia, but just to pick up a few things, and now I'm back! I've learned. I'm good again."
Buffy
"And when were you good before?" Buffy asked, thinking that was a pretty good zinger to walk out on.
Which was why she turned to do so. They had more important things to worry about, and besides, being tied to a chair probably built character.
Andrew and Xander
In kindergarten! He was good in kindergarten! "I--" Wait. The Paste Incident Of Which We Must Never Speak That Tucker Would Never Shut Up About. "OK, technically, never. Touché."
Xander, who had looked mildly interested in whether he'd come up with an answer, snorted and turned to follow Buffy. Andrew squirmed in his chair and called after them.
"But I'm like Dark Helmet in the last 5 minutes of Episode XIV with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles..."
No one except the ghost of Miss Kitty Fantastico was listening, Andrew.
Sigh. "These ropes itch."
Giles
Seeing Buffy standing by the living room window, Giles gave her a few minutes before deciding to approach. Granted, those were a few minutes that they didn't have, but he didn't see what else they could really do to prepare. Eventually, though, he did come over, glad for the brief respite from Andrew's babbling.
Buffy
It wasn't really a shock that Giles would come over when she was having a little moment, but she didn't so much mind. She was a tiny bit stressed and worried about bringing other, vastly less experienced people into this, and oh right, there was that whole First Evil thing which was just slightly worrying. It was nice to have a couple minutes to just back off a little and take a breath.
"How're we doing on time?" she asked.
Giles
"Sunset should be just about any minute now," he reported, not even needing to check his watch. (The minute-by-minute countdown had pretty much stopped after eight minutes, a fact for which everyone was probably grateful.) "We've done everything we can. And don't worry, everyone understands that you're the one calling the shots."
Buffy
Not to sound too narratively arrogant or anything, but... they'd better. Still...
"I just hope I'm calling the right ones," she said, able to admit that because it was Giles she was talking to.
Giles
"You have all my faith," he told her sincerely, offering Buffy a meaningful look. "And they're depending on you."
Because that was the most helpful thing he could possibly have said.
Buffy
Pretty much what she was thinking! And said.
"Giles, that's not exactly what I needed to hear right now."
No pressure or anything.
Molly
"Guys? Slayer-Team guys?" Kennedy was still over at the weapons chest, picking through stuff with the curious interest of the weapons geek, so it was Molly who came hurrying back over, looking panicked.
"Annabelle split."
Also probably not what Buffy needed to hear right now.
***
Buffy had gone after Annabelle, of course. When she hadn't come back hours later, Giles had taken Willow and Xander and gone after her, leaving Kennedy, Annabelle, and Molly in the house with Dawn, Anya, and a nerd tied to a chair.
...Kennedy was giving Andrew a wide berth. For one thing, he smelled like he’d been tied to that chair for a while. For another, she was pretty sure he was speaking a completely different language.
By the time Giles and the others got back, though, the only language anyone was speaking was ‘oh, crap.’ They’d found Buffy unconscious, buried beneath the rubble of a broken wall, and Annabelle was dead.
Buffy had sworn to all of them that they’d win, in a speech that was damn impressive considering they’d all been worried she’d, oh, die from her injuries less than an hour ago. It had helped, and Kennedy’s estimation of her had gone back up a couple of notches, but that didn’t change the fact that Annabelle was gone. Dead because she’d gotten scared and tried to run, and run right into the thing they’d dubbed the Ubervamp. ("Turok-Han," actually, but that name was doomed to be mangled ten ways from Tuesday.)
Kennedy had known that Annabelle was scared. Hell, Kennedy was scared, but she’d just figured Annabelle could suck it up and deal. Turned out, not so much, and they were down by one, and this wasn’t going to be like Raven coming back, was it? So soon after losing Constance, too-- for all that she’d known intellectually that this gig was all about the morbid, death was hitting far closer to home for her than she’d ever really understood, and Kennedy didn’t think it was going to start backing off now.
Okay, fine, so she and Molly weren’t going to jump right into the action like she’d thought they would. That was still annoying, but hell if Kennedy wasn’t going to try and do something. There would be more of them on the way; Giles had been very specific about that, and from her conversations with Molly and Annabelle-- god, poor Annabelle-- it seemed like they’d be coming close to the front lines for the first time in their lives.
She'd had Fandom, and she'd been taking that for granted. Typical rich kid, not realizing she had an unfair edge.
She wasn’t stupid enough to go outside, but she couldn’t sleep and she missed her friends in Fandom so much at the moment that she was dangerously close to crying. Rather than keep Willow awake (in not-fun ways, because she wouldn't mind the fun ones, but shallowness aside she kind of really liked that girl already) she settled for pacing up and down the upstairs hallway, occasionally pulling her phone out of her pocket to poke futilely at names on her contact list. Still no luck, and no messages back from anyone either. She’d thought she was fine at handling dire situations by now, but she’d always been able to call in the cavalry then, and that looked more and more like it wasn’t going to happen this time.
God, she missed her Reserves kids-- hey, hang on. Around here, she and Molly and the hypothetical other girls were basically the Reserves, or at least they should be. If Buffy was going to have her hands full with the Ubervamp (and also healing up) then Kennedy could totally handle the Potentials. She sort of had a protective vibe toward Molly going already, especially since the younger girl seemed to be so shaken up; she and Annabelle had been friends for a while, it seemed.
Okay, there was some guilt there, too. She had not handled that situation well, and the only people she wanted to admit that to were out of reach. She could handle the Potentials, get them battle-ready-- that was going to be an inevitability, she was pretty sure-- and hey, if it got her an in with Buffy and the top brass (so to speak) around here that was a plus too.
She could totally do that. Maybe they could pull this thing off after all.
[[and thus concludes my post spam for this week! again, adapted and tweaked from btvs 7x10, "bring on the night." thanks again to wesleynotponcy/notagoodwatcher, needsaparrot, annieadderall/stillbaking, and willbedone for the preplay on this part. new post tag is dontvotemeout's fault. tune in next week. nfi/nfb/ooc-ok, tip your waiter, yadda yadda.]]
It didn't help much either that Molly was practically vibrating with nerves and Annabelle wouldn't put that stupid notebook down; Kennedy was pretty sure she'd taken notes on Anya's throwaway comments about the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom.
It was a whole ton of extra not-helping that while all of this prep work was going on, the three of them were just sitting there, on the couch, watching.
And waiting. Again. Not being treated like competent equals, not part of the gang, just like helpless charges who needed to be protected.
Hello, resentment. This really, really wasn't what Kennedy thought she'd signed on for.
Giles
Giles? Was pacing. And keeping up the whole counting-down-the-minutes thing. Since he knew how much Kennedy loved it and everything.
"The sun will be going down in seventeen minutes," he reported, looking at his watch. Because this was such a huge change from the nineteen minute warning he'd given out two minutes ago.
Kennedy
Kennedy had tuned out the actual count about twenty-three minutes ago, but from her spot on the couch-- hands clasped just to keep from fidgeting, except for the one traitorous knee that she couldn't stop restlessly bouncing-- she gave him an exasperated glare anyway. By this point it was reflex.
She felt Molly, next to her, shift uncomfortably the way she'd been doing every time Giles updated them on sunset.
As for Annabelle... Kennedy had thought she'd be taking notes on this, too, like she had been on every other freaking thing ever. Not so much; Annabelle was completely quiet, almost unmoving.
Everyone had their own way of dealing with tension, right?
Xander
Xander might have been putting finishing touches on the broken and now boarded window more to have something to do with his hands and brain than because it needed three more nails, but that didn't mean he'd missed the tension in the room, or even could.
"Hey, junior slayers, don't look so worried." Good start, as motivational speeches went, right? "I mean, sure, we don't know where Spike is, or how to fight The First, or if and when this supervamp is gonna attack us all." ...follow-through, not so hot. "But the house is all boarded up, safe as...houses. Now all we gotta do is trap the critter in the pantry, and it's game over."
Kennedy
Okay, humor in bad situations, Kennedy got the concept. But seriously, how could you manage to be that goofy about it in a situation this dire?
...also there was a movie reference there and she was pretty sure she hadn't seen it to get the joke.
Which was a digression; the point was, cue more or less identical looks of really, WTF? from her, Annabelle, and Molly.
Willow
Willow caught the looks and then gave one of her own to Xander. "Xander? Newbies? Maybe ease them in to the whole 'jokes in the face of death'thing?"
Granted by saying so she'd acknowledged that there was a death that they were facing, but hopefully that'd been obvious enough that she hadn't made it worse.
Xander
"Who's joking?" Besides Xander, who had given up on hiding until it went away, so laughing in the face of danger was all he had left. "If Joachin Phoenix could pull it off with a baseball bat and a tinfoil hat, it should be a piece of cake for a houseful of Slayers."
Buffy
Buffy thought that a simpler route, one that didn't involve M. Night Whatshisface, was probably the better one to go.
She very simply told the new kids, "You'll be okay."
See, simple.
Giles
"Fourteen minutes," Giles contributed. Helpfully.
Willow
"Okay or even better," Willow said. "It's like our guarantee, except without any money back because you didn't pay and I'm pretty sure we're lacking the ability to throw money away like that but that just goes to show how sure we are that we won't need to be doing any money backing and Buffy can I speak to you for a minute?"
Not that Willow was fighting off panic or anything.
Buffy
By now Buffy recognized what that babble meant. "Yeah," she said, and to the others, "If you'll excuse us."
Then she nodded a little bit away from the others, trying for some privacy without being too far away from what was going on. Yes, yes, Giles, fourteen minutes, got it.
Kennedy
Any significance to the babble was as of yet lost on Kennedy, except that she thought it was freaking adorable, and she miiiiiiight sort of be directing her attention their way, totally subtle really, because it was less panic-inducing than listening to Giles's countdown any longer.
...not listening! Just, um. Looking. Because.
Willow
Oh how Willow loved having Buffy as her female best friend. Even if that gratefulness also came with a healthy dose of guilt. "I just... I want you to know, I'm really sorry about letting you down. Before, here, with the magic going all eeeh and me going all aaah and everything getting all rrrr...."
What? It made perfect sense to Willow. Though in case the apology part wasn't clear enough she added, "I'm sorry I can't help."
Buffy
It made total sense to Buffy. Was it not supposed to? Though, okay, the timing might be slightly off. "No one expects you to make everything right," she told her.
Willow
Well, nobody except Willow.
"Okay, I can't do everything, but I should be able to do something." Willow really hated not being able to make everything better. Or fix things. Or be unable to do something that she wanted to. "I have so much power. But when I try to use it..."
Buffy
"Don't, okay?" Buffy said, more as a warning than anything. The last thing they needed now was her getting all veiny and world-destroying.
Willow
"Okay." Willow said, though it wasn't, really, for her guilt complex. Especially since - "But you need help, Buffy. I know you. And I know you'd never admit it. But you need help."
And Willow wished like heck she could be the one doing the helping, or at least more helping than she currently was.
Buffy
That whole not admitting a need for help was... exactly the reason Buffy didn't ask for help now. Also because it was harder to be put-upon and self-sacrificing when people kept helping.
Instead, she shrugged, and stole Willow's words. Hey, they fit. "I'll be okay. Okay, or better. It's like my guarantee."
Kennedy
"Hey."
Leave it to Kennedy to ruin the moment, right? In her partial defense, she was expecting Giles to tell them they had, like, two less minutes to incoming badness and just didn't want to deal with that right now.
Thus jumping up off the couch (she could swear she heard Annabelle facepalming) and walking over to ask, "Are we getting weapons? Trained fighters, badness coming... I've heard worse ideas."
Yes, that was directed at Buffy. She wasn't entirely without priorities, okay?
Buffy
Ooh, that was potentially a bad idea. They were young, and hadn't been working with weapons long, and... "Uh, I don't know about that-"
Annabelle and Molly
"We'll be armed when the Slayer feels we're ready," Annabelle put in from the couch, earning her an exasperated god, you suckup look from Kennedy.
"I feel pretty ready," Molly offered tentatively.
"You're frightened," Annabelle told her. "You must learn to control your fear."
Kennedy
Why, for some bizarre reason, did that make Kennedy think of Anakin Skywalker? "Yeah, hey, you know what would help with that?" she asked, giving both of them a look now, then turning back to Buffy. "Weapons. We're sitting ducks without them!"
"We're with the Slayer," Annabelle insisted. "Safe as houses."
Kennedy waved one hand toward the boarded-up living room window. It felt familiar in an unreassuring way, like the time she and Dru and Dinah had barricaded themselves up in Dru's boarded-up house only to get attacked by a zombie and a bunch of werewolves and flying soul-sucking demon snakes. Yeah, that had gone really well.
"Do you see the house we're in?"
Annabelle
Maybe she shouldn't have said that; Annabelle shrank back into herself and reached for her crucifix necklace with one hand. Her voice was tiny and quiet when she asked, "It'll come straight for us, won't it?"
Buffy
Fine, make a good point. See if she cared.
Except for how she did, which was why she was turning to say, "We should load them up, Giles."
Meanwhile hoping no one did anything like hurt themselves with them. That would be bad.
Xander and Andrew
Once the loading-up was under way (and Xander was sure none of the kids was going to shoot herself in the foot with anything he'd handed her, at least), he wandered into the dining room to check on....whether Andrew was still an annoying little twerp.
"Listen to me, man -- I've got a bad feeling about this!" Somewhere, Anakin Skywalker gritted his teeth and checked his bank balance.
Yup. No change there. "Of course you've got a bad feeling. You're tied to a chair. Also, you're bad."
"No. Well, yeah. I mean I was, but not anymore, and anyway, bad above and beyond the bondage issues. My Arachnid Boy-sense is tingling. This is gonna get hairy. Weird with a beard. Better untie me."
Buffy
Yeah, that was happening. Yet for some reason, Buffy decided to humor him for oh, as long as she was going to humor him. "And that'll help us, how?"
Andrew and Xander
Andrew sighed, tried to make a dramatic gesture, and...failed, because, you know. Tied up.
"OK, I know what you're thinking. Andrew. Bad guy."
"That's because I said what we're thinking," Xander interjected helpfully. From anyone's POV who was not Andrew.
"You think I'm a super-villain like Professor Perdition or Ragnarok or The Brain Teaser."
"I was thinking more third slimy henchman from the left, the one who finally gets killed by his boss for screwing up the master plan one too many times." Xander just kept helping.
Andrew just kept going. "I admit I went over to the Dim Side of the Inertia, but just to pick up a few things, and now I'm back! I've learned. I'm good again."
Buffy
"And when were you good before?" Buffy asked, thinking that was a pretty good zinger to walk out on.
Which was why she turned to do so. They had more important things to worry about, and besides, being tied to a chair probably built character.
Andrew and Xander
In kindergarten! He was good in kindergarten! "I--" Wait. The Paste Incident Of Which We Must Never Speak That Tucker Would Never Shut Up About. "OK, technically, never. Touché."
Xander, who had looked mildly interested in whether he'd come up with an answer, snorted and turned to follow Buffy. Andrew squirmed in his chair and called after them.
"But I'm like Dark Helmet in the last 5 minutes of Episode XIV with redemptive powers minus a redemptive struggle of epic redemption which chronicles..."
No one except the ghost of Miss Kitty Fantastico was listening, Andrew.
Sigh. "These ropes itch."
Giles
Seeing Buffy standing by the living room window, Giles gave her a few minutes before deciding to approach. Granted, those were a few minutes that they didn't have, but he didn't see what else they could really do to prepare. Eventually, though, he did come over, glad for the brief respite from Andrew's babbling.
Buffy
It wasn't really a shock that Giles would come over when she was having a little moment, but she didn't so much mind. She was a tiny bit stressed and worried about bringing other, vastly less experienced people into this, and oh right, there was that whole First Evil thing which was just slightly worrying. It was nice to have a couple minutes to just back off a little and take a breath.
"How're we doing on time?" she asked.
Giles
"Sunset should be just about any minute now," he reported, not even needing to check his watch. (The minute-by-minute countdown had pretty much stopped after eight minutes, a fact for which everyone was probably grateful.) "We've done everything we can. And don't worry, everyone understands that you're the one calling the shots."
Buffy
Not to sound too narratively arrogant or anything, but... they'd better. Still...
"I just hope I'm calling the right ones," she said, able to admit that because it was Giles she was talking to.
Giles
"You have all my faith," he told her sincerely, offering Buffy a meaningful look. "And they're depending on you."
Because that was the most helpful thing he could possibly have said.
Buffy
Pretty much what she was thinking! And said.
"Giles, that's not exactly what I needed to hear right now."
No pressure or anything.
Molly
"Guys? Slayer-Team guys?" Kennedy was still over at the weapons chest, picking through stuff with the curious interest of the weapons geek, so it was Molly who came hurrying back over, looking panicked.
"Annabelle split."
Also probably not what Buffy needed to hear right now.
***
Buffy had gone after Annabelle, of course. When she hadn't come back hours later, Giles had taken Willow and Xander and gone after her, leaving Kennedy, Annabelle, and Molly in the house with Dawn, Anya, and a nerd tied to a chair.
...Kennedy was giving Andrew a wide berth. For one thing, he smelled like he’d been tied to that chair for a while. For another, she was pretty sure he was speaking a completely different language.
By the time Giles and the others got back, though, the only language anyone was speaking was ‘oh, crap.’ They’d found Buffy unconscious, buried beneath the rubble of a broken wall, and Annabelle was dead.
Buffy had sworn to all of them that they’d win, in a speech that was damn impressive considering they’d all been worried she’d, oh, die from her injuries less than an hour ago. It had helped, and Kennedy’s estimation of her had gone back up a couple of notches, but that didn’t change the fact that Annabelle was gone. Dead because she’d gotten scared and tried to run, and run right into the thing they’d dubbed the Ubervamp. ("Turok-Han," actually, but that name was doomed to be mangled ten ways from Tuesday.)
Kennedy had known that Annabelle was scared. Hell, Kennedy was scared, but she’d just figured Annabelle could suck it up and deal. Turned out, not so much, and they were down by one, and this wasn’t going to be like Raven coming back, was it? So soon after losing Constance, too-- for all that she’d known intellectually that this gig was all about the morbid, death was hitting far closer to home for her than she’d ever really understood, and Kennedy didn’t think it was going to start backing off now.
Okay, fine, so she and Molly weren’t going to jump right into the action like she’d thought they would. That was still annoying, but hell if Kennedy wasn’t going to try and do something. There would be more of them on the way; Giles had been very specific about that, and from her conversations with Molly and Annabelle-- god, poor Annabelle-- it seemed like they’d be coming close to the front lines for the first time in their lives.
She'd had Fandom, and she'd been taking that for granted. Typical rich kid, not realizing she had an unfair edge.
She wasn’t stupid enough to go outside, but she couldn’t sleep and she missed her friends in Fandom so much at the moment that she was dangerously close to crying. Rather than keep Willow awake (in not-fun ways, because she wouldn't mind the fun ones, but shallowness aside she kind of really liked that girl already) she settled for pacing up and down the upstairs hallway, occasionally pulling her phone out of her pocket to poke futilely at names on her contact list. Still no luck, and no messages back from anyone either. She’d thought she was fine at handling dire situations by now, but she’d always been able to call in the cavalry then, and that looked more and more like it wasn’t going to happen this time.
God, she missed her Reserves kids-- hey, hang on. Around here, she and Molly and the hypothetical other girls were basically the Reserves, or at least they should be. If Buffy was going to have her hands full with the Ubervamp (and also healing up) then Kennedy could totally handle the Potentials. She sort of had a protective vibe toward Molly going already, especially since the younger girl seemed to be so shaken up; she and Annabelle had been friends for a while, it seemed.
Okay, there was some guilt there, too. She had not handled that situation well, and the only people she wanted to admit that to were out of reach. She could handle the Potentials, get them battle-ready-- that was going to be an inevitability, she was pretty sure-- and hey, if it got her an in with Buffy and the top brass (so to speak) around here that was a plus too.
She could totally do that. Maybe they could pull this thing off after all.
[[and thus concludes my post spam for this week! again, adapted and tweaked from btvs 7x10, "bring on the night." thanks again to wesleynotponcy/notagoodwatcher, needsaparrot, annieadderall/stillbaking, and willbedone for the preplay on this part. new post tag is dontvotemeout's fault. tune in next week. nfi/nfb/ooc-ok, tip your waiter, yadda yadda.]]