11/01: (toward) London
Planes have always struck Oz as terribly strange. Big metal cans lifting into the sky, taking you places in hours it would otherwise take days, lifetimes, to reach. Most species stick to one locale, adapt and thrive there before, probably, going extinct; not human beings. They keep coming up with more and stranger ways to get away from home. Across the sea, into the sky.
Still, he's always been thrilled by that deep shudder as the plane speeds up and lifts haltingly into the *air*.
Even today, somewhere above...Ontario or Quebec, with Giles in the aisle seat next to him, he's thrilled by it. Thrilled and not a little freaked out. Not just by flying which is *weird*, but everything around it. Soldiers in airports, so many security checks he felt like a criminal in five minutes flat, and the *hush* in the plane when a dark-skinned guy's garment bag fell on his head and he swore. Not in Arabic - in French, Oz is pretty sure, but the eyes widened and the breaths got held, and all of this is like being in Sunnydale. Paranoia and fear of the dark.
Never mind that it's high noon on a clear day: It was pretty like that two months ago, too. They're all thinking that, locked up here in the tin can, cruising, and anything could happen. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right, Ani sings, and every plane is a bomb if you point it right.
Oz should feel guilty for not being paranoid. Freaked, yes, but thrilled, because they're heading home. They're together, every minute means another ten miles from Sunnydale and toward London, and he's thrilled.
"My turn?" he asks Giles, who nods and squeezes his hand under the crummy pseudo-fleece blanket. "Okay. Ask away."
Giles stumped him on Shostakovich last round, and he's a lovable fool if he thinks Oz isn't going to retaliate with someone *he's* never heard of.