August 1 - Here We Go Again
Title: Here We Go Again
Series: Fourth Dimension
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: Eureka, BtVS
Character(s): Jo Lupo, Willow Rosenberg, Buffy Summers, Jack Carter, Douglas Fargo, Vincent
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: The multiverse is conspiring against Fargo.
Length: ~1,770 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: earlier stories in the series found here.
Notes2: Happy First Day of the FAD!
“Here we go, ladies!” Jo said, as she set down the hot drinks down in front of her seatmates.
Dr. Buffy Summers (“call me Buffy”) from kinetic sciences reached for the extra large, extra chocolate, extra foam, chocolate chip hot chocolate with Peruvian pepper.
Willow Rosenberg, IT tech so extraordinaire they called her “The Wizard”, was having a simple cup of black coffee. Sure the cup was big enough to drown in if she got too enthusiastic, but Jo was pretty sure of her ability to stop the young woman before she got that far. Mostly sure.
It had taken almost a week, to the day, since the trio had busted a dirty scientist for their collective schedules had aligned for anything more than a quick chat on the way to something else, or a friendly wave in passing. Both Jo and Buffy had made a point of being openly friendly with the younger tech wizard in an effort to both dissuade the harassment that had led to said dirty scientist being busted in the first place, and because every woman needed her own girl gang. Between the two of them, they had the guns, the brawn, and the brain, but Willow was already proving to be their heart (and an even brainier brain).
Who was at that very moment causing her new friends to eye her warily as she tested the theory that her cup of coffee was in fact big enough to drown in. “Whoa there, girly,” Buffy said, putting a hand on the redhead’s arm. “There’s more where that came from.”
Willow pulled her head out of her cup - which she had been double-fisting. “Promise?”
That got a laugh out of all three of them. “I’m pretty sure there are a couple of scientists in Gastronomy and Bio-Logic who would love to run a few tests,” Buffy said.
“Ha!” Willow set her cup on their little table. “Dr. Yeh Shen Chin caught me in the Global Dynamics caf filling my super-mondo thermos with their nuclear blend for the second time that morning, and nearly fainted.”
Jo frowned. “Dr. Chin in Harmonized Neuroscience? Why would she freak out?”
Face scrunching in thought, Willow said, “I don’t think it was a freak-out exactly. When she finally got over…whatever that was, she asked me about my caffeine habits, then she all but ordered her lab assistant to get a patient waiver form for me to sign.”
“Poor Shirley,” Jo and Buffy said at the same time.
“I like Dr. Chin,” Jo said - with Buffy right on her heels with a “So do I.” - “but she is really rough on that girl.”
Willow’s shoulders curled in on themselves a little. “You think I shouldn’t do it?”
Both Jo and Buffy shrugged, although there was a manic light in Buffy’s eyes that was missing from Jo’s.
Buffy said, “Well, it would be for science.”
To which Willow countered, “Not everything done in the name of science has been on the up and up.”
Hands up in a placating manner, Buffy could only nod in agreement.
Jo put a finger. “Which was going to be my exact point. But Dr. Chin seems like good people. I’m just not sure I trust any of the GD scientists. Present company excepted,” she added, nodding towards Buffy.
“Noted.” Buffy raised her cup in Jo’s direction. Smiling, Jo raised her own and tapped it against Buffy’s. Together they turned their cups to Willow. And waited. Pointedly.
“You gonna just leave us hanging here, Rosenberg?” Jo said.
The redhead’s eyebrows climbed. “Wait, you wanna cup-bump with me?”
“Yeah,” the other two women said together.
Blushing prettily, Willow used both hands to raise the cup and gently tapped it against the pair hanging in front of her. They then shared a lengthy sip of their respective drinks - Willow’s sip turning into a long drink and the expression on Jo’s and Buffy’s faces once again turning concerned.
Just as Jo reached out to, gently, pull the cup away from her face, Willow pulled it away and smacked her lips. “Ye-um!” From the way her eyes immediately widened, and the horrified expression on her face, it was clear she’d forgotten there were other people at the table with her, despite its tiny size. “Oh, uh-”
Buffy and Jo chuckled, but not maliciously. Willow’s worried expression melted into a kind of friendly embarrassment. “I likes m’coffee,” she admitted in a deliberately silly voice.
“Yes, you do.” “We believe it.” The three women dissolved into giggles until their cheeks were flushed and had to wipe at the water leaking from their eyes.
Jo dared to peer into Willow’s cup. “Did you seriously finish that whole thing in under five minutes? That has to be a record.”
Feeling more sure of herself, Willow gave them a saucy grin. “What can I say, I like to be the best.”
“Well let me get the best a refill,” Jo said, standing.
Willow’s eyes lit up. “Really?! Can I get a Vinspresso this time?”
“I’m almost positive they don’t come this size.” When Willow’s face fell, Jo quickly added, “But it can’t hurt to ask.”
“Yay!”
Buffy raised her hand. “Can you see if he has any blondies left? I should have taken one off the cake display when we came in.”
Jo nodded. “Sure. So that’s one super-massive Vinspresso, one blondie for Blondie-” which earned her a friendly punch from Buffy, “-and a chocolate almond croissant to go with my totally uninteresting regular coffee.”
Frowning, Buffy said, “You have a regular coffee? How did you manage that?”
“Easy. Someone had just ordered an extra well done burger and fries. After that, I could do no wrong,” Jo said, grinning. “Be right back, ladies.”
Jack Carter poked a fork into one of his French fries and watched it turn to ash. “Do you think Vincent did this on purpose?” He was still looking at his food, that look of horrified fascination people usually reserved for semi-horrific car wrecks on his face, but Douglas Fargo answered him anyway.
Sort of. “Probably.”
Actually frowning now, Jack turned his attention to the young man sitting one seat over from him at the bar. “You all right there, Fargo?”
With one elbow resting on the counter, and his body-weight more or less leaning on the cheek being held up in his hand, Fargo had rarely looked less like his pre-Head-of-GD self. Still, he managed a shrug, also very pre-Head-of-GD-like
“Can you even see, sitting like that?” Carter said.
“What do you mean?” Fargo’s voice was as listless as his shrug had been.
“Well you’re kinda, y’know,” Carter gestured to the general area around his eyes, “…up into, y’know…into your hair and all, and I’m pretty sure the glasses need to be on your eyes if they’re going to work properly.”
“Oh. That.” Fargo shrugged again, causing his glasses to shift haphazardly (at least in Carter’s opinion). “It’s fine.”
“Y’okay.” Shaking his head, Carter went back to contemplating his burger and fries, aka the charcoal briquette on a bun and ketchup covered ash-sticks.
At least until his former deputy stepped into the space between him and Fargo. “Hey, Jo! How’s it going with the girls? I’m sorry, your other women-friends.”
The less than suave fix to his non-PC faux pas earned him a snort. Carter didn’t think he’d actually offended Jo’s sensibilities by referring to Buffy and Willow as “girls” but, considering all three of those “girls” could make his life miserable in their own unique way, he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
“Not bad, not bad,” Jo said. “How’s your, uh…” It was all she could do not to double over in belly laughs at his expense. Carter could tell. “…your lunch?”
“It’s fine,” Carter said, scowling.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes!” He tried to pick up his burger. It crunched. In his hands.
Jo did laugh at him then. “I told you not to order it extra well done. Vincent can only take so much.”
“You said it, sister!” came from the back. Which had Carter’s scowl deepening.
“Speaking of… Hey, Vince, you don’t happen to make Vinspresso’s in that ridiculously super huge cup size I ordered earlier, do you?”
Vincent’s head popped up. “I don’t, but I could. When do you need it by?”
Jo shrugged. “Now. Ish.”
“Sure thing. Adding a fourth to your party?”
“No. It’s a refill, actually.”
“A refill?!”
Carter leaned into Jo. “I didn’t know jaws could drop that low.”
“I heard that, Sheriff!”
Carter leaned back, hands up in surrender. “I’m just gonna…” He pointed at his charcoal as Vincent gave him the eye.
Shaking her head, Jo said to Vincent, “So can you do it?”
“I can, but I don’t want to be blamed for putting our little Wizard into cardiac arrest.”
“Oh no!”
The sudden, heartfelt outburst pulls at the three of them. Vincent, hand on his chest, speaks first: “I didn’t say I would, Dr. Fargo!”
“What?” Fargo props himself up.
Eyes narrowed, Carter eyes him speculatively. “Why did you just say ‘Oh no’?”
“Look! Over there!”
Carter has a sudden feeling of déjà vu when he says, “Um, what are we looking at and why?”
“Dr. Summers, Wizard Willow and Ranger Harrison. Bonding.”
Jo’s face opened up. “Awesome! Xander’s back. I know Buffy wanted him to test some new gear for her, and we had talked about going to the range to-”
“Don’t you see what’s happening!” Fargo cut in.
Hands raised in surrender, Vincent shook his head and quickly found someplace else to be. Dr. Fargo’s rages were, apparently, legendary.
Scowling all over again, Carter yanked the younger man closer. “Whatever it is, and I’m assuming this has something to do with your theory that our universe hopping screwed with theirs, keep it down!”
Fargo swallowed visibly. “Yes, Sheriff. It’s just that…”
Carter and Jo shared similar looks of exasperated longsuffering. “What?” Jo said on their behalf.
“It’s just that if the three of them are together now, here, it means the universe is healing itself. Now Buffy and Angel will never get back together!”
Jo snagged a blondie off the cake plate, yelling an “I’ll come back!” in Vincent’s general direction, as Carter gestured towards a waitress. “Can I get this to-” He looked at it again. “On second thought, never mind. I just gotta…” He gestured towards the door as he got up to leave.
Fargo, meanwhile, could only sit and stare and mourn as the Multiverse conspired against him to get the Scooby gang back together, in their original Slayerette form. “Why?!”
[in]Fin[ite]
Series: Fourth Dimension
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: Eureka, BtVS
Character(s): Jo Lupo, Willow Rosenberg, Buffy Summers, Jack Carter, Douglas Fargo, Vincent
Rating: FR-13/PG
Summary: The multiverse is conspiring against Fargo.
Length: ~1,770 words
Disclaimer: Only the words are mine, and that’s probably up for philosophical debate.
Notes: earlier stories in the series found here.
Notes2: Happy First Day of the FAD!
“Here we go, ladies!” Jo said, as she set down the hot drinks down in front of her seatmates.
Dr. Buffy Summers (“call me Buffy”) from kinetic sciences reached for the extra large, extra chocolate, extra foam, chocolate chip hot chocolate with Peruvian pepper.
Willow Rosenberg, IT tech so extraordinaire they called her “The Wizard”, was having a simple cup of black coffee. Sure the cup was big enough to drown in if she got too enthusiastic, but Jo was pretty sure of her ability to stop the young woman before she got that far. Mostly sure.
It had taken almost a week, to the day, since the trio had busted a dirty scientist for their collective schedules had aligned for anything more than a quick chat on the way to something else, or a friendly wave in passing. Both Jo and Buffy had made a point of being openly friendly with the younger tech wizard in an effort to both dissuade the harassment that had led to said dirty scientist being busted in the first place, and because every woman needed her own girl gang. Between the two of them, they had the guns, the brawn, and the brain, but Willow was already proving to be their heart (and an even brainier brain).
Who was at that very moment causing her new friends to eye her warily as she tested the theory that her cup of coffee was in fact big enough to drown in. “Whoa there, girly,” Buffy said, putting a hand on the redhead’s arm. “There’s more where that came from.”
Willow pulled her head out of her cup - which she had been double-fisting. “Promise?”
That got a laugh out of all three of them. “I’m pretty sure there are a couple of scientists in Gastronomy and Bio-Logic who would love to run a few tests,” Buffy said.
“Ha!” Willow set her cup on their little table. “Dr. Yeh Shen Chin caught me in the Global Dynamics caf filling my super-mondo thermos with their nuclear blend for the second time that morning, and nearly fainted.”
Jo frowned. “Dr. Chin in Harmonized Neuroscience? Why would she freak out?”
Face scrunching in thought, Willow said, “I don’t think it was a freak-out exactly. When she finally got over…whatever that was, she asked me about my caffeine habits, then she all but ordered her lab assistant to get a patient waiver form for me to sign.”
“Poor Shirley,” Jo and Buffy said at the same time.
“I like Dr. Chin,” Jo said - with Buffy right on her heels with a “So do I.” - “but she is really rough on that girl.”
Willow’s shoulders curled in on themselves a little. “You think I shouldn’t do it?”
Both Jo and Buffy shrugged, although there was a manic light in Buffy’s eyes that was missing from Jo’s.
Buffy said, “Well, it would be for science.”
To which Willow countered, “Not everything done in the name of science has been on the up and up.”
Hands up in a placating manner, Buffy could only nod in agreement.
Jo put a finger. “Which was going to be my exact point. But Dr. Chin seems like good people. I’m just not sure I trust any of the GD scientists. Present company excepted,” she added, nodding towards Buffy.
“Noted.” Buffy raised her cup in Jo’s direction. Smiling, Jo raised her own and tapped it against Buffy’s. Together they turned their cups to Willow. And waited. Pointedly.
“You gonna just leave us hanging here, Rosenberg?” Jo said.
The redhead’s eyebrows climbed. “Wait, you wanna cup-bump with me?”
“Yeah,” the other two women said together.
Blushing prettily, Willow used both hands to raise the cup and gently tapped it against the pair hanging in front of her. They then shared a lengthy sip of their respective drinks - Willow’s sip turning into a long drink and the expression on Jo’s and Buffy’s faces once again turning concerned.
Just as Jo reached out to, gently, pull the cup away from her face, Willow pulled it away and smacked her lips. “Ye-um!” From the way her eyes immediately widened, and the horrified expression on her face, it was clear she’d forgotten there were other people at the table with her, despite its tiny size. “Oh, uh-”
Buffy and Jo chuckled, but not maliciously. Willow’s worried expression melted into a kind of friendly embarrassment. “I likes m’coffee,” she admitted in a deliberately silly voice.
“Yes, you do.” “We believe it.” The three women dissolved into giggles until their cheeks were flushed and had to wipe at the water leaking from their eyes.
Jo dared to peer into Willow’s cup. “Did you seriously finish that whole thing in under five minutes? That has to be a record.”
Feeling more sure of herself, Willow gave them a saucy grin. “What can I say, I like to be the best.”
“Well let me get the best a refill,” Jo said, standing.
Willow’s eyes lit up. “Really?! Can I get a Vinspresso this time?”
“I’m almost positive they don’t come this size.” When Willow’s face fell, Jo quickly added, “But it can’t hurt to ask.”
“Yay!”
Buffy raised her hand. “Can you see if he has any blondies left? I should have taken one off the cake display when we came in.”
Jo nodded. “Sure. So that’s one super-massive Vinspresso, one blondie for Blondie-” which earned her a friendly punch from Buffy, “-and a chocolate almond croissant to go with my totally uninteresting regular coffee.”
Frowning, Buffy said, “You have a regular coffee? How did you manage that?”
“Easy. Someone had just ordered an extra well done burger and fries. After that, I could do no wrong,” Jo said, grinning. “Be right back, ladies.”
Jack Carter poked a fork into one of his French fries and watched it turn to ash. “Do you think Vincent did this on purpose?” He was still looking at his food, that look of horrified fascination people usually reserved for semi-horrific car wrecks on his face, but Douglas Fargo answered him anyway.
Sort of. “Probably.”
Actually frowning now, Jack turned his attention to the young man sitting one seat over from him at the bar. “You all right there, Fargo?”
With one elbow resting on the counter, and his body-weight more or less leaning on the cheek being held up in his hand, Fargo had rarely looked less like his pre-Head-of-GD self. Still, he managed a shrug, also very pre-Head-of-GD-like
“Can you even see, sitting like that?” Carter said.
“What do you mean?” Fargo’s voice was as listless as his shrug had been.
“Well you’re kinda, y’know,” Carter gestured to the general area around his eyes, “…up into, y’know…into your hair and all, and I’m pretty sure the glasses need to be on your eyes if they’re going to work properly.”
“Oh. That.” Fargo shrugged again, causing his glasses to shift haphazardly (at least in Carter’s opinion). “It’s fine.”
“Y’okay.” Shaking his head, Carter went back to contemplating his burger and fries, aka the charcoal briquette on a bun and ketchup covered ash-sticks.
At least until his former deputy stepped into the space between him and Fargo. “Hey, Jo! How’s it going with the girls? I’m sorry, your other women-friends.”
The less than suave fix to his non-PC faux pas earned him a snort. Carter didn’t think he’d actually offended Jo’s sensibilities by referring to Buffy and Willow as “girls” but, considering all three of those “girls” could make his life miserable in their own unique way, he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
“Not bad, not bad,” Jo said. “How’s your, uh…” It was all she could do not to double over in belly laughs at his expense. Carter could tell. “…your lunch?”
“It’s fine,” Carter said, scowling.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes!” He tried to pick up his burger. It crunched. In his hands.
Jo did laugh at him then. “I told you not to order it extra well done. Vincent can only take so much.”
“You said it, sister!” came from the back. Which had Carter’s scowl deepening.
“Speaking of… Hey, Vince, you don’t happen to make Vinspresso’s in that ridiculously super huge cup size I ordered earlier, do you?”
Vincent’s head popped up. “I don’t, but I could. When do you need it by?”
Jo shrugged. “Now. Ish.”
“Sure thing. Adding a fourth to your party?”
“No. It’s a refill, actually.”
“A refill?!”
Carter leaned into Jo. “I didn’t know jaws could drop that low.”
“I heard that, Sheriff!”
Carter leaned back, hands up in surrender. “I’m just gonna…” He pointed at his charcoal as Vincent gave him the eye.
Shaking her head, Jo said to Vincent, “So can you do it?”
“I can, but I don’t want to be blamed for putting our little Wizard into cardiac arrest.”
“Oh no!”
The sudden, heartfelt outburst pulls at the three of them. Vincent, hand on his chest, speaks first: “I didn’t say I would, Dr. Fargo!”
“What?” Fargo props himself up.
Eyes narrowed, Carter eyes him speculatively. “Why did you just say ‘Oh no’?”
“Look! Over there!”
Carter has a sudden feeling of déjà vu when he says, “Um, what are we looking at and why?”
“Dr. Summers, Wizard Willow and Ranger Harrison. Bonding.”
Jo’s face opened up. “Awesome! Xander’s back. I know Buffy wanted him to test some new gear for her, and we had talked about going to the range to-”
“Don’t you see what’s happening!” Fargo cut in.
Hands raised in surrender, Vincent shook his head and quickly found someplace else to be. Dr. Fargo’s rages were, apparently, legendary.
Scowling all over again, Carter yanked the younger man closer. “Whatever it is, and I’m assuming this has something to do with your theory that our universe hopping screwed with theirs, keep it down!”
Fargo swallowed visibly. “Yes, Sheriff. It’s just that…”
Carter and Jo shared similar looks of exasperated longsuffering. “What?” Jo said on their behalf.
“It’s just that if the three of them are together now, here, it means the universe is healing itself. Now Buffy and Angel will never get back together!”
Jo snagged a blondie off the cake plate, yelling an “I’ll come back!” in Vincent’s general direction, as Carter gestured towards a waitress. “Can I get this to-” He looked at it again. “On second thought, never mind. I just gotta…” He gestured towards the door as he got up to leave.
Fargo, meanwhile, could only sit and stare and mourn as the Multiverse conspired against him to get the Scooby gang back together, in their original Slayerette form. “Why?!”
[in]Fin[ite]