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I open my eyes blearily. Thin light is coming between a gap in the curtains. I feel bewildered for a minute. Where am I? The fog of sleep clears a little and I remember. Buffy, Rhia, the hotel. Sunnydale. Yeah
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I slam down the phone and fall back onto the bed right when Becca comes in, looking a lot cleaner now and wearing a hotel bathrobe. "Hey," I say in reply, rolling my eyes at the phone. "God, it's next to impossible getting that bloody school to send me my stuff. I'm not there anymore, so there's no reason for my clothes to be there, but they're all, oh, why? What for? To wear!"
Christ. Now I'm just irritated. I hate dealing with stupid people and I hate explaining my every move to someone. "But they're getting shipped today," I say with a sigh. Then I roll over to the side and stand up, stretching my hands down to the floor. My back makes little cracking noises. Damn. This is what happens after you sleep in the car for days.
"That's fine," I say about the sweets. "I'm gonna shower and then we're going out for a real breakfast. With real coffee."
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"Great," I say, to her suggestion about coffee. "I'd better get dressed, then."
Rhia goes into the bathroom and I look through my small holdall. Everything in it is pretty grimy. I pull on what I was wearing yesterday and go down to the hotel lobby. I noticed they had a small gift shop there. A moody looking girl sells me a Beautiful Sunnydale t-shirt for $10, which I can't really afford, but I swear I'll be sick if I have to wear the same shirt again. I go back to the room and put it on. It's kind of lurid and makes me look like a tourist, but whatever. At least it's clean. I know that Rhia probably would've given me money for something, but I feel I've taken enough from her already. I have some pride left.
I dry my hair with the hotel hair dryer and get myself looking half decent. Rhia comes out of the bathroom and in not too long we're ready. She looks pretty great. I realise she's very pretty, which makes me feel kind of embarrassed about my stupid t-shirt and lack of make up. But never mind.
"So," I say. "Do you want $1 or $20 pancakes? I noticed an all you can eat breakfast place near the bus station, but there's also a French cafe near there that does fancier breakfasts, I think."
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I'm not so up for the bus place, but Becca doesn't look like she'd want to go to a really fancy cafe, especially not in that shirt. After breakfast, we've got to hit the stores. I haven't washed my clothes in days and neither has she.
"Isn't there a diner or something on that place they call a main street?" I raise my eyebrows, dangling my car keys off of one finger. "You know, something in between? Not too shabby, not too fancy, free coffee refills?"
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"I guess," I shrug. "I haven't had much time to look around town. Not that there's much of it." It feels strange to be in such a small place after living in cities for so long. "We may as well go look, right?"
Rhia drives us into town, which takes all of two minutes. Guess Sunnydale really doesn't have all that many streets. She parks the car and we find a diner which is a great cliche of the American diner experience - red gingham table cloths and all that.
"Free refills," I note, nodding at the sign.
We go inside and I realise I'm starving to death.
"I could eat this entire menu," I say, looking down at it, and then we order and the food comes and it's all glorious. I've not enjoyed eating so much in months.
"Wow," I say, pausing after a good solid ten minutes of eating. "I cannot begin to tell you how nice it is to sit down and have a meal. I think I've lived on Oreos for the last week," I grimace. "I found that even I can get enough chocolate biscuits," I smile.
"So what do you want to do here?" I ask Rhia after a while. "I mean, I guess you'll see Buffy, but then what? Will you want to go back to your school? I was thinking of registering here. I might as well get some education if I'm going to be in town."
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If I don't die first, in which case, I'll be able to avoid it forever.
I order waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, and then eggs and those potato things they call hash browns, and sausage and ham. I feel like I need some really good food and then some really solid food. I nod to Becca as I chew, agreeing with her on all points. I've been living on coffee and drive-through fries. Gourmet or even remotely healthy it is not.
I spear a strawberry with my folk and stare at it for a moment, maybe hoping it'll tell me what I should do. "I don't know," I say finally. "I don't want to go back to my school. I mean, I was only there because my parents wanted me there and it worked out for both of us. I don't know if I want to go back to school at all." I shrug. I'd be graduating this year. And then what? Suddenly finishing up and graduating from some Sunnydale public school won't bring me any prestige like the boarding school would have. "I mean, I pretty much have guaranteed admittance into any university in England and many here. I don't see the point of it, really..." I train off and shrug. I don't know what to do with my life. I never did. Especially not now.
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Rhia talks about school and she sounds pretty blase, but something tells me that she's not completely happy. I wonder why. It seems like she's had quite a charmed life, but then, like me, she also seems to have negligent parents.
"I guess you don't have to go to school," I say. "But it would give you something to do, I suppose." I shrug as I finish off my waffles. "I mean, if I don't do something, I'll just sit around in my room all day thinking about how things are trying to kill me, and I don't think that'll be too great for my mental health. But you could do something else, I guess. Work or something. I'm going to get a job. I guess you don't need one, though. If you stay in Sunnydale, I suppose you'll need somewhere better than the hotel to stay. You could go all Martha Stewart and do a place up." I realise I'm babbling. "Sorry, I'm talking too much." I drink some orange juice. "It's hard, though, isn't it? I mean, up until now I guess we always had things we knew we were going to do. Maybe we didn't always enjoy them, but there was structure, I guess. And now... There's none of that. No direction. It's sort of weird."
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"I don't know. School seems so trivial when something out there's so anxious to kill you. I figure it'd be more useful learning how to actually fight back." I shrug. "Not that I am or ever was much of a fighter. But there's gotta be something to it, right?"
I rest my fork on my plate and lean back, gazing at the pool of syrup and flecks of whipped cream. "What I really wanna do right now is meet this Buffy."
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"I guess school does seem trivial, but..." I shrug and smile, slightly shamefacedly. "Guess I always have been a book geek." I think of Geoffrey's books, their ancient covers, the smell of old leather and dust and paper, and the comfort they brought me. I wish I had them here. "But yeah, learning about the fighting and all that is useful. I know a bit," I say. "Not lots. Geoffrey didn't give me that much practical training. Neither of us, I guess, really thought I'd become a slayer. So we mostly just did book research, you know. Well, no, you probably don't know," I add, realising again that Rhia has only recently learned about this whole slayer gig. "You know, you've taken all this pretty well, all things considered," I note thoughtfully.
I finish my breakfast at last.
"What I really wanna do right now is meet this Buffy."
I nod.
"Yeah, I met her yesterday but she was pretty distracted. Faith showed up. She... Well, she and Buffy have a history of, er, weirdness and violence, from what I gather. But Faith's good now. I think. So we should go over there, I suppose."
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"Oh, yes, well, that's because I'm the queen of weird things," I say, then pause and shake my head. "Actually, no, I'm not. But accepting it seems easier than freaking out about it because it's easier to pretend I'm sane if I act like it."
I wrap my fingers around a cup of black coffee, swirl in the creamer and shrug. I like my sweet, sugary coffee drinks, but sometimes a girl needs some caffeine straight up. Like most girls, I don't mind the taste.
"I guess I'm still hoping I'll wake up. It just doesn't seem fair, you know? At least you were sort of prepared. You know what you were. I hadn't a fucking clue." I lean back in the booth and frown as Becca mentions another name. "Faith? Who's she?"
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"Life isn't fair, Highness," I say, smiling to myself a little. "Sorry. Princess Bride reference. Did I mention I'm also a film geek? But yeah. Things aren't fair. I wish they were. But instead we get targeted for horrible death because we might become slayers, and if we do get the gig in the end, we'll probably live five years before being killed by something else." I sigh and look down at my hands. "I'm sorry you didn't know, though. There are too many potentials for the Council to find everyone. If it helps, Buffy didn't know at all, apparently, before she was Called."
Rhia mentions Faith and I wrinkle my brow.
"Faith. Yeah. Sort of funny story. She's also a slayer. There should only be one, but Buffy died, apparently. Well, she's died twice. It's all very weird. But anyway, death equals a slayer activation. But Buffy's second death didn't create another slayer so I guess Faith is the holder of the line. But this isn't important, I suppose. What matters is, Faith went bad. Really bad, which is particularly scary because she had super strength. Then she got banged up in prison or something and it seems she wants to redeem herself. I dunno. I met her. She seems ok."
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"I just wish that I had a bit of warning about this whole mystical destiny deal before some crazy fellows in robes started trying to kill me." Sigh. You can't always get what you want, I suppose.
Becca explains to me about Faith and I just gape at her for a moment. Buffy died twice. There's another slayer. She was evil and in prison. I just blink slowly for a while. "Alright," I say finally. "I think I'm mostly worried about the fact that this almost made sense to me."
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