New Fic!
I've been absent for far too long. Sorry about that, folks.
It's been that kind of... well, year. Or years, rather. Lots of RL problems, no time, no money, career in flux, you name it. But in the background, here and there, I've been working on this weird little Buffyfic. Which, I figured, I might as well share with you all, or at least those of you who still have any interest in reading Buffyfic.
Anyway. Don't feel the need to comment if you don't want to, since I've been crap for commenting on anyone else's work lately, but if you enjoy it, I'll pick up the vibes from the universe and be glad. No obligations. (If I can get a little further on this story, I might post it for Seasonal Spuffy free day later this month.)
This is a complete re-imagining of Season 7. YES! I'm serious.
For some reason I can't quite fathom, that period still calls to me the way a redo of Season 6 doesn't - I mean, I have problems with Season 6 (ask me sometime about how my brain starts to break when I think about the Trio's surveillance cameras, and how they somehow never caught Spike and Buffy having sex on film, and not only what a missed opportunity that was, but how unlikely that was, given the multiple al fresco incidents) - the potential was there, and at odd moments, I can still motivate myself into feeling excited about the could have beens. Which I can't exactly explain, so... oh, I guess if you're read this far, maybe you should just read the fic.
Click on through to the other side.
No Title Yet . Let me know if you have a good idea. I'm open.
Pairing: Probably Spike/Buffy. Eventually. You know me.
Disclaimer: BtVS and AtS characters not mine. I play with them, whisper to them, move them around. They don't seem to mind.
Rating: PG, so far. I'll let you know when that changes. It will.
Feedback: No obligation.
Summary: Season 7, re-imagined. Let's just start from the basics. What do we know? How do we know it? What do we want to know, or to see? (I guess ultimately I'm hoping to do sort of a virtual "season," but let's not get too ambitious yet...)
1. OLD NEW
"I can't believe this," Dawn grumbled. The night shadows made her gloomy expression even gloomier.
"It's not that bad," Buffy said. They were walking shoulder to shoulder in one of Sunnydale's many graveyards, the key difference between them - aside from Dawn's greater height, slightly compensated for by Buffy's high-heeled boots - being that Buffy's shoulder supported a hefty battleaxe. "Think of it like a rite of passage."
"Like a rite of passage that could get me killed." Dawn aimed a disgruntled kick at a tombstone and missed.
"Oh, c'mon. At least you know what you're getting into. Most people don't have that advantage."
"I don't think this counts as a 'most people' situation." She paused to watch the earth churning over a fresh grave. Buffy stopped next to her, assessed the situation, and then stepped back to give her sister some space.
"Remember to watch the hands," Buffy coached as the vampire's hands broke through the surface of the earth. "The hands are usually the biggest threat. He can't get his teeth into you if he can't grab you."
Dawn nodded, swallowing. She lifted the stake she carried to her shoulder and held it there, at ready. The vampire's head appeared next, pushing through the gravedirt like a baby being born. In the sweltery late-summer heat, the death-and-dirt smell was ferocious.
"Oh, and watch the eyes," Buffy amended. "The eyes will usually tell you what his next move is. Oh, and the feet too."
"How can I watch his hands and his eyes and his feet all at the same time?" The vampire had nearly managed to scrabble free of his grave, and Dawn was backing away warily, unsure how to best approach.
"Well, uh... huh. I guess you can't, really. I never thought about it. I just--" Buffy made an inexplicable gesture with her hands, as if recreating one of her slaying moves. "--do it."
The newborn vampire lunged then. At Buffy, who rolled her eyes and pushed him away with the shaft of her axe.
"Not me, stupid. Look! Vulnerable young girl over there! Tasty, tasty!"
Disoriented, his furrowed brow further furrowing in confusion, the vampire obediently turned toward Dawn.
"Okay... NOW! Go, Dawn! You can do it! It's stake time!" Buffy said. "Or... not." She frowned as Dawn dodged instead, leaping backwards with a thin shriek. A stumbling chase around the neighboring tombstones ensued. And went on. And on. Buffy rolled her eyes.
"Seriously, Dawn, you can stake him any time now."
"I'm trying!" Dawn planted her booted feet and took a couple of windmilling swings at the vamp with her stake. The vamp bobbed and weaved like a boxer, then chose his moment, lunging forward after the downstroke of a wide swing, pinning Dawn's arm against her body as he yanked her close and spread his jaws wide--
A tap on his shoulder distracted him from the coup de grace. "Uh, excuse me? I think this dance has gone on long enough." Buffy hefted the battleaxe with a smile. "I'm cutting in."
The fight was brief. The vampire pushed Dawn away and turned to face Buffy. And promptly crumbled to dust as his head was separated from his shoulders.
With a satisfied nod, Buffy planted the battleaxe blade-first into the mound of fresh gravedirt and considered her sister. "You okay?"
Panting, hands on her knees, Dawn nodded. "I... would've... had him. In a minute."
"I know." Buffy put an arm around her, patted her back.
Dawn's breathing began to even out. "I was pretty dead, wasn't I?"
"Totally."
There was a pause as they both absorbed this.
"You know all that stuff I said about how you never take me on patrols and I totally wanted to learn how to kill things?"
"Yeah?"
"I take it back."
"Too late for that. You're a big girl now, and in Sunnydale, that means knowing your way around a stake. And possibly other weapons, depending on the situation." Buffy smiled and waited. She could totally sense what was coming next.
"Right. Sure. I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate you showing me all this. It's just that.... well, you can see I'm not too good at it. And now that we're on the subject of the whole me-probably-being-killed thing, I hear that home schooling isn't nearly as creepy as it used to be."
"Nice try," Buffy said, feeling a parental-like pride of closure. "But you still have to go to high school."
Dawn's momentarily hopeful expression crumbled. "Dammit."
__________
"I still can't believe they rebuilt the high school," Dawn grumbled. She dropped her single grocery sack on the kitchen counter, then boosted herself up to sit on the counter, feet swinging. "On the same spot, even! Didn't anyone realize that place was like, cursed?"
Entering behind her sister, Buffy was fully laden with four paper bags that hid nearly half her body from view. "Not cursed," she said, her voice muffled by the obstructing bags. "It's just--oof" Blindly, she maneuvered the sacks toward the countertop. "--on a Hellmouth."
"Which would make it damned, right?" Xander said, as he appeared in the kitchen doorway with yet more grocery sacks. "Damn this hellmouth... to Hell!" Xander added a spooky laugh to his quip for extra effect and dramatically dumped his bags on the counter, waving his arms. "Whah ha ha ha haw!"
Dawn regarded him with narrowed eyes. "And I can't believe you helped them, Mr. Benedict Arnold."
"Hey, no name calling. And I swear on my comic book collection that I did try to convince them not to use the same site." Xander made a quick move to help Buffy as one of the grocery bags began to spill from her arms. "But, you know what? The more reports I submitted on how structurally unsound the area was, the more competitive the construction bids got. Life lesson learned: never underestimate the power of seriously cheap real estate. Or possibly a school board infiltrated by demons."
"But the building's safe, right?" Having finally unloaded the last of the grocery bags onto the counter, Buffy mopped her sweaty brow and joined the conversation. "I mean, aside from Hellmouthy stuff? Those were fake reports about it being structually unsound, right, and was that just a joke about the school board, or do I have to schedule a slay date with some elected officials?"
"No, no. Or, I dunno about the school board, but on the building reports, yeah. I mean, the whole area is riddled with caves and tunnels like everywhere in Sunnydale, but the building is rock solid. I give you my solemn word: that thing'll stand up to anything short of an apocalypse."
All three people in the kitchen exchanged uncomfortable glances. Nobody really wanted to say it. Like that never comes up around here.
Dawn pursed her lips and carried on. "Great. At least I won't have to worry about bricks falling on my head while the demons kill me."
"Demons aren't going to kill you," Buffy said, with the patient tone of someone who was actually nearly out of patience.
"Oh, cheer up, Dawnie," Xander chimed in. "It won't be that bad." He leaned against the counter and folded his arms over his chest in a nonchalant pose. "Look at it this way: I'm just a regular ol' human, and I made it through high school okay."
She looked at him askance. "You went to school with the Slayer."
"That I did."
"And so will you." With an enigmatic smile, Buffy reached into one of the shopping bags and produced a small gift bag decorated with a bow. "I was going to give this to you later, but... think of it as insurance."
Dawn peeked into the bag, then eagerly ripped it open. "A cell phone? You got me a freakin' cell phone!"
"For emergencies only," Buffy said, pushing out the words past a huff of surprise as her sister jumped of the counter and grappled her in a sudden bear hug. "Don't just use it to text your friends all the time, or we'll have a different kind of emergency that involves food stamps and possibly finding a cardboard box to call home."
"In other words, phone bill expensive, but hospital bills, more so," Xander agreed. He moved slightly to stand a little closer to Buffy, temporarily creating the visual tableau of a supportive family unit. Dawn, wrapped up in excitement over her new gift, didn't notice. "My construction crew will still be on site for the next few months at least, so--"
"You won't be alone, Dawn," Buffy finished his sentence, although she hadn't even looked at him or reacted to his presence next to her at all. "Not ever."
"Thank you so much," Dawn bubbled, the cell phone box clutched close to her chest over her heart. "I promise, emergencies only, cross my heart! I like food way better than my friends anyway."
Her attention turned back to her present then, and she actually bounced as she extracted the phone from its box and flipped through the instructions.
Still standing shoulder to shoulder, Buffy and Xander watched her, apprehension in their expressions that smiles couldn't disguise.
__________
"Kids grow up so fast, don't they?" Xander quipped. Alone with Buffy in the kitchen while Dawn excitedly made calls on her new phone -- a must, apparently, to fill her address book--he did what he could to help with stowing the groceries. This mostly involved unloading the shopping bags and trying to sleuth out which cupboard various items might belong in by trial and error.
"Not fast enough." Buffy closed a cabinet on newly bought dried pasta and jars of spaghetti sauce. "If she was magically four years older, I could be sending her to college right now with the money I don't have. Instead of to Sunnydale High, home of some of my worst nightmares."
"Only some?"
Buffy flashed him a quick grin at the joke, and then shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe she had a point about the home schooling. Do you think it's too late to phone in a bomb threat?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Xander's own grin turned serious. "Seriously, I think it'll be okay. I was right there the whole time during the rebuilding and no creatures were featured."
"And that'd be reassuring if it wasn't typically kind of quiet over the summer." Buffy closed another cupboard. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do this. I can't really be there for her every day. I'm gonna be stuck at my job if anything happens at the school during working hours, and I could work nights, but that'd take time away from my slaying and also a funny little thing called sleep." She ran her hands through her hair. "I'm the Slayer, not... not Superwoman."
"Damn those watchers for not giving you a cape and tights."
Buffy flashed him a tight-lipped smile. "Or the power to fly to go with them. Or a salary," she sighed. "If I ditch work for one more emergency, we will end up living in a cardboard box."
"Hey. That's not gonna happen." Xander shut the refrigerator. He'd given up on trying to deduce Buffy's cupboard-storage logic and had zeroed in on pershiables instead. "Look, we even dug a new basement during the rebuilding, right on top of the Hellmouth, and you know what we found? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No creepy tunnels, no ancient artifacts, no demon skulls or human bones..." He stopped, as if suddenly aware of the macabre turn in his word choices. "This probably isn't helping, is it?"
"Not so much."
"Okay, let me start over." He took a deep breath. "Last year. Y'know, with Willow, and all and the magic. She was sucking power out of everything and everyone--"
"Yeah." Buffy waved a hand as if to shoo away the rest of what he'd been about to say. "I... remember. You were saying."
"Okay, I know this sounds crazy, but bear with me. Maaaaaybe she sucked the Hellmouth dry too." At Buffy's disbelieving look, he shrugged and spread his hands wide. "What? It's possible, isn't it?"
Buffy barked out a dry laugh and turned to put a cereal box away. "Not a chance. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of Slaying, it's that Sunnydale will always be the place that evil things call home."
She paused then, leaning heavily on the cabinet door as if sobered by that very thought. Xander made a brief movement toward her, as if he meant to pat her shoulder or somehow comfort her, but she snapped out of her funk in that very same moment, loudly rustling the shopping bags and shelving the last of the groceries.
She didn't elaborate as to why she was so sure that his theory was wrong.
Eventually Xander broke the silence. "Okay," he said slowly. "So... evil's just laying low until the the first day of class?"
She tilted her head in a way that read as sarcasm detected, and tapped her nose with an index finger. "Survey says: very likely."
"Okay. You're the boss." He shrugged. "So what's our plan?"
"No plan. I'll just have to keep a close eye on the place as best as I can." Her eyes took on a faraway look, and her shoulders lifted, then fell. "After all, Dawn's not the only one I'm supposed to keep safe."
"Well, you don't have to do it alone. Like I told Dawn, I'll be on site for awhile yet." He flexed a bicep. "Construction man is on the job."
She smiled faintly. "Wasn't he one of the Village People?"
"Which is why you'll never see me dance while wearing my hard hat."
Buffy's smile broadened slightly. "Speaking of jobs, though, I should probably get Dawn's dinner on the table."
"Right. Dinnertime." Xander sucked in air, and blew it out again. "My least favorite time of day. An empty apartment and Soup for One."
Buffy's pained expression didn't register on him for several seconds. He held up his hands in a concilitory gesture. "That--sorry. That wasn't a cry for help. Or a dinner invitation."
"Xander--"
"I mean, I know I've been needy with the friendship lately, what with Willow off in England with Giles, and--" He hung his head, unable to continue the thought. "I guess I'm just still just getting used to the whole being-alone thing."
After a pause, Buffy said, "I know. And... well, that's what friends are for."
He lifted his head. Studied her, and then nodded, as if she'd answered some unspoken question. "Right," he said, headed to the door. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"Early," Buffy nodded and offered another smile. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "I-I mean, if that's okay. First day of school and all."
He gave her a grin that didn't quite reach his bleak eyes either, and left.
Buffy's smile faded as the door closed behind him.
__________
Later that night, after making her usual circuits through the graveyards, the downtown area, the back alleys by the Bronze, and other trouble spots, Buffy managed to arrange her patrol route to pass by the new high school on her way home.
It was, as it had been for years, still a rather desolate site. Still ringed by the same hurricane fence that had been erected to contain the old blasted ruins, the new school was a moonlit model of faux adobe, glass curtain walls, and cinderblock.
On the surface of things, it looked... modern. Well designed. Safe.
Not at all the sort of place where you'd expect vampires and demons to roam.
She almost felt like laughing.
Instead, she hooked her fingers through the chain links of the fence and just watched the building for a long moment. Clouds drifted across the full moon as she stood there, throwing the brand new building into shadow.
To be continued....
It's been that kind of... well, year. Or years, rather. Lots of RL problems, no time, no money, career in flux, you name it. But in the background, here and there, I've been working on this weird little Buffyfic. Which, I figured, I might as well share with you all, or at least those of you who still have any interest in reading Buffyfic.
Anyway. Don't feel the need to comment if you don't want to, since I've been crap for commenting on anyone else's work lately, but if you enjoy it, I'll pick up the vibes from the universe and be glad. No obligations. (If I can get a little further on this story, I might post it for Seasonal Spuffy free day later this month.)
This is a complete re-imagining of Season 7. YES! I'm serious.
For some reason I can't quite fathom, that period still calls to me the way a redo of Season 6 doesn't - I mean, I have problems with Season 6 (ask me sometime about how my brain starts to break when I think about the Trio's surveillance cameras, and how they somehow never caught Spike and Buffy having sex on film, and not only what a missed opportunity that was, but how unlikely that was, given the multiple al fresco incidents) - the potential was there, and at odd moments, I can still motivate myself into feeling excited about the could have beens. Which I can't exactly explain, so... oh, I guess if you're read this far, maybe you should just read the fic.
Click on through to the other side.
No Title Yet . Let me know if you have a good idea. I'm open.
Pairing: Probably Spike/Buffy. Eventually. You know me.
Disclaimer: BtVS and AtS characters not mine. I play with them, whisper to them, move them around. They don't seem to mind.
Rating: PG, so far. I'll let you know when that changes. It will.
Feedback: No obligation.
Summary: Season 7, re-imagined. Let's just start from the basics. What do we know? How do we know it? What do we want to know, or to see? (I guess ultimately I'm hoping to do sort of a virtual "season," but let's not get too ambitious yet...)
1. OLD NEW
"I can't believe this," Dawn grumbled. The night shadows made her gloomy expression even gloomier.
"It's not that bad," Buffy said. They were walking shoulder to shoulder in one of Sunnydale's many graveyards, the key difference between them - aside from Dawn's greater height, slightly compensated for by Buffy's high-heeled boots - being that Buffy's shoulder supported a hefty battleaxe. "Think of it like a rite of passage."
"Like a rite of passage that could get me killed." Dawn aimed a disgruntled kick at a tombstone and missed.
"Oh, c'mon. At least you know what you're getting into. Most people don't have that advantage."
"I don't think this counts as a 'most people' situation." She paused to watch the earth churning over a fresh grave. Buffy stopped next to her, assessed the situation, and then stepped back to give her sister some space.
"Remember to watch the hands," Buffy coached as the vampire's hands broke through the surface of the earth. "The hands are usually the biggest threat. He can't get his teeth into you if he can't grab you."
Dawn nodded, swallowing. She lifted the stake she carried to her shoulder and held it there, at ready. The vampire's head appeared next, pushing through the gravedirt like a baby being born. In the sweltery late-summer heat, the death-and-dirt smell was ferocious.
"Oh, and watch the eyes," Buffy amended. "The eyes will usually tell you what his next move is. Oh, and the feet too."
"How can I watch his hands and his eyes and his feet all at the same time?" The vampire had nearly managed to scrabble free of his grave, and Dawn was backing away warily, unsure how to best approach.
"Well, uh... huh. I guess you can't, really. I never thought about it. I just--" Buffy made an inexplicable gesture with her hands, as if recreating one of her slaying moves. "--do it."
The newborn vampire lunged then. At Buffy, who rolled her eyes and pushed him away with the shaft of her axe.
"Not me, stupid. Look! Vulnerable young girl over there! Tasty, tasty!"
Disoriented, his furrowed brow further furrowing in confusion, the vampire obediently turned toward Dawn.
"Okay... NOW! Go, Dawn! You can do it! It's stake time!" Buffy said. "Or... not." She frowned as Dawn dodged instead, leaping backwards with a thin shriek. A stumbling chase around the neighboring tombstones ensued. And went on. And on. Buffy rolled her eyes.
"Seriously, Dawn, you can stake him any time now."
"I'm trying!" Dawn planted her booted feet and took a couple of windmilling swings at the vamp with her stake. The vamp bobbed and weaved like a boxer, then chose his moment, lunging forward after the downstroke of a wide swing, pinning Dawn's arm against her body as he yanked her close and spread his jaws wide--
A tap on his shoulder distracted him from the coup de grace. "Uh, excuse me? I think this dance has gone on long enough." Buffy hefted the battleaxe with a smile. "I'm cutting in."
The fight was brief. The vampire pushed Dawn away and turned to face Buffy. And promptly crumbled to dust as his head was separated from his shoulders.
With a satisfied nod, Buffy planted the battleaxe blade-first into the mound of fresh gravedirt and considered her sister. "You okay?"
Panting, hands on her knees, Dawn nodded. "I... would've... had him. In a minute."
"I know." Buffy put an arm around her, patted her back.
Dawn's breathing began to even out. "I was pretty dead, wasn't I?"
"Totally."
There was a pause as they both absorbed this.
"You know all that stuff I said about how you never take me on patrols and I totally wanted to learn how to kill things?"
"Yeah?"
"I take it back."
"Too late for that. You're a big girl now, and in Sunnydale, that means knowing your way around a stake. And possibly other weapons, depending on the situation." Buffy smiled and waited. She could totally sense what was coming next.
"Right. Sure. I mean, don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate you showing me all this. It's just that.... well, you can see I'm not too good at it. And now that we're on the subject of the whole me-probably-being-killed thing, I hear that home schooling isn't nearly as creepy as it used to be."
"Nice try," Buffy said, feeling a parental-like pride of closure. "But you still have to go to high school."
Dawn's momentarily hopeful expression crumbled. "Dammit."
__________
"I still can't believe they rebuilt the high school," Dawn grumbled. She dropped her single grocery sack on the kitchen counter, then boosted herself up to sit on the counter, feet swinging. "On the same spot, even! Didn't anyone realize that place was like, cursed?"
Entering behind her sister, Buffy was fully laden with four paper bags that hid nearly half her body from view. "Not cursed," she said, her voice muffled by the obstructing bags. "It's just--oof" Blindly, she maneuvered the sacks toward the countertop. "--on a Hellmouth."
"Which would make it damned, right?" Xander said, as he appeared in the kitchen doorway with yet more grocery sacks. "Damn this hellmouth... to Hell!" Xander added a spooky laugh to his quip for extra effect and dramatically dumped his bags on the counter, waving his arms. "Whah ha ha ha haw!"
Dawn regarded him with narrowed eyes. "And I can't believe you helped them, Mr. Benedict Arnold."
"Hey, no name calling. And I swear on my comic book collection that I did try to convince them not to use the same site." Xander made a quick move to help Buffy as one of the grocery bags began to spill from her arms. "But, you know what? The more reports I submitted on how structurally unsound the area was, the more competitive the construction bids got. Life lesson learned: never underestimate the power of seriously cheap real estate. Or possibly a school board infiltrated by demons."
"But the building's safe, right?" Having finally unloaded the last of the grocery bags onto the counter, Buffy mopped her sweaty brow and joined the conversation. "I mean, aside from Hellmouthy stuff? Those were fake reports about it being structually unsound, right, and was that just a joke about the school board, or do I have to schedule a slay date with some elected officials?"
"No, no. Or, I dunno about the school board, but on the building reports, yeah. I mean, the whole area is riddled with caves and tunnels like everywhere in Sunnydale, but the building is rock solid. I give you my solemn word: that thing'll stand up to anything short of an apocalypse."
All three people in the kitchen exchanged uncomfortable glances. Nobody really wanted to say it. Like that never comes up around here.
Dawn pursed her lips and carried on. "Great. At least I won't have to worry about bricks falling on my head while the demons kill me."
"Demons aren't going to kill you," Buffy said, with the patient tone of someone who was actually nearly out of patience.
"Oh, cheer up, Dawnie," Xander chimed in. "It won't be that bad." He leaned against the counter and folded his arms over his chest in a nonchalant pose. "Look at it this way: I'm just a regular ol' human, and I made it through high school okay."
She looked at him askance. "You went to school with the Slayer."
"That I did."
"And so will you." With an enigmatic smile, Buffy reached into one of the shopping bags and produced a small gift bag decorated with a bow. "I was going to give this to you later, but... think of it as insurance."
Dawn peeked into the bag, then eagerly ripped it open. "A cell phone? You got me a freakin' cell phone!"
"For emergencies only," Buffy said, pushing out the words past a huff of surprise as her sister jumped of the counter and grappled her in a sudden bear hug. "Don't just use it to text your friends all the time, or we'll have a different kind of emergency that involves food stamps and possibly finding a cardboard box to call home."
"In other words, phone bill expensive, but hospital bills, more so," Xander agreed. He moved slightly to stand a little closer to Buffy, temporarily creating the visual tableau of a supportive family unit. Dawn, wrapped up in excitement over her new gift, didn't notice. "My construction crew will still be on site for the next few months at least, so--"
"You won't be alone, Dawn," Buffy finished his sentence, although she hadn't even looked at him or reacted to his presence next to her at all. "Not ever."
"Thank you so much," Dawn bubbled, the cell phone box clutched close to her chest over her heart. "I promise, emergencies only, cross my heart! I like food way better than my friends anyway."
Her attention turned back to her present then, and she actually bounced as she extracted the phone from its box and flipped through the instructions.
Still standing shoulder to shoulder, Buffy and Xander watched her, apprehension in their expressions that smiles couldn't disguise.
__________
"Kids grow up so fast, don't they?" Xander quipped. Alone with Buffy in the kitchen while Dawn excitedly made calls on her new phone -- a must, apparently, to fill her address book--he did what he could to help with stowing the groceries. This mostly involved unloading the shopping bags and trying to sleuth out which cupboard various items might belong in by trial and error.
"Not fast enough." Buffy closed a cabinet on newly bought dried pasta and jars of spaghetti sauce. "If she was magically four years older, I could be sending her to college right now with the money I don't have. Instead of to Sunnydale High, home of some of my worst nightmares."
"Only some?"
Buffy flashed him a quick grin at the joke, and then shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe she had a point about the home schooling. Do you think it's too late to phone in a bomb threat?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Xander's own grin turned serious. "Seriously, I think it'll be okay. I was right there the whole time during the rebuilding and no creatures were featured."
"And that'd be reassuring if it wasn't typically kind of quiet over the summer." Buffy closed another cupboard. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do this. I can't really be there for her every day. I'm gonna be stuck at my job if anything happens at the school during working hours, and I could work nights, but that'd take time away from my slaying and also a funny little thing called sleep." She ran her hands through her hair. "I'm the Slayer, not... not Superwoman."
"Damn those watchers for not giving you a cape and tights."
Buffy flashed him a tight-lipped smile. "Or the power to fly to go with them. Or a salary," she sighed. "If I ditch work for one more emergency, we will end up living in a cardboard box."
"Hey. That's not gonna happen." Xander shut the refrigerator. He'd given up on trying to deduce Buffy's cupboard-storage logic and had zeroed in on pershiables instead. "Look, we even dug a new basement during the rebuilding, right on top of the Hellmouth, and you know what we found? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. No creepy tunnels, no ancient artifacts, no demon skulls or human bones..." He stopped, as if suddenly aware of the macabre turn in his word choices. "This probably isn't helping, is it?"
"Not so much."
"Okay, let me start over." He took a deep breath. "Last year. Y'know, with Willow, and all and the magic. She was sucking power out of everything and everyone--"
"Yeah." Buffy waved a hand as if to shoo away the rest of what he'd been about to say. "I... remember. You were saying."
"Okay, I know this sounds crazy, but bear with me. Maaaaaybe she sucked the Hellmouth dry too." At Buffy's disbelieving look, he shrugged and spread his hands wide. "What? It's possible, isn't it?"
Buffy barked out a dry laugh and turned to put a cereal box away. "Not a chance. If there's one thing I've learned in all my years of Slaying, it's that Sunnydale will always be the place that evil things call home."
She paused then, leaning heavily on the cabinet door as if sobered by that very thought. Xander made a brief movement toward her, as if he meant to pat her shoulder or somehow comfort her, but she snapped out of her funk in that very same moment, loudly rustling the shopping bags and shelving the last of the groceries.
She didn't elaborate as to why she was so sure that his theory was wrong.
Eventually Xander broke the silence. "Okay," he said slowly. "So... evil's just laying low until the the first day of class?"
She tilted her head in a way that read as sarcasm detected, and tapped her nose with an index finger. "Survey says: very likely."
"Okay. You're the boss." He shrugged. "So what's our plan?"
"No plan. I'll just have to keep a close eye on the place as best as I can." Her eyes took on a faraway look, and her shoulders lifted, then fell. "After all, Dawn's not the only one I'm supposed to keep safe."
"Well, you don't have to do it alone. Like I told Dawn, I'll be on site for awhile yet." He flexed a bicep. "Construction man is on the job."
She smiled faintly. "Wasn't he one of the Village People?"
"Which is why you'll never see me dance while wearing my hard hat."
Buffy's smile broadened slightly. "Speaking of jobs, though, I should probably get Dawn's dinner on the table."
"Right. Dinnertime." Xander sucked in air, and blew it out again. "My least favorite time of day. An empty apartment and Soup for One."
Buffy's pained expression didn't register on him for several seconds. He held up his hands in a concilitory gesture. "That--sorry. That wasn't a cry for help. Or a dinner invitation."
"Xander--"
"I mean, I know I've been needy with the friendship lately, what with Willow off in England with Giles, and--" He hung his head, unable to continue the thought. "I guess I'm just still just getting used to the whole being-alone thing."
After a pause, Buffy said, "I know. And... well, that's what friends are for."
He lifted his head. Studied her, and then nodded, as if she'd answered some unspoken question. "Right," he said, headed to the door. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"
"Early," Buffy nodded and offered another smile. It didn't quite reach her eyes. "I-I mean, if that's okay. First day of school and all."
He gave her a grin that didn't quite reach his bleak eyes either, and left.
Buffy's smile faded as the door closed behind him.
__________
Later that night, after making her usual circuits through the graveyards, the downtown area, the back alleys by the Bronze, and other trouble spots, Buffy managed to arrange her patrol route to pass by the new high school on her way home.
It was, as it had been for years, still a rather desolate site. Still ringed by the same hurricane fence that had been erected to contain the old blasted ruins, the new school was a moonlit model of faux adobe, glass curtain walls, and cinderblock.
On the surface of things, it looked... modern. Well designed. Safe.
Not at all the sort of place where you'd expect vampires and demons to roam.
She almost felt like laughing.
Instead, she hooked her fingers through the chain links of the fence and just watched the building for a long moment. Clouds drifted across the full moon as she stood there, throwing the brand new building into shadow.
To be continued....