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by Chris Kenworthy (scoobyhq@fcmail.com)
Disclaimer: If it's been on TV, I didn't make it up!
"About time you vixens got here," Xander called, banging open the door to his uncle's beach house as Mrs. Summers turned her ignition off and carefully engaged the parking break. "The afternoon is half behind us now? What took you so - ll..."
Xander's angry reproach turned into soft and meaningless babbling when Buffy and Willow got out of the car. Buffy smiled quietly to herself and made a mental note to pay Willow five dollars on a bet about this very reaction. Not that she really disbelieved the two of them, in their new clothes, would 'blow the guys away.' In truth, Buffy was just so pleased that her once so shy and self-deprecating friend had included herself in such high praise that she'd taken the bet, knowing full well it was a losing proposition.
They had shopped for a long time, longer than even Buffy had planned, but she considered the results well worth it. Right now, she and Willow were wearing specially selected 'beachwear casual.' Not swimsuits, just ordinary clothes that fit in well with the oceanside feeling and the warm weather, unusually warm for late december even in california next to the Pacific waters. The newspaper said it was El Nino, but Buffy didn't much care.
So she was wearing a baby blue and violet print dress, sleeveless, a little on the short side, and with a summery cutout at the stomach, with her nice comfy blue heels, and Willow was dressed to kill an unsuspecting Harris boy in a green lycra halter top and black shorts, with sandals.
Right then, as Buffy and Willow headed up to the house, Cole's head appeared behind Xander. Buffy thought she saw her boyfriend's eyes bug out a bit, but he managed to avoid the incoherent reaction that Xander had fallen prey to. "Uh... l-l-ladies!" he stuttered out loud. "G-great to see you. B-buh... Buffy, you look incredible." Buffy smiled secretively at Cole's Sylvester the cat impression. Definitely 'blown away,' too.
"So sorry we're late," Willow said teasingly as she headed up the stairs. "But Buffy saw that they were selling really cool clothes out on the pier, and we just had to stop and pick up a few special surprises. You don't mind, do you Xander?" She stepped, luggage in hand, up to the door and stared deeply into her boyfriend's eyes.
"Huh-uh-what??" Xander blurted out after a few seconds. "Oh, um, no, of course not, Will, you know that." The last part didn't really make much sense, but neither Willow nor Buffy worried about that as Xander backed away from the door, (bumping into Cole and nearly knocking them both over) so Willow could come in.
"Wow, this place is really cool, Xand!" Willow gushed, all traces of the self-assured siren gone as she reverted to her usual ingenuous enthusiasm. "A little cozy for five, as you said... but that's part of the fun, huh??"
"Just not too much of the fun, remember Willow, okay??" Joyce called out with a laugh as she passed Buffy on the porch and headed inside herself. Cole looked at Buffy expectantly, but when she didn't move, he carefully checked around himself, and headed out onto the porch.
"You okay, hntgh?" Cole's query was cut off as Buffy stole a quick and mostly chaste kiss from him, all too aware that her mother might head back out to the porch any second.
"Hi, honey," she said when the peck was over. "So nice to see you."
"It's nice to be seen," Cole shot back with a trace of a smile. "And to see you back, I have to say."
"Cool. Could you..." Buffy's mind raced. "Help me bring my stuff in? I'm afraid I might have packed a little much."
"Don't worry," Cole replied, giving her a reassuring squeeze on the arm. "I've heard horror stories from your friends and I think I have prepared myself for any horrible lengths your luggage might go to."
Buffy had to laugh at the way he put it. "It's not that bad," she protested.
"Did you or did you not, in fact, bring two suitcases on the field trip to the Stanford planetarium??"
"One suitcase, and a knapsack." A pause. "It was San Fransisco!"
"It was *FIVE hours,* Buffy!!"
(Sunnydale, City Hall.)
"Well," Wilkins said with a smile, turning to see the man, no, the not-a-man he was meeting in a room without windows. "So she's left town. That does indeed afford us a little breathing room."
"I don't see why we had to lie low for so long, anyways." Mister Trick muttered.
"I should hope that isn't so," the Mayor of Sunnydale said aloud. "After all, you were the one who brought me the news of that... costume party the high school kids all went too. Buffy Summers learned entirely too much about my plans that night. If she were to find out my identity... well, things could become very difficult." He smiled widely. "But Summers is scores of miles away, and things are easier because of it."
"Just don't get too comfy," Trick urged, arguing the other side out of sheer spite. "The other slayer is still in town, and the watchers, and some of their little friends..."
"They don't matter," Richard Wilkins declared. "Faith is still too close to the darkness herself to pose any serious threat to me - thank your old lord Kakistos for that. And the watchers... well, if they get in my way I can just have them killed. But you're right, there's no reason to get any too close to them yet. Might tip 'Buffy' off to what we're doing."
The vampire grinned nastily. "So what's up on the docket, your honor??"
"A contract." Wilkins took a parchment scroll out of his desk drawer and spread a portion of it out. "As you know, I have made agreements with various dark forces to gain the requisite levels of dark power I need to fufill the dedication - and later, the ascension. A few of these pacts I have had to delay somewhat, but there is one client who will brook no further waiting. A spirit of corruption and temptation that requires a offering of pure beauty.
"As human sacrifices go, it should be quite an easy one." The mayor leered with purely evil delight as he took out a newspaper page from a month ago - announcing the winner of the Sunnydale Belle contest.
(Somewhere halfway down Regan street...)
Faith winced at the bright sunlight, finished off her bottle of Jolt and tossed it into a garbage bin that rose up out of the sidewalk like a straight-sloped volcano. She wasn't used to patrolling during the stark daytime. She wasn't used to doing anything much during the daytime, come to think of it. Didn't seem natural, all this warm shinyness about.
Footsteps sounded from behind, intercepting her path from a side alley and starting to follow Faith. "Hey!"
Instantly she spun, pulling a sharpened and tempered stake out to hold it at the ready. A shriek echoed between the convenience store and the movie theater across the street. As it died out the Slayer could hear a voice going "sheez, Faith!!" Idly she reflected, as she whipped the stake back away into a non-threatening position at her side, that it was probably the only time she had seen Oz upset.
The owner of the shriek was the girl at Oz's side, the little blonde. Leslie, that was it, Lelie Decowski. "What are you guys doing here??" she asked.
"We knew you were on patrol, thought we'd come down and help," Oz explained. "Didn't figure that you'd mistake us for the patrolees."
"Oh," Faith groaned. "Well, okay, come on then."
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