Introduction
Season:
First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links | Fanfic
| After Life | Life Serial |
Buffy moves slowly through the dark, looking and listening. She hears a dripping noise, and moves toward it. She looks up. “So, we meet at last, Mr. Drippy.” Buffy raises the pipe wrench in her hand and tightens it around the leaking pipe.
Dawn comes down the basement stairs behind her, carrying a cordless phone. “Want me to call a plumber?” Buffy tells her no. “You sure? Got the number.”
“Dawn, I’m on it, okay?” Buffy twists the pipe, tightening the leaking joint. The drip stops. After a second there is a groaning noise from behind her. Pipes start to burst, spraying water all around the basement. Buffy winces, and closes her eyes.
Dawn gets caught in the crossfire between two leaks. She shrieks, drops the phone, and runs upstairs.
Buffy sighs, and opens her eyes. “There. All better.”
Dawn—in dry clothes—looks down the stairs into the basement. “Man, how much water can they fit in one set of pipes?”
“If I understand right, the entire city water supply,” says Tara.
“It’s like little clown cars in the circus,” says Willow.
“Told you we should have called the plumber.” Dawn tells Buffy.
Buffy is standing by the sink. She turns on the tap, and looks at the water flowing from the faucet. It fascinates her. “You were right. The plumber will make everything good.”
Tara tells Dawn that she should be eating some breakfast. Buffy agrees, but she keeps staring at the water flowing from the faucet. “Dawn, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s unbelievably important. You should eat breakfast at least three times a day.”
Willow comes over to the sink and turns off the water, snapping Buffy out of her daze.
Xander comes up out of the basement with his friend Tito. “And a big Sunnydale round of applause for Tito the Amazing. Plumber Extraordinaire.”
“How’s everything looking down there?” asks Tara.
“Like we should start gathering up two of every animal,” says Xander.
Tito tells them that their pipes are shot. “What you need’s a full copper re-pipe job.” Willow thinks that sounds pricey. Tito hands her the invoice and tells her his phone number is on it before he goes.
Dawn takes a peek at the invoice. “That’s a weird phone number. Oh, wait. Is that the bill?”
Xander tells her that Tito gave them a good deal. He only charged his bargain prices, and Xander haggled him down a bit from that.
“Thank you,” says Buffy. “So we’ll pay him. What’s the big deal?”
Willow looks a little nervous. “Um, Buffy, I know you’re still getting back on your feet after—”
“Lying flat on my back?”
“Yeah, uh, but there’s some money stuff we’re going to have to talk to you about.”
Buffy sits on the sofa, with the coffee table in front of her covered with bills. Xander, Willow, Tara, Dawn and Anya sit and stand around the living room looking at her. “Okay, so you’re telling me I’m broke?”
Buffy isn’t quite broke yet, but money is getting tight. She is almost out of it. Buffy doesn’t understand how that could be possible. “But I haven’t spent any money. I was all dead and frugal.”
This took the others by surprise too. Joyce had plenty of life insurance, but her hospital bills sucked up most of the money.
“Which you’re still hemorrhaging, by the way,” says Anya.
“How am I doing that?” asks Buffy.
“No, not you, the house,” says Anya. “See, this house, just sitting here, doing nothing, by itself costs money.”
“So what do we do?” asks Dawn.
“Easy,” says Buffy. “We burn the house to the ground and collect the insurance. Plus, fire? Pretty.” Everyone just looks at her, suspecting she’s serious. Buffy tells them she’s kidding. “Okay, it’s bills, it’s money. It’s pieces of paper sent by bureaucrats that we’ve never even met. It’s not like it’s the end of the world…which is too bad, you know, ’cause that I’m really good at. I’ll take care of this. I promise. I just don’t know how yet.”
Anya has an idea how: if Buffy wants to make enough to cover all the bills, and set up a nice college fund for Dawn, she should start charging for slaying vampires. “I mean, you’re providing a valuable service to the whole community. I say cash in.”
“Well, that’s an idea…you would have,” says Buffy. “Any other suggestions?”
No one else seems to think much of Anya’s idea. “You can’t charge innocent people for saving their lives!” says Dawn.
“Spiderman does,” says Anya.
“He does not!” says Dawn. She and Anya get into a “Does too!” “Does not!” argument, until Dawn appeals to the expert: Xander.
Xander is really reluctant to be pulled into this one. He looks down at the floor. “Action is his reward.”
Anya gets to her feet. “Why don’t you ever take my side?” She storms out of the house.
Xander follows her. “What are you talking about, taking your side? Anya, I am your side!”
Willow watches them go, and then looks back at Buffy. “You’re throwing away a gold mine.”
Xander catches up with Anya outside, and asks what’s bothering her. She thinks he should ask his friend Spiderman. “You know, if you’re not going to support me—”
“I’m supportive! I’m totally supportive! I’m a flying buttress of support,” says Xander. “This is because I haven’t told them yet about the engagement, isn’t it?”
Anya scoffs at that. “No! Maybe. Yes. It’s painful and confusing.” She pulls the ring box out of her purse and opens it. “I mean, first you give me this beautiful ring, and then I can’t wear it in public. I mean, do you know how depressing that is?”
“Anya, I promise, your waiting days are almost over. I know it’s frustrating, but the way I understand this marriage thing, it’s kind of a forever deal.”
“Not if you never get started. Don’t you want to get married?”
“Yes.”
“So then why won’t you tell them?”
“Because I’m still getting used to the miracle of a steady paycheck and getting out of my parents’ house,” says Xander. “And this…this husband thing. It’s a big step. Or…a lot of little ones. And…and I love you so much, I just want every step to be just right.”
Anya begins to smile. “Really?” She puts her arms around Xander, and they start to kiss. She suddenly pulls away. “Hey! You tricked me! Just now, with your fancy talk and lips! You keep doing this, and I keep forgetting, and you keep stalling!” She starts to walk away from him.
“Anya!” Xander calls after her, his face smeared with her lipstick.
“When are you going to grow up, Xander?” asks Anya without looking back.
Buffy sits in the loan officer’s office at the bank in her most conservative outfit, and her hair pulled up in a bun. She rehearses her lines while she waits. “There’s a first time for everything, is my philosophy… This is my first big loan… Collateral? No problem… No problem… No problem… I love that tie… I’m a problem solver… Let’s crunch those numbers.” She looks down at her lap. “Stupid skirt.”
She is taken a little by surprise when Carl Savitsky returns to his office. He introduces himself to her. Buffy hands him a thick folder of papers. She didn’t know just what he’d need, so she brought everything. “I’m very responsible in that way.”
Carl starts flipping through the papers Buffy has brought. “Okay… I don’t think I’ll need this… or these… Old report cards, definitely not…”
“So,” asks Buffy, “about my getting a loan…”
Mr. Savitsky thinks that’s going to be a problem. “It looks as if, financially, we have a bit of a tangle.”
“I know. And I figured you could just, you know, cut through that tangle with scissors.” Buffy makes a scissors motion with her fingers. “You know, where the loan is the scissors.”
The problem is that the only collateral Buffy has is her house, and it has been losing equity over the last several years. “For some reason, Sunnydale property values have never been competitive, and re-financing’s out of the question.”
“Are you saying you won’t give me my loan?”
“Well, the problem is you have no income. No job.” Carl is interrupted by a scream. One of the bank guards crashes through the window into his office and lands on the desk between Buffy and Carl Savitsky. Carl falls back out of his chair onto the floor.
Buffy stands and looks out onto the main floor of the bank. She sees a large green demon take out a second guard. “No job? I wish!”
Buffy steps in front of the demon. “Hey! Are you in the wrong line?” She points to the teller windows. “That’s for deposits, that’s for withdrawals, and this one is for getting kicked in the face.” She tries to kick the demon in its face, but for some reason her foot doesn’t come up. She looks down at her legs enclosed in a black, close fitting, calf length skirt. “Stupid skirt.”
The demon roars and knocks Buffy flying back into Mr. Savitsky’s office. She lands on his desk. She spots a letter opener in his pencil holder. She points at it. “May I?” she asks Carl, as he pokes his head over the desk and looks at her. He nods.
Buffy takes the opener and uses it to slice open her skirt, from the top of her thigh down to the hem. She puts the letter opener back, and leaps out of the office. She kicks the demon in the head, and follows up with a quick series of punches. She doesn’t notice that as she pummels the demon, three guys wearing masks and gloves are emptying the bank’s cash drawers into sacks.
The demon manages to grab Buffy in a bear hug, and lifts her up. There’s a gunshot, and both Buffy and the demon look toward its source. A very nervous bank guard is pointing his gun at them. “Put the girl down.”
The demon throws Buffy at the guard, and they land together in a heap on the floor. Buffy picks up the guard’s gun between two fingers. “These things? Never helpful.” She tosses the gun away, and then cringes when it goes off.
Buffy gets back to her feet, but the demon is already on its way out the door. She starts to follow it, but the demon throws a bank customer at her and makes its escape. She returns to Mr. Savitsky’s office.
Carl is still on the floor behind his desk. Buffy leans over it. “Now, about my loan… I’m not saying I’m charging you for saving your life or anything, but, let’s talk rates.”
Buffy pummels the punching bag in her training room while Willow sits on the pommel horse watching. Willow can’t believe that the bank wouldn’t give Buffy the loan. “I mean, even if the bank did get robbed—which for you, battling demons, couldn’t possibly know—you would think there’d be some kind of reward. But, no, they’re like, ‘oh, we’re not going to give you money unless you prove you don’t need it.’ I mean, what kind of system is that?”
“You’re asking the wrong gal.” Buffy starts hitting the bag even harder.
“Hey, Buffy. You’re mad.” Willow hops down of the pommel horse.
“You noticed,” says Buffy. “It’ll pass.”
“No!” says Willow. “Anger is a big, powerful emotion you should feel.”
“Well, that’s good, then.” Buffy steadies the bag, “It’s gone now.”
Willow decides she should make Buffy mad again. “Uh, ready? Um…last semester, I slept with Riley.”
Buffy looks at her and raises her eyebrows. “And you know, I really doubt it.”
“Caught me,” says Willow. “Big fib. To cover up the sleazy affair I had with Angel.”
“Will…what the hell are you doing?” asks Buffy.
“Pissing you off.”
“Yes. True. Why?”
“Well, ’cause, you know… Since you’ve been back, you haven’t exactly been big with the whole range of human emotions thing.”
“What do you mean?” asks Buffy.
“Well, you haven’t— No, I mean, it’s just, um…” Willow starts backing away. “You know, this is really my problem. I’m just— I’m all over the place, and you should just, uh, forget I even said anything ’cause…’cause…” Willow hops back up onto the pommel horse. “Well, ’cause, you know, banks, man.”
Buffy goes back to pummelling her punching bag.
Anya and Xander sit at the round table at the back of the Magic Box. She thinks he’s being a wiener dog for not telling anyone about their engagement. She looks toward where Tara and Dawn are collecting books at the front of the shop. “Look at them. Researching demons for the billionth time. They could use a peppy boost of happy news.”
Xander starts to get up. “You’re right. I’ll tell them.” He sits down again. “As soon as Buffy and Willow come in.”
“Chicken,” says Anya. “Dare you.”
“Anya, if I tell them that we’re engaged right after you dared me to, wouldn’t you always wonder if that’s the only reason I did it?”
“Oh,” says Anya.
“Score one for Captain Logic.”
“No,” says Anya. “Captain Logic is not steering this tugboat. I smell Captain Fear at the wheel. God! I hate this! This tone in my voice? I dislike it more than you do, and I’m closer to it.”
Dawn and Tara return to the table with a stack of books. Dawn wants to help with the research, but Tara thinks she’s still too young. She’s only fifteen.
“Right,” says Dawn. “Fifteen, as in teenager. You know, if you don’t let me look at the pictures, I’m going to learn everything I know about demons on the street.”
Tara hands her the top book from the stack. “Knock yourself out.”
“Thank you.” Dawn starts leafing through the book. “See? No biggie. I can totally handle it.” She stops at a picture. “That’s a weird place for a horn.” She closes the book. “That’s not a horn.” After a couple of seconds she opens the book again for another look.
Xander is still trying to figure out what kind of demon would rob a bank. “The kind that wants money,” says Anya.
“What do you even call that?” asks Xander.
Dawn turns the book around, and shows him a picture from a different page. “This? I’m guessing on how you say it. It’s got an apostrophe. I think it’s MMM’Fashnik. Like, mmm, cookies.”
“Or maybe Muh’Fashnik,” says Xander. “Like, Muh…Fashnik.”
Buffy and Willow enter from the training room, and Dawn shows Buffy the picture. “This your guy?”
“You do research now?” asks Buffy. “Want a cappuccino and a pack of cigarettes to go with it?”
“Would you just look at the picture?” asks Dawn.
“It doesn’t exactly fit the profile for your typical bank robber,” says Xander.
“Maybe they turned down his loan application,” says Buffy. She looks at the picture. “That’s him. Big bad. This thing was strong, guys. No weapons that I could see, but still…” The bell over the front door jingles, and she looks toward it. “…real…dangerous.”
Everyone looks around to see what Buffy’s looking at. Giles is standing inside the doorway with a bag in each hand. He sets them on the floor and walks toward her. Buffy meets him half way. “Oh, God, Buffy…” They grab each other in hug. “You’re alive. You’re here…and you’re still remarkably strong!”
“Huh? Oh.” Buffy lets go of Giles and steps back a bit. “Sorry.”
Giles puts his hands on her shoulders. “Willow told me, but I didn’t really let myself believe it.”
“I take a little getting used to,” says Buffy. “I’m still getting used to me.”
“It’s, uh—you’re…”
“A miracle,” says Buffy.
“Yes.” Giles, puts his hand on Buffy’s cheek. “But then, I always thought so.”
M’Fashnik walks down a Sunnydale street, looking for something.
Buffy and Giles have moved back into her training room. They look at each other awkwardly for a moment, not sure what to say to each other. “I can start. How was England?” Buffy sits down on the sofa. “How was life?”
“I’m not really sure how to answer that,” says Giles. “Um, well, I arrived home. I met with the Council.”
“Always a good time,” says Buffy.
“Yes. Otherwise, there’s nothing really to report. I—I keep a flat in Bath. I met with a few old friends. Almost made a new one, which I think is statistically impossible for a man of my age.”
“And now you’re back,” says Buffy.
“Yes.”
“Wow. Giles, are you miserable about it, or just really British?”
Giles takes off his glasses and sits down beside her. “I can’t lie to you, Buffy. Um, leaving Sunnydale was— was, uh, difficult. And coming back is—”
“I’m guessing the word is ‘inconvenient?’”
“No. Bewildering? And how are you…” He puts his hand on her shoulder. “…really. You look tired.”
Buffy tells Giles she’s fine, but she’s been having some trouble sleeping, “But just because of the whole waking-up-in-a-box thing. So, maybe waking up’s the problem. Yeah, but just for a second. I sleep okay. Great, even. Except, you know, for the dreams.”
“You seem to be doing remarkably well under extreme circumstances,” says Giles. “I’m proud of you.”
“Well, actually, it wasn’t me,” says Buffy. “Willow brought me back. I just lay there.”
“You—you know, I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” says Buffy. “It was just a little post-postmortem comedy. Oh, well, I, uh, better start prepping. The Slayage.” She gets up off the sofa and starts taping her hands in preparation for another session with her punching bag.
“Yes, there is always that, isn’t there?” says Giles.
“Seems that way.”
Giles returns to the main section of the Magic Box and is greeted by Anya with a hug almost as strong as the one he got from Buffy. “We’re so glad to see you. We missed you. You can’t have the store back. You signed papers.”
Giles frees himself from Anya’s grip and asks if they have any new information on this new demon. Dawn proudly hands him the book and tells him she found him. Giles looks at the picture. “M’Fashnik. Oh.”
“Aha!” says Dawn. “Like, mmm, cookies.”
“No, no. Quite different, actually,” says Giles. Tara asks if he knows it.
“By reputation, yes,” says Giles. “They come from a long line of mercenary demons that perform acts of slaughter and mayhem for the highest bidder.”
“Well, it is the American way,” says Xander.
“Yes, but the question now becomes what’s out there powerful enough to control one of those things?” asks Giles.
M’Fashnik knocks a stack of boxes flying across a basement. “We had a deal! You got what you wanted, now give me what I want— the head of the Slayer!”
Warren, Jonathan and Andrew look up from the bean bag chairs they’re sitting in, counting their take from the bank robbery.
“Okay.”
“Sure.”
“We can do that.”
M’Fashnik is pissed. He was hired to create chaos and carnage, and they had told him they were powerful men. “Commanding machines, magicks, the demon realm below.”
“We’re, like, super villains,” says Jonathan, and he and Andrew do their evil “Mwah-ha-ha-ha!” laugh. M’Fashnik wants to know which of them is the leader.
“I am.” They all raise their hands.
“I will kill the leader.”
“He is.” They all point at someone else.
“I will kill you all.”
“Wait. No fair.” Jonathan jumps to his feet, and approaches M’Fashnik with a wad of money in his hands. “It’s not our fault the Slayer was there. We said we’d pay you, and we’re going to.”
Warren drops to his knees behind Jonathan. “Yes. Truly Lord Jonathan is wisest of us all.”
Andrew follows suit. “Uh, yeah. Long live our noble Lord and Master.”
“You guys suck,” says Jonathan.
M’Fashnik isn’t interested in money. He knocks it out of Jonathan’s hands, grabs him by the throat and picks him up. “You pitted me against the Slayer. For that I will kill you.” Warren and Andrew smile up at them. “Then I will suck dry your bones and use them to beat your subjects to death.”
Warren and Andrew jump to their feet. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Big guy,” says Warren. “Hey, hey. Let’s back things up a parsec, okay? You kill us, everybody loses. You let us live, we give you…”
“Give me what?” asks M’Fashnik.
“Name it!” chokes out Jonathan. M’Fashnik drops him. Warren tells M’Fashnik that they can do pretty much anything.
“Like, if you want a spell to make you look super-cool to the other demons. I’m all over that action, my friend,” says Jonathan.
“Or—just throwing it out there—” says Warren. “Robot girlfriend? Huh? For those long, lonely nights after a hard day’s slaughter.”
M’Fashnik seems intrigued by that idea, but Andrew says Warren is all mouth.
“Shut up, Andrew,” says Warren. “You’re just mad I wouldn’t build you Christina Ricci.”
“You owe me, man,” says Andrew.
“Or else what?” asks Warren. “You’ll train another pack of devil-dogs to ruin my Prom? Graduated!”
“That wasn’t me!” says Andrew. “How many times do I have to say it? The Prom thing was my lame-o brother Tucker.”
“Yeah, well, tell him I was at that Prom,” says Jonathan.
Andrew tells them again that he had nothing to do with the devil-dogs. “I trained flying demon monkeys to attack the school play! School play, dude.”
Warren and Jonathan agree that was cool. They start to laugh. “Remember, everyone was, like, ‘Run, Juliet!’” says Jonathan.
”Enough!” roars M’Fashnik. “Nothing you can offer me will satisfy your debt to me. I don’t want your toys, your spells, flying monkey demons. I want the Slayer dead!”
“Okay,” says Andrew.
“Done,” says Jonathan.
“One dead Slayer coming up,” says Warren. “Could you just give us a minute?” He starts to herd Jonathan and Andrew toward the other end of the basement. “We just really want to nail down the optimum method for us to wipe out the Slayer for you.”
“Make sure it involves pain,” says M’Fashnik.
Buffy hands Giles a pillow and starts to put sheets onto the sofa for him. She apologises for their terminal cuteness. They are covered in butterflies. They were hers when she was a little girl. “I couldn’t find the guest sheets. Mom always did this stuff. They don’t actually fit. I blame the sofa. We need one of those pull-out kinds. You know, with no payments until 2000-and-infinity?”
“What?” asks Giles.
“Oh, it’s just money stuff. It turns out Mom left me some, and while I was dead, it got squandered on luxuries like food and clothing.”
Giles takes over putting the sheet on the sofa, and asks how bad the situation is. Buffy tells him that according to Anya it’s pretty bad. She’s just taking her word for it, and trying not to think about it. Giles thinks that’s a sound policy, at least for tonight. He sits down on the sofa.
“Figured I’d put it out of my mind,” says Buffy. “You know, take a break. Get some perspective. And then wake up at 4AM terrified.” She flops down on the sofa beside him.
Giles thinks she’s putting too much pressure on herself. “I mean, to return from some…unknown level of hell, it’s only natural that coming back will be a process.”
“In the meantime, I’m scaring people,” says Buffy.
Giles thinks that will just take time. Life can be pretty overwhelming “Even for people who haven’t been…where you have. Look, tomorrow morning, you and I will sit down together and we’ll go through everything, every bill, one by one. We’ll work it out together.”
“I’m glad you’re back,” says Buffy.
“Well, I’m glad you are, too.” Giles reaches out to put his hand on hers, but Buffy gets up off the sofa before he can touch her, and walks out of the living room. Giles watches her go, a concerned look on his face.
Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew quietly discuss what they are going to do in the opposite corner of the basement from M’Fashnik. Jonathan really doesn’t want to kill Buffy. “She saved my life a bunch of times. Plus she’s hot.”
“It’s her or us,” says Warren. “I mean, we have to do it. We’re talking about staying alive. And since this is my mom’s house, I think what I say goes.”
“But aside from the moral issues and the mess, we can get in trouble for murder,” says Andrew.
“Duh!” says Warren. “You know, the last I checked, the authorities also frown on bank robbery, too, genius!”
Jonathan also has serious doubts about their ability to kill Buffy, she’s super-strong, and killing people isn’t what they got together for. “We teamed up with one clear, super-cool mission statement, remember?”
Flashback:
Jonathan, Warren and Andrew sit around a table in Warren’s basement playing Dungeons and Dragons. “So, you guys want to team up and take over Sunnydale?” asks Warren.
“Okay.”
“Of course I remember,” says Warren. “It was last month.”
“Then you know we have a mission,” says Jonathan. He points to the whiteboard on which their To Do list is written:
CONTROL THE WEATHER
MINIATURIZE FORT KNOX
CONJURE FAKE IDs
SHRINK RAY
GIRLS
GIRLS
THAT GORILLA THING
“Shrink rays… trained gorillas… workable prototype jet-packs… And chicks, chicks, chicks! I know that’s the action I signed on for.”
“Me, too,” says Andrew. “Ix-nay on the urder-may.”
Warren calls for a vote. “Okay,” says Jonathan. “Who’s for not killing Buffy?” His and Andrew’s hands go up in Vulcan salutes. After a couple of seconds Warren puts his hand up too.
“So what are we going to do about this MMM’Fashnik guy?” asks Jonathan.
Warren has an idea. He tells them to wait, and walks across the basement to M’Fashnik. He pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and hands it to the demon. ”Here’s the Slayer’s name, address, and telephone number.” he whispers. He pats M’Fashnik on the shoulder. ”You want to kill her? Make it so.”
M’Fashnik growls in resignation, and leaves. Warren saunters back toward an amazed Jonathan and Andrew.
“What are you, some kind of Jedi?” asks Andrew.
“The force can sometimes have great power on the weak-minded,” says Warren.
Giles enters the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder. Willow is there getting herself a snack of milk and cookies. He goes over to the sink, and starts to wash up. She asks if he had a good talk with Buffy.
“Yes, now that she’s back,” says Giles. “Tell me about the spell you performed.”
“Oh. Okay, first of all, it’s so scary. Like, the Blair Witch would have had to watch like this.” She puts her hand over her eyes, and peeks between her fingers. “And—and this giant snake came out of my mouth and there was all this energy crackling, and this pack of demons interrupted, but I totally kept it together. And then, the next thing you know, Buffy!”
Giles pauses for a bit over the sink. “You’re a very stupid girl.” Willow is completely taken aback by this unexpected outburst. He turns to look at her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The forces you’ve harnessed, the lines you’ve crossed?”
“I thought you’d be impressed or—or something,” says Willow.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ve made a very deep impression.” Giles struggles to keep his temper in check. “Of everyone here, you were the one I trusted most to respect the forces of nature.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
“Think what you’ve done to Buffy.”
“I brought her back!”
“At incredible risk!”
“Risk? Of what? Making her deader?”
“Of killing us all. Unleashing Hell on Earth. I mean, shall I go on?”
“No.” Willow stands up. “Giles, I did what I had to do. I did what nobody else could do.”
“Oh, there are others in this world who can do what you did,” says Giles. “You just don’t want to meet them.”
“No, probably not,” says Willow, “but, well…they’re the bad guys. I’m not a bad guy. I brought Buffy back into this world, and maybe the word you should be looking for is ‘congratulations.’”
“Having Buffy back in this world makes me feel…indescribably wonderful, but I wouldn’t congratulate you if you jumped off a cliff and happened to survive.”
“That’s not what I did, Giles.”
“You were lucky!”
“I wasn’t lucky. I was amazing!” says Willow. “And how would you know? You weren’t even there.”
“If I had been, I’d have bloody well stopped you. The magicks you channeled are more ferocious and primal than anything you can hope to understand, and you are lucky to be alive, you rank, arrogant amateur!” Giles throws his towel onto the counter and starts out of the kitchen.
Willow’s voice drops. “You’re right. The magicks I used are very powerful. I’m very powerful, and maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to piss me off.” Giles stops and looks back at her. She continues in her regular tone. “Come on, Giles, I— I don’t want to fight. I—let’s not, okay? I’ll think about what you said, and—and you…try to be happy Buffy’s back.”
“We still don’t know where she was…or what happened to her,” says Giles. “And I’m far from convinced she’s come out of all this undamaged.”
Buffy is standing on the back porch, near the kitchen window. A cigarette butt lands on the porch in front of her. She grinds it out with her foot. “Hello Spike.”
Spike steps out of the shadows in the yard. “You hear all that noise?”
“Just enough to make me feel crappy,” says Buffy.
“You know Watcher-boy doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“I guess,” says Buffy. “Everyone… They all care. They all care so much, it makes it all harder.”
“I’m not sure I followed you around that bend, Luv.”
“I just—I feel like I’m spending all of my time trying to be okay so they don’t worry,” says Buffy. “It’s exhausting. And then, I—”
“And that makes them worry even more.” Spike comes up and stands beside Buffy on the porch. “You want me to take them out? Give me a hell of a headache, but I could probably thin the herd a little.” Buffy almost lets herself laugh. “I knew I could get a grin.”
Buffy sighs, and sits down on the step. Spike sits beside her. “Why are you always around when I’m miserable?” she asks.
“’Cause that’s when you’re alone, I reckon,” says Spike. “I’m not one for crowds myself these days.”
“Me, neither,” says Buffy.
“That works out nicely, then,” says Spike.
They sit together in silence for a few seconds. “So, what do you know about finances?” asks Buffy.
Giles looks up from the sofa and sees Dawn coming down the stairs in her pyjamas. He asks if she couldn’t sleep.
“Not really.” Dawn looks at the book in his hands. “You?”
Giles puts the book aside, and comes out into the hall. “Evidently not.”
“You ever try mixing parts of every cereal you got in one bowl?” asks Dawn.
“Does it work?” asks Giles through a yawn.
“Going to find out. Want to come join the experiment?”
Giles volunteers for the control group. “You’ll find as you get older that you lose patience with…” He notices that something is jiggling the front door knob. “…throwing up. Is that locked?”
“It should be,” says Dawn.
The door splinters when M’Fashnik kicks it open. It hits Dawn, and knocks her down onto the dining room floor. Giles starts toward the demon, but it grabs him and throws him against the stair railing. The railing shatters, and Giles collapses to the floor, unconscious.
M’Fashnik turns back toward Dawn as she sits up. “You’re not the Slayer. But you’ll do for a start!” Dawn screams.
Dawn screams as M’Fashnik reaches toward her. Something stops him. He looks back and sees that Buffy has grabbed hold of him. “You’re paying for that door, buddy.” She throws him into the living room. He lands on the coffee table, and crushes it.
M’Fashnik grabs one of the table legs and wields it like a club. Then he decides he doesn’t need a weapon, and tosses the leg away. It shatters a lamp. He points at Buffy. “You have cost me, Slayer!”
“I cost you?” asks Buffy. “That’s a designer lamp, ya mook!”
M’Fashnik charges at Buffy, and his momentum carries them back into the dining room. Buffy lands on the floor with M’Fashnik on top. She hits at him, and kicks him off. He lands on the dining room table, shattering a crystal fruit bowl. He rolls off the table and breaks one of the chairs he lands on. Buffy attacks again, and M’Fashnik knocks her away against the buffet. A crystal vase totters, and falls toward the floor. Buffy catches it, and carefully sets it back on the buffet before turning back to M’Fashnik. She bounces him off the wall, breaking a framed picture.
Buffy kicks M’Fashnik toward the kitchen door. Spike catches and holds him. “Spike, no! I want him in the kitchen!” yells Buffy.
Spike lets go, and steps out of the way. Buffy drop-kicks M’Fashnik through the door into the kitchen. He keeps going, and doesn’t stop until he hits the back door, shattering its window. Buffy follows, and grabs him in a headlock. She tells Spike to open the basement door. “I’m taking him down!”
Buffy pulls M’Fashnik through the basement door. They fall down the stairs together, and land in about a foot of water at the bottom.
M’Fashnik and Buffy quickly get back to their feet. Buffy makes M’Fashnik stagger back under a flurry of punches and kicks. He looks around for a weapon. He reaches up and grabs the pipe Buffy had “fixed.” He rips it loose.
“No!” shouts Buffy. M’Fashnik swings the pipe at her. Buffy catches his arm, and takes the pipe away from him. She kicks M’Fashnik off his feet, into the water. She swings the pipe at him. “Full … Copper … Re-pipe!” She punctuates each word with another blow with the pipe. “No … More … Full … Copper … Re-pipe!”
Buffy finally stops, with M’Fashnik’s body floating face down in the water in front of her. She tosses aside the pipe, and looks up at the water pouring out of the broken pipes overhead.
“Whoa!” says Spike from the top of the stairs. “Did you know this place was flooded?”
Buffy closes her eyes.
Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew have been spending their money upgrading the basement. New furniture, new video games. Warren is fiddling with a tube shaped object. “We got the money. We got the lair. And our one loose end has been taken care of…by the Slayer.” A jet of flame erupts from the tube in his hands “Flamethrower’s up.”
Andrew has their periscope working too, it’s image projected on their new wide screen TV. It settles for a moment on a woman working in a garden. “It looks like your mom’s weeding tulips again,” he tells Warren. He swings the scope around some more, and focuses on a pretty girl sunbathing in the next yard.
Jonathan has their action figures fully deployed in a glass case.
Andrew still can’t believe it. “We did it. We can do anything. We can stay up all night if we want to.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” says Warren. “Don’t get all crazy on us, Andrew.”
Jonathan is still worried about Buffy. Sooner or later she has got to come after them, but Andrew thinks they’re ready to take her on.
“We could, uh— we could hypnotise her,” says Warren.
“Make her our willing sex bunny,” says Andrew. They all laugh.
“I’m putting that on the list!” Jonathan moves to the whiteboard, and writes “HYPNOTIZE BUFFY” at the top of their list.
Andrew thinks that this is the life. They’ve got all the stuff they ever wanted, and didn’t even have to earn it.
Jonathan turns away from the whiteboard. “It’s true, my friends. The way I see it, life is like an interstellar journey. Some people go into hypersleep and travel at sub-light speeds, only to get where they’re going after years of struggle, toil, and hard, hard work. We, on the other hand…”
“Blasted through the space-time continuum in a worm hole?” says Andrew.
Jonathan lights a cigar with a $100 bill.1 “Gentlemen, crime is our worm hole.” He looks at the burning bill in his hand, unsure what to do with it now. He blows it out, and smooths the bill, hoping it’s still spendable.
“But everyone knows if the width of a worm hole cavity is a whole number of wavelengths plus a fraction of that wavelength, the coinciding particle activity collapses the infrastructure,” says Andrew.
Warren spins his chair toward Andrew. He’s wearing VR goggles, and holding a game controller in his hands. “Dude, don’t be a geek.”
Willow and Dawn sit on the sofa trying to reassemble the lamp. Xander sits in another chair piecing together the bits of the coffee table. Buffy sits in a duct taped together chair beside Anya at the desk in the living room.
Anya has just finished tallying up the damages, and presents the results to Buffy. “Here is your first approximation of your spanking-new debt.”
Buffy looks down the list. “I’ve trashed this house so many times.2 How did Mom pay for this?”
“For starters, she saved money with this crappy-ass coffee table,” says Xander.
Anya still thinks Buffy should charge for her services. “No,” says Buffy. “I will definitely— probably not be doing that.”
Giles and Tara enter from the kitchen. She hands him an icepack which he holds against his head. “Well, I know I’m back in America now. I’ve been knocked unconscious.”
“What do you think the demon wanted, anyway?” asks Tara. “I mean, aside from costing you a bundle?”
“Don’t know,” says Buffy. “Now he’s way too dead to answer that question. Wish I knew who hired him.”
“Oh, I could do a locator spell,” says Willow eagerly. She sees the look Giles gives her. “Or not.”
Xander gives up on the table. “That’s it. It’s been four hours. I’m calling it, people. This coffee table, it’s gone. Damn it!”
“Also, this lamp’s in critical condition,” says Dawn.
Willow thinks its time to just pack up the pieces, and take them to the trash. She, Tara, Xander and Anya pick up pieces and carry them outside.
Giles sits down beside Buffy at the desk. “I don’t think I can do this,” she says.
“Yes, you can,” says Giles. “Your mother dealt with this sort of thing all the time. She took one crisis at a time, without the aid of any superpowers…and got through it all. So can you.”
“You sure?” asks Buffy.
“I’m positive.”
The phone rings, and Buffy gets up to answer it. “Who’s calling me? Everybody I know lives here.” She heads toward the kitchen. “I’ll be back.”
“I bet it’s creditors,” says Dawn. “The hounding’s begun. I read about it. So you think we’ll starve?” Giles doubts it. “No chance I’d have to quit school to work assembling cheap toys in a poorly ventilated sweatshop?”
“Poorly ventilated—” asks Giles. “What have you been reading?”
Buffy comes back from the kitchen, and keeps going past them toward the door, Giles asks what’s happening.
“Angel,” says Buffy.
“Is he in trouble?”
“He knows that I’m— He needs to see me. I have to see him.”
“Well, of course,” says Giles. “You’ll leave for L.A. tomorrow.”
“Not L.A,” says Buffy. “And not here. Somewhere in the middle. There’s a—a place.”
“I see. Well, we should get these bills and things out of the way before—”
“I have to go now.” Buffy starts toward the door again. She stops. “Oh…Um… Thanks for taking care of this for me.” And with that, she goes, leaving Giles and Dawn alone together in the living room.
| Who or What | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| M’Fashnik demon | Buffy’s basement | Beaten to death with a pipe by Buffy. |