Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html
Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html
Part III: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html#cutid1

“Look, all I’m saying is, we should just tell them thanks but no thanks. This isn’t the sort of thing I’m going to do. It’s not the sort of thing I can do. And besides that, well, why would I want to go to some stuffy old boarding school when I can stay here in stylish, fun Sunnydale?”

Buffy was still complaining as they loaded up Giles’ car Friday after classes, and Giles was still ignoring her.

“You tell ‘em, Buff!” Xander offered in dry parody of support. “I mean, who wants to leave Sunnydale, where the skies are sunny and the vampires are sprouting? I mean, why would you want to somewhere without demons? Oh, god, take me with you.”

“That was the idea, yes. As much as I loathe to say it, you may be quite useful on this trip, Xander. If for no other reason than being exactly what you are.”

“I’d say thanks, but I’m pretty sure that was an insult very badly pretending to be something like a compliment. Come on, Will, is that all you’re bringing?”

“Laptop, check, clothes for two days, check. What about you, Xander?” Willow set her bag in the trunk, wedged carefully between Buffy’s bags and Giles’ suitcase.

Xander held up his gym bag. “All I need. I travel light. I’m the original light-traveller. I am…”

“Forgot to pack, hunh? Do you have enough?”

“Enh, I can buy a toothbrush and some socks when we stop for gas. Funny thing, gas stations. They seem like they’re made for the unprepared.”

“Ahem, indeed,” Giles cut in. “All right, everyone in—”

“Shotgun!” Xander shouted.

“Too late, bozo, I called shotgun like hours ago.” Buffy slid into the passenger’s seat. “If I have to do this thing of ridiculousness, then I’m going to do it in style.”

“No fair! Giles, tell her that’s not fair. That’s not how the ‘shotgun’ rules work, as written in the Shotgun digest of Fourteen-oh-eight!”

“I most certainly will not. Get in the car, now, all of you.” Giles pinched his nose. “Whatever have I gotten into?”

“Did they even have shotguns in fourteen oh eight?” Willow scooted into the backseat and fastened her seatbelt.”

“It was a very progressive digest at the time.”

With that, they were off. Giles spent more than half of the first leg of the trip bemoaning his willingness to get into a car with three teenagers at all, and much of the rest of it telling Buffy that, no, she did not have a Spidey sense telling her something back in Sunnydale was going horribly wrong.

“I could patrol here, you know.” Buffy was pacing back and forth in the hotel room. They’d gotten two rooms in a place that was surprisingly high-rent for Giles’ protestations of educational poverty, Giles and Xander in one room, Buffy and Willow in theory in the other, but currently wearing a hole in the first. “There could be vampires here. There could be demons.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s magic.” Willow was sitting in lotus on what was, in theory, Xander’s bed. “It feels a lot different from Sunnydale. Funny, everything started feeling different the moment we hit the city limits.”

“Neat what not being in a Hellmouth will do for you. Why don’t we go see what they have instead of a Bronze here? Maybe a Silver or a Gold, you think?”

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1112216.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108537.html. You can comment here or there.

Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html
Part II: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html

“Hey, Buff, Will. Giles-man.” Xander strolled into the library, took in the scene, and froze. “Uh. Maybe it’s just me, but generally the library involves less glaring and anger and more, you know, research and punning and wisecracks? I know I was a little late, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t start without me.”

“Oh, hello Xander.” Giles blinked owlishly and looked away from Buffy. You could nearly hear the pop of the air as he broke what had been a death-glare staring contest a moment earlier. “Buffy, Willow, and I were just discussing a small field trip we might be taking.”

“Won’t be taking,” Buffy corrected. “It’s ridiculous, and I’m not doing it.”

“Might be taking,” Giles disagreed.

“Field trip? Sign me up! Anything to get away from the Snyde-ster for a day or two!” Xander plopped into a chair. “I mean, unless we’re visiting another Hellmouth or something. I could live without that. I think even the Snyde-man is better than another Hellmouth. There aren’t other Hellmouths, are there?”

“Several, yes, although the closest known Hellmouth is in Cleveland and we are not going there.” Giles frowned. “However, I do not believe it would be wise for you to come along on this particular trip.”

“Oh. Is it shoe shopping? I can live without the shoe shopping. I have shoes, and that is enough for me.”

“There’s never enough shoe shopping. Giles, will there be shoe shopping in… nowheresville North Dakota? If there is, I might be convinced to check this place out.”

“Buffy…” Not for the first time — not even for the first time that week — Giles looked as if he’d like to put his face in his hands and cry. “If it will convince you that we very much need to take this field trip, I will go out of my way to take you shoe shopping. I may even —”

“Don’t offer to buy them shoes,” Xander cut in hastily. “I mean, I don’t know what they pay school Librarians — or Watchers — but it can’t be enough to handle what two teenage girls can do in a shoe store.”

“Hey!” Willow glared indignantly at him. “Watch it what you’re doing with those stereotypes, buster. Just because it’s this image that teenaged girls like shoes…”

“I like shoes,” Buffy chirped. “But you don’t have to come along, Xander. We’re not going, shoe shopping or not. It’s ridiculous, it’s not like I can even go to a private school, and Willow won’t go because there’s not going to be magic there.”’

“No magic? As in, none at all? No demons, no bug-people, no vampires? Sign me up! I mean… maybe they need a janitor? I can jan. Janet? What is the thing that janitors do? Help me out, Giles.”

“I think it would be quite interesting if Xander were to come along. Perhaps we can aim him at Dr. Avonmorea.”

“Oh, come on, Giles, she can’t be that bad.” Buffy patted Xander on the shoulder. “And, really, what’s Xander going to do? If there’s no magic, there won’t be any demons to follow him around. Or bug-people, or…”

“All right, all right. I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’m not wanted, right? ‘Cause, I mean, a place with no demons…”

“You should certainly come along, Xander, if you believe your parents would be fine with it.”

“My parents? They might notice if I’m gone past trash day more than twice.” Xander’s smirk didn’t falter, but his voice got a little louder. “You know, once it started to really stink in there.”

“Ahem. Well, then, it’s settled. I’m inform Principal Snyder — not of the specifics, of course — and we’ll leave Friday after lunch.”

“Wait, settled?” Buffy frowned. “Nuhn-unh. What about slayage? What about the whole Hellmouth here thing? What about the Bronze?”

“I believe all three of those things can wait for the length of time it will take us to travel to North Dakota and back. Although I am not certain I will survive a trip with the three of you, I believe it must be done.” Giles looked over his glasses at Buffy. “And if that is the case, then you can survive a weekend without the Bronze.”

“I’m not talking you out of this, am I?” Buffy pouted the question out as if she didn’t already know the answer. “Look, it’s a lost cause. They don’t want me, and I can’t go even if they did.”

“Yes, well. Be that as it may, we’re going to have to explain that to them. Possibly in a series of very long words.” Giles pinched his nose, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

“That’s all you. I’m all with the short words. Like stakes. Short and pointy.”

“Oh! Will there be staking of this Doctor lady? Maybe she’s a vampire?”

“If you’re going, Xan, I’m sure she’ll be a monster,” Buffy reassured him.

“That,” Giles muttered, unheard by any except Willow, “is precisely what I’m concerned about.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1108537.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html. You can comment here or there.

Part I: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1096503.html

Giles was frowning over a map when Buffy and Willow popped back into the library. Using a ruler and several colored pencils, he’d marked all over it, drawing what looked like a giant asterisk.

“Looking to teach art class?” Buffy flopped bonelessly into a chair. “It looks like you could use a little work.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Willow sat down much more primly. “Mrs. Edenburgh has gotten a bit shaky lately. Ever since that problem on Parent-Teacher night last year…”

“But there’s shaky and then there’s, well, then there’s Giles. No offense, Giles.”

“None taken. After all, it isn’t often that portraiture or still lifes are a required part of being a Watcher. And, indeed.” He looked down at the map one more time. “It is not that this isn’t conveying what I want it to—”

“X marks the spot?” Buffy offered brightly.

“Indeed. That is the spot… However, I do not like what this is showing me.”

“Still not with the clarity. What’s it showing, Giles?” Buffy put her finger down on one of the lines. “That’s… well, that can’t be a hellmouth, in the middle of Nebraska?”

“South Dakota. Honestly, what do you children study these days?”

“Slaying, mostly.”

“Are those ley lines?” Willow leaned forward. “If so, that’s, well, wow. I didn’t know they did the thing where they went straight like that.”

“They, ah, they don’t. Normally. And these aren’t quite ley lines, not per se. But what they are is, ah, lines of power.”

Willow furrowed her brow. “But isn’t that what ley lines are?”

“Ley lines are naturally-occurring, or at least, old enough to appear naturally occurring, places where the power has cut a channel into the world. These are, ah, the difference between a stream and a canal. And they are all pointing towards this Addergoole.” He erased a few lines carefully. “But as far as I can tell, they point towards. They stop about 2 kilometers out and just… stop.”

“Like, something is making them stop, or there’s a dead spot in the magical fields, or… oh, is there a Hellmouth in South Dakota? It doesn’t seem like the sort of place they tend to end up, I mean, don’t icky things normally congregate around a Hellmouth? Not like corn and the world most ridiculous airport — I mean, who puts a proper airport in a town that has a population of about two thousand and twice that many cows? — that doesn’t seem like Hellmouth material at all.”

“Will?” Buffy thumped a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Breathe. Wait, this place is in South Dakota? In a town of two thousand? There’s not going to be any shopping there at all.” She frowned at her nails. “Or probably a decent place to get a mani-pedi, and, besides, I can’t go.” She looked up at Giles, perturbed look replaced for a moment with something tired and determined. “The Hellmouth is here. The Slayer stays here.”

“Indeed.” Giles took off his glasses and began to clean them. “I believe what we may have here is an interesting conflict. It is entirely possible that your mother, not knowing the life to which you were — or would be — already committed, committed you to a school. If that is the case, there may be some interesting maneuvers necessary to get you out of this commitment. And, in the meantime…” He put his glasses back on and pinned both girls with a stare. “Willow has no such protection.”

Buffy frowned. “You’re saying she’d have to go, whether or not I went? No way. Willow’s gonna — wait. This place isn’t a Hellmouth, it’s like, an anti-Hellmouth?”

“Buffy,” Willow cut in. “No magic.”

“And? I mean, I know, that would suck for you, but we’re talking about getting you off the Hellmouth, Willow. That’s got to be worth a couple years of low-magic. I mean…” Buffy frowned. “I know, you like to be all involved-girl, and you’re great with it! I mean, I’m still alive because of you and Xan and Giles here. But I don’t want you to end up dead because of me, either. Let’s face it, Sunnydale isn’t exactly Survival Central or anything.”

“Buffy…” Willow’s brow furrowed. “That’s not fair! I mean, why should I run off and be safe when you and everyone else here is still all in danger and stuff?”

“You know…” Giles spoke slowly, but there was something about his voice that made both girls look at him. “Perhaps we ought to check out this school first. Then we’ll be in a better position to make a decision.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1104619.html

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1100922.html. You can comment here or there.