AU, post-"Chosen."
Will be mention of character deaths in later chapters.
The sun was setting as they sent the last of the surviving new Slayers home. Buffy leaned against a pillar and watched it disappear in a blaze of purple and orange. When was the last time she'd stopped and watched a sunset back in Sunnydale?
Eight sunsets she'd watched from this forgettable little town, mostly from this bus station as she and Giles and his Council-issued credit cards determined the best ways to send the girls—and Andrew—off. It had taken two nights to get this far, sneaking around all the emergency services that had swarmed to the crater formerly known as Sunnydale. And for four nights after that, they'd simply huddled in their rooms in the motel, watching the news, trying to figure out their next step.
Today marked fourteen days. Fourteen days since they'd managed to seal the Hellmouth. Fourteen days of regrouping, of skulking, of trying their damnedest to keep their obviously unusual group below the radar, especially as the official theories about the Sunnydale disaster grew wilder. "Act of terrorism" was the current favorite, and the authorities were whipping up paranoia statewide.
Buffy looked down at her fingers, still stained yellow from the spray-paint they'd used to cover up the words "Sunnydale Unified School District" on the bus. No amount of soap—not the cheap motel soap, or the more abrasive stuff Willow had bought at the K-mart—seemed able to get the gunk off.
"Well, she's off," Giles said, coming up beside her. "Since Kennedy decided to stay with Willow, and Faith can't exactly take a bus back to prison, that's the lot."
Buffy flinched. That was their other major problem: Faith, their token felon. There was a teensy minority of cops not blaming terrorists; they had put Faith's escape with Faith's Sunnydale past and thought she was involved. Cops not looking for huge terrorist uprisings were therefore scouring the countryside for the second Slayer.
She pushed herself away from the pillar and surreptitiously stretched—and silently cursed her new clothes again. "I don't suppose there's enough left to go shopping?" she asked hopefully.
Giles smiled. "Maybe a small spree."
"But we should save it."
He nodded. "At least until we're certain what we're going to do."
She sighed. "So no new tasteful white-trash ensembles for me."
"You look fine," he said. "Beggars can't be choosers."
"I know. You've only told me that every day."
"You've only complained every day." She made a face at him. "Ready to go back?"
She nodded, and they started walking toward the motel. The locals thought they were crazy, walking everywhere. She wasn't quite sure what they were afraid of. She hadn't even seen a mugger, let alone the general badness that marked the usual walk home in Sunnydale. "What do we do now?"
"You're asking me?" He sounded surprised.
"I want somebody else to get that question for awhile." It was all she had heard for the last two weeks: what now, Buffy?
"I can understand why," he said quietly. "And I have an idea…."
"Don't stop. Tell me."
"Los Angeles."
She gave him a look. "L.A.? You do remember who lives in L.A. now, right?"
"Angel. But—"
"I knew that was coming."
"Wesley is there too."
"When did you start liking Wesley?"
"I haven't. With my library gone, he's simply the nearest resource we have. We have to figure out what Willow's spell means for the Slayer. Slayers."
"L.A. it is, then." It didn't make much difference to her, to be honest. Right now, if it meant a decision had been made and she hadn't had to make it, she'd take a trip to Iowa. No, wait. We shipped Andrew to Iowa.
They walked on in silence. They were in sight of the motel when Giles asked quietly, "Have you spoken to him at all?"
"No." She should have called Angel as soon as they'd found a phone, but she'd let Xander and Willow convince her that the girls with families should have first shot. Since then, she'd been too busy—and she hadn't been able to scrape up the nerve. "I guess I have to now."
"Unless you think we should just charge in."
"No. Better not sur— What the hell?"
Giles followed her gaze, and she thought she heard him groan. "I believe Xander has found our new transportation."
"I told him subtle." Buffy smacked herself in the forehead, then let Giles drag her across the parking lot to the—the— "Subtle!" she shouted at Xander, who was hanging onto the driver's door with one hand and scrabbling at something painted above it with the other. "This is as subtle as—as—"
Xander gave her a grin. "Subtle as a bright-yellow school bus?"
Buffy crossed her arms and looked at Giles. "I was kidding about wanting to be white trash. Really. I was."
Giles chuckled. Xander looked insulted. "It's not that bad," he said.
"Xander, it's a racecar!"
"Technically, it's a van—" She gave him a look, and he obediently shut up.
It was a van, and a newish one at that. The base color was black; everything else was white and gold, painted carefully into an imitation of some kind of racecar. Sadly, "everything else" consisted largely of huge Army logos, bright yellow stars, and giant 01s plastered on the sides.
"Unfortunately," Xander said, still scratching at the thing above the door, "most of this is paint, not decals. The guy it belonged to was apparently a very dedicated fan." He sighed.
"Xander, this is not subtle!"
"Yeah, but our budget is," he answered indifferently. "The guy at the junkyard was only willing to give me five hundred for the bus."
"I don't care! Take it back! We can't possibly—"
"And it's all he'd give us."
"You didn't try for anything a little more—"
"We don't have the money for subtle, Buffy," Xander said wearily. "What was I supposed to tell him? That it was a perfectly good school bus that had only been stolen for two weeks now, and the scratches on the back came from one minor apocalypse?"
"Well, no, but—"
"We actually got pretty lucky."
"Lucky?" Buffy screeched.
"Yep." Xander hopped down. "The van belonged to the junkyard guy's cousin, but then two things happened. First, his favorite driver, the guy who drives the real version of this paint job, got hurt, and cousin sort of lost his heart for things. Then the cousin's reserve unit got called up, so the junkyard guy bought the van for cheap, planning to use it for parts. So I convinced him to trade us the bus for this plus five hundred bucks. He even threw in a license plate and registration, which I didn't look too closely at." He grinned. "Come on. Who'd expect the diabolical Sunnydale terrorists to be driving the Armymobile?"
"Xander, you're absolutely nuts."
"He's also right," Giles put in, peering inside. "Are we pretending to be dedicated fans of anyone particularly famous?"
Xander shrugged. "Some French guy." Buffy gave him another look. "I just read what's above the door. Where to now?"
"L.A."
Xander glanced at Giles, then back at Buffy. "L.A. where Angel lives L.A.?"
"That'd be the one," Buffy said cheerily. It was suitable vengeance for the van. "It was Giles' idea."
"Thanks a lot," Xander said to the Watcher.
"We have to let Angel know first, though," she said. "Maybe if you hope hard enough, he'll say no."
"Yeah, because Angel turns you down so very often."
She just shrugged, and headed for the payphone. "Tell everybody, Xander. If he says yes, we leave in the morning."