Disclaimer: I own nothing. Wish I did, but unfortunately it is only a day dream I get to live out while writing this.
Unresolved Tensions Chapter 1
Falling asleep on the bus is never a good idea, Buffy thinks to herself, as she tries to pop her neck working out the knots. Looking around she wonders where she is, the bus driver starts looking annoyed that she is moving.
"Um, where am I?" Buffy asks as she grabs her duffel walking down the aisle.
"Last stop on this line, Indianapolis, Indiana to be more specific. Why did you miss your stop?" the bus driver replied.
"Oh, no this is my stop I had just fallen asleep woke up slightly disorientated that's all," states Buffy as she walks out the door. Stepping down she looks around at the bus station that is in need of major repair and starts thinking about her next stop. Quickly opening up her backpack to make sure her extra cash was there she decides that perhaps Indiana is not the place for her so she heads to the ticket office hoping for a cheap ticket to some place further east.
Looking at the list of specials she speculates that perhaps the next best place to go might be some place like Boston. So she buys her ticket and hops the next bus out of Indiana. Falling asleep once again after she settles in for the remaining trip.
Waking up and eating a little bit she thinks back over her various legs of her current journey, first stop had been LA of course since those are the most frequent buses out of Sunnydale, she then just hopped onto the next bus out of LA that did not have a destination in California, which brought her to places like Arizona and Oklahoma, finally getting a tour type trip of several Midwestern states and ending up in Indianapolis.
Buffy tried to gauge how long it would take to get through the rest of her reserve money, luckily she had kept all her allowance in cash since she tended to have to replace her clothes ever so often without her moms knowledge, better for her to believe Buffy had spent it at the Bronze then just stockpiling it for emergencies and duplicates of her wardrobe. At this point she had about a thousand dollars, two years of trying not to spend any money and slowly transforming any savings into cash had left her pretty set up, not to mention odd jobs done on the weekends for her mom at the gallery.
Finally the bus pulled up in Boston, as she gets off this time she looks around for a cheap hotel to stay at and slowly starts reviewing her options. Walking up to the office of the Super 8, glancing at the greasy looking manager she knows that this hopefully will be just a short stop on her journey.
"Hey how much are your rates?" inquires Buffy as she opens the door.
"Um about thirty a night but ya know I am sure we can arrange something to lower the rates if you were strapped for money or something," offers the manager.
"Uh no that is okay how bout I just pay for the week and we go from there?" Buffy asks while placing the money on the counter.
"Room 12," states the manager slightly disappointed.
"Thanks," mutters Buffy as she grabs the key and heads to her room.
Settling in she glances around the shabby, barely kept room, and wonders how long she can last in a place like this. Knowing she is going to have to get a job before too long she unpacks what little she was able to grab and heads out for a walk, after all she had slept a bunch on the various buses already.
The part of the city Buffy ends up in looks pretty run down still, but figuring they would not really notice another new face like more upscale parts of the city she starts looking around for work. Finally after looking at a newspaper and walking around her stomach starts grumbling and she ends up at diner.
Buffy sits down at a table, glancing over the menu, decides to go with a hamburger and a milkshake figuring after getting by with snacks out of vending machines and stuff at gas stations across America she could splurge for once. Noticing there were not that many people working though and it was taking forever to get the food out she decides to sit up at the counter instead of at table.
"Be right with ya, honey" says the gal behind the counter as Buffy sits down.
"Guess this shift lost a few people or something huh?" Buffy wonders out loud to the lady, reading her name tag it would appear her name was Sonja.
"This shift or the entire diner, been like this since I started, nobody stays very long so we always need new people. Why ya interested in a job or something?" replies Sonja.
"Well actually yeah, kinda out job hunting, never really worked in food service though, would it matter?" inquires Buffy as she looks around the diner with more of a critical eye. It would appear that nobody was there expecting fast service and that the only people there were regulars that really did not have anywhere else to be.
"Ha, hey Sal we got a live one here, listen hon, nobody comes here from other jobs, it is a starter job for sure," states Sonja as she jots down someone's order from the booth behind Buffy.
"Yo, what can I do for you, my name is Sal and I am always looking for someone to help out around here ya know?" Sal says as he appears from the back with an apron on, looking like he just finished cooking up a bunch of bacon by the looks of the grease splatter.
"Yeah definitely gonna be in the need of a job and mostly willing to try new things. When would you like me to start?" Buffy says looking slightly hopeful.
"Well I got a uniform in the back that will prolly fit ya, so how bout tomorrow? Oh and I honestly don't really like to mess with things like taxes if you don't know your gonna be here for awhile so how bout I start off paying ya day by day like temp job would and we will go from there, I get way too many people end up only showing up for a week and that's way too much paper work to mess with for that short amount of time, alright?" says Sal. "Oh yeah what can I get for ya, tonight's dinner will be on me."
Buffy gives him her order and goes in the back to check out the uniform. After the meal arranges a time she will clock in the next night and heads back to her hotel.
Arriving at the hotel, she is extremely happy at how the situation ended up, still unsure of how to deal with identity thing this payment plan will definitely give her a little while to figure what to do. Not wanting to use her real name and have the council trace her, cause that would end up bad, but definitely needing info to deal with the paperwork for a job causes problems. Hopefully, before she needs identification she can track down someplace to get fake stuff. Thinking that, she drifts off to sleep.