Willow watched as Buffy's cousin fidgeted awkwardly, turning to worry at his girlfriend. The other redhead looked pale, and kept rubbing at her temple. Neither one looked very happy.
Finally, Scott looked at them, frowning, eyes almost entirely hidden by those odd red sunglasses. "We look for mutants, and bring them to Xavier's. It's a place where they're safe, and where they can learn about what they can do and how to control those abilities without people being afraid."
"Still not seeing how that connects with Sunnydale." Buffy's mutter was rather unhappy sounding.
Jean looked over, her eyes looking bloodshot and watery as she looked intently at them one at a time. "We think that there are several mutants in Sunnydale."
Buffy blinked, and then tilted her head. "umm… when you say several mutants in Sunnydale… first, how many are you talking about, and second, how accurate is that 'in Sunnydale' part? I mean, could that be near Sunnydale, or sort of in the area, or… what?"
"Three, possibly four." Scott's voice was calm. "We don't have addresses for anybody, and only some really sketchy descriptions to go by. A pair of blond women and a guy with dark hair, possibly an athlete of some sort. Pretty normal looking, according to… our source."
Willow leaned back, trying to sort out what Scott had said, and what he hadn't said. If they had descriptions, then there was some source of information telling them about these mutants. Some way to identify, locate, and possibly track them, which could easily become a very bad thing in the wrong hands. Scott didn't want to reveal this source, which was both easily understandable and worrisome. "What if they don't want to go to this school?"
Jean looked startled, as if she hadn't expected that question. "We won't force anyone to go with us, but if they need to learn control… most of the people we approach want that control very badly. Going away to a school seems a simple enough way to get that."
Buffly settled onto the wheeled chair that her mom used, looking at her cousin with worry in her eyes. "What if… what if the mutant you find is dangerous? What if… what if they try to hurt you? There are some bad people in Sunnydale… in the world. I only just found you again, I don't want you to get hurt."
"Buffy, I can handle myself. I'm not the same skinny teen that you remember." Scott smiled, as if he was both irritated and delighted that someone was worrying about him like that.
"We didn't learn how to deal with this sort of place, Scott. There are… Your cousin's out fighting vampires and demons! Real ones." Jean's voice was also worried.
Willow blinked, suddenly very curious about this. She also noticed the way that Buffy sort of froze, her whole body going into alert-Slayer mode.
"How did you know that?" The question slipped out, sounding soft and almost dangerous.
"I'm a telepath." Jean's words were soft, more headachy sounding than apologetic. "Most of the time, I don't get too much by accident, but when you touched my hand, I was… there were all these images. Bits and pieces of things that should have been in a horror movie, but they're your life."
Buffy winced. "Sorry about that."
Willow moved closer, not quite within touching distance of either of them. There was something that they weren't being told here, and she had the feeling that it could be important. "So… are you still working on that control you mentioned, or were Buffy's images just… really strong?"
"Her images were… powerful, and terrifying." Jean sighed, pulling her knees up to sit, looking almost like she wanted to pull herself inwards. It was a drastic change from the air of confidence that she'd shown when leaving the plane. "There was… my abilities seem to be changing lately, ever since… I'm having to work harder to control them. But I think… I think one of the mutants had a high school football jersey on. Razorbacks… number twenty three, or maybe twenty eight. And dark hair."
"Right. That would be Sunnydale high, although he must have either bought it or had it more than a year." Buffy looked like she was thinking out loud. "There is no current class of Sunnydale High, with the mascot of the mighty…" Buffy snickered, probably remembering the cute little pig that had been the mascot before being eaten by the hyena possessed students. "Umm… Sunnydale High, mascot Razorbacks. It got… the building blew up during graduation in the spring, so… I think there's still a big mess over rebuilding and if so where."
"I'm surprised there's still so many people here." Scott's words were filled with shock.
"People have sufficiently repressed and explained away everything too weird, and they don't want to think about it." Willow glanced at them both. "Maybe… umm… a map of the city? Are you going to go over and visit Buffy's mom while you're in town?"
"I guess that we should." Scott nodded slowly, helping Jean to her feet. "Maybe we'll be able to have a nice family visit while we're in the area."
Willow wasn't certain if anybody else noticed the way Tara flinched at the words 'family visit', but she did. And not only did it set off warning bells in her mind, but it started a few questions turning over in her mind. She was pretty sure now that the whole mysterious thing bothering Tara had to do with her family. But was she worried for her family, or afraid of them?
"Fair enough. Tara and I had some studying to do, you can just… catch up on the past few years." Willow offered a small smile, before turning to Tara. "Shall we? The library should be pretty quiet."
End part 6.
Buffy smiled, linking one arm with Scott's, who had Jean on the other side. She couldn't quite keep the smile from her face, too delighted that she'd found her cousin, and the 'something weird' was finally the sort f weird that didn't require her to go Slaying. She practically towed them out, finding her Mom easily enough in the gallery, smiling as people walked around. Honestly, the paintings didn't appeal to her at all. Too much like gory blood-sprays. But there were a lot of different art trends, maybe this V. Creed person was just… following another trend. Didn't mean she had to like the paintings.
"Mom! Guess what…" She almost bounced on her toes, the hand firmly gripping Scott's sleeve. "It's Scott! My favorite most cousin in the whole world…"
Her mom turned, smiling as she looked over Scott and his girlfriend. "Scott Summers… it's been ages. You look pretty good. And who's this?"
"Scott finally got a girlfriend, her name's Jean Grey." Buffy smiled, trying to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at Scott just a little bit. There was no sense in trying to keep something like that from her mom, and it would prevent any possible matchmaking efforts…
Jean made a small noise, not quite a giggle, and smiled at her maybe future aunt. "Hello, Mrs. Summers."
"Just call me Joyce. Are the two of you coming over for dinner tonight? I've got a nice roast…" Her mom was smiling at the pair of them as if they were the long lost relatives returned, which was sort of half right. "And what brings you to Sunnydale anyhow?"
"Just… ummm" Scott fumbled for words, looking almost too cute.
Snickering, Jean kissed his cheek. "We had some time off, and thought that a California beach might be nice. Then we bumped into Buffy…"
Buffy managed to keep a straight face, but it was hard. Apparently, Jean and Scott didn't want to discuss the rest of it here, or maybe not with Mom at all. "Why don't I take them on over to the house, and I can start catching up?"
Joyce nodded, looking faintly worried as a knot of people started towards some paintings. "Sure thing, honey. I'll be over when the gallery closes."
They started walking along the sidewalk, Buffy both glad for her Slayer stamina and wishing that she could afford a car. Even some worn out clunker that was almost as old as she was. Even Giles' old car. "So, why couldn't you two have just… I don't know, flown Delta or something and rented a car when you got here?"
"What, no car of your own?" Jean smiled a little, almost teasing.
Buffy frowned, kicking at a small rock. "License, check. Car… no. I'm a college student, I don't have time for a job that actually pays money. Mom's… well, she doesn't have the spare cash to buy me a car, Dad's… footing the rest of college, so he doesn't have the cash to get me a car, and oddly enough, banks don't want to give an unemployed college student a loan to buy one."
"Logical. Not very fun for you, but logical." Scott nodded, looking almost amused. "But one of the things… There's this tendency for interesting events to happen, and it's good to be able to leave on our own schedule. And sometimes… some new students wouldn't be ready for a public airport, if you follow."
For just a moment, Buffy didn't follow at all, and then she remembered the swim team. Not all mutants looked as normal as Scott and Jean. "Yeah, I guess not. So… what's with the red glasses? New York fashion trend or something?"
Scott sighed, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. "Or something. It's… they're a special type. My eyes are… sort of sensitive, I guess you'd say."
Buffy nodded, thinking that his evasive answer reminded her an awful lot of the way Angel used to try not to mention the whole vampire thing. So the red glasses probably had to do with his mutation somehow, and it made him feel self-conscious. "Alright… it could be worse though. You could have an obsessive compulsive love of badly played bagpipes. There was this neighbor for a while down the street… We used to wonder if he was doing cruel and unusual things to cats. But no, it was him trying to play the bagpipes…"
"Bagpipes? And you said trying… was he that bad?" Jean was smiling now.
"He was that bad." Buffy nodded. Then, inspiration hit her. "Oh, maybe… I've got Sunnydale Yearbooks, maybe one of them might help you identify that guy."
"Might be good. Of course, a name isn't quite the same as knowing exactly where he is, but it's better than a vague description." Scott smiled. "One little thing… why exactly did the school blow up?"
"umm….. the Fire Marshal decided that there was… this really big gas leak?" Buffy offered the official verdict, wondering if her cousin would believe that laughable story.
"And the real reason was….?" Scott sounded like he was trying not to laugh. "You already told me the people here practice denial like a religion."
"Well… fine." Buffy sighed, fumbling for her keys. "We blew it up to destroy Mayor McDemon after he turned into a sixty foot snake that was planning on eating the graduating class."
"oh." Scott and Jean both sounded a bit stunned. "Sounds like school was… memorable for you."
"Yeah. Giles even found my diploma for me. It's a little singed on the end, but hey, all graduated and in college now." Buffy smiled, swinging open the door to the Summers home.
"I think catching up is going to take a while." Scott lightly tapped her shoulder with his fist, as if in this case, Buffy were one of the guys, grinning like they had years ago.
Jean looked over, focusing on Buffy. "The giant not quite a snake that ate this… annoying man in a suit? I know that you… you find and fight things… terrible things all the time. What I'd like to know is why."
Buffy sighed, sitting down on her mom's chair. "Okay, there are a whole lot of nasty things out there that would like to put humans on the menu, vampires and whole huge books full of demons. I could show you one, but they're rather heavy and not very fun reading. But the good news is that there are some people that fate, destiny, God - whatever you want to say is responsible – has chosen to fight those nasty things. To help keep the world turning. I'm one of them. It's an important job, with lots of danger, and a lousy medical plan. I don't get paid either."
"You make it sound like you're out stopping the apocalypse, Buffy." Scott looked like he wasn't certain if he wanted to believe that, filled with worry. "This is just… It seems like such a big thing to have missed."
Buffy sighed, looking at her cousin. "For some reason that I've never understood, trying to end the word or destroy all of humanity seems to be one of the big goals of a lot of demons. We've had to stop a couple nasty things." Closing her eyes, Buffy tried to figure out that tally. The Master hadn't been trying to destroy the world, only rule it. The Judge had wanted to wipe out humanity, there had been Acathala… she shuddered at the whole mess that brought screaming back to memory, those freaky Jhe demon chicks with their plan to open the Hellmouth, and the Mayor's planned Ascension, although she wasn't quite certain if that counted as attempted world destruction, or just a really big and bad plan for urban renovation.
"What is the proper plural for Apocalypse anyhow?" She looked over at Scott and Jean, suddenly curious. "I mean, you said you're at a school, maybe you know."
They were both looking shocked. "umm…" Jean began slowly, looking as if she was trying to pick her words carefully. "I've always gone on the assumption that there was only supposed to be one, and that it should be avoided as long as possible."
"Yeah, avoiding it sounds good. I just wish it were quite that easy, you know?" Buffy sighed.
End part 7.
Finally, Scott looked at them, frowning, eyes almost entirely hidden by those odd red sunglasses. "We look for mutants, and bring them to Xavier's. It's a place where they're safe, and where they can learn about what they can do and how to control those abilities without people being afraid."
"Still not seeing how that connects with Sunnydale." Buffy's mutter was rather unhappy sounding.
Jean looked over, her eyes looking bloodshot and watery as she looked intently at them one at a time. "We think that there are several mutants in Sunnydale."
Buffy blinked, and then tilted her head. "umm… when you say several mutants in Sunnydale… first, how many are you talking about, and second, how accurate is that 'in Sunnydale' part? I mean, could that be near Sunnydale, or sort of in the area, or… what?"
"Three, possibly four." Scott's voice was calm. "We don't have addresses for anybody, and only some really sketchy descriptions to go by. A pair of blond women and a guy with dark hair, possibly an athlete of some sort. Pretty normal looking, according to… our source."
Willow leaned back, trying to sort out what Scott had said, and what he hadn't said. If they had descriptions, then there was some source of information telling them about these mutants. Some way to identify, locate, and possibly track them, which could easily become a very bad thing in the wrong hands. Scott didn't want to reveal this source, which was both easily understandable and worrisome. "What if they don't want to go to this school?"
Jean looked startled, as if she hadn't expected that question. "We won't force anyone to go with us, but if they need to learn control… most of the people we approach want that control very badly. Going away to a school seems a simple enough way to get that."
Buffly settled onto the wheeled chair that her mom used, looking at her cousin with worry in her eyes. "What if… what if the mutant you find is dangerous? What if… what if they try to hurt you? There are some bad people in Sunnydale… in the world. I only just found you again, I don't want you to get hurt."
"Buffy, I can handle myself. I'm not the same skinny teen that you remember." Scott smiled, as if he was both irritated and delighted that someone was worrying about him like that.
"We didn't learn how to deal with this sort of place, Scott. There are… Your cousin's out fighting vampires and demons! Real ones." Jean's voice was also worried.
Willow blinked, suddenly very curious about this. She also noticed the way that Buffy sort of froze, her whole body going into alert-Slayer mode.
"How did you know that?" The question slipped out, sounding soft and almost dangerous.
"I'm a telepath." Jean's words were soft, more headachy sounding than apologetic. "Most of the time, I don't get too much by accident, but when you touched my hand, I was… there were all these images. Bits and pieces of things that should have been in a horror movie, but they're your life."
Buffy winced. "Sorry about that."
Willow moved closer, not quite within touching distance of either of them. There was something that they weren't being told here, and she had the feeling that it could be important. "So… are you still working on that control you mentioned, or were Buffy's images just… really strong?"
"Her images were… powerful, and terrifying." Jean sighed, pulling her knees up to sit, looking almost like she wanted to pull herself inwards. It was a drastic change from the air of confidence that she'd shown when leaving the plane. "There was… my abilities seem to be changing lately, ever since… I'm having to work harder to control them. But I think… I think one of the mutants had a high school football jersey on. Razorbacks… number twenty three, or maybe twenty eight. And dark hair."
"Right. That would be Sunnydale high, although he must have either bought it or had it more than a year." Buffy looked like she was thinking out loud. "There is no current class of Sunnydale High, with the mascot of the mighty…" Buffy snickered, probably remembering the cute little pig that had been the mascot before being eaten by the hyena possessed students. "Umm… Sunnydale High, mascot Razorbacks. It got… the building blew up during graduation in the spring, so… I think there's still a big mess over rebuilding and if so where."
"I'm surprised there's still so many people here." Scott's words were filled with shock.
"People have sufficiently repressed and explained away everything too weird, and they don't want to think about it." Willow glanced at them both. "Maybe… umm… a map of the city? Are you going to go over and visit Buffy's mom while you're in town?"
"I guess that we should." Scott nodded slowly, helping Jean to her feet. "Maybe we'll be able to have a nice family visit while we're in the area."
Willow wasn't certain if anybody else noticed the way Tara flinched at the words 'family visit', but she did. And not only did it set off warning bells in her mind, but it started a few questions turning over in her mind. She was pretty sure now that the whole mysterious thing bothering Tara had to do with her family. But was she worried for her family, or afraid of them?
"Fair enough. Tara and I had some studying to do, you can just… catch up on the past few years." Willow offered a small smile, before turning to Tara. "Shall we? The library should be pretty quiet."
End part 6.
Buffy smiled, linking one arm with Scott's, who had Jean on the other side. She couldn't quite keep the smile from her face, too delighted that she'd found her cousin, and the 'something weird' was finally the sort f weird that didn't require her to go Slaying. She practically towed them out, finding her Mom easily enough in the gallery, smiling as people walked around. Honestly, the paintings didn't appeal to her at all. Too much like gory blood-sprays. But there were a lot of different art trends, maybe this V. Creed person was just… following another trend. Didn't mean she had to like the paintings.
"Mom! Guess what…" She almost bounced on her toes, the hand firmly gripping Scott's sleeve. "It's Scott! My favorite most cousin in the whole world…"
Her mom turned, smiling as she looked over Scott and his girlfriend. "Scott Summers… it's been ages. You look pretty good. And who's this?"
"Scott finally got a girlfriend, her name's Jean Grey." Buffy smiled, trying to resist the urge to stick her tongue out at Scott just a little bit. There was no sense in trying to keep something like that from her mom, and it would prevent any possible matchmaking efforts…
Jean made a small noise, not quite a giggle, and smiled at her maybe future aunt. "Hello, Mrs. Summers."
"Just call me Joyce. Are the two of you coming over for dinner tonight? I've got a nice roast…" Her mom was smiling at the pair of them as if they were the long lost relatives returned, which was sort of half right. "And what brings you to Sunnydale anyhow?"
"Just… ummm" Scott fumbled for words, looking almost too cute.
Snickering, Jean kissed his cheek. "We had some time off, and thought that a California beach might be nice. Then we bumped into Buffy…"
Buffy managed to keep a straight face, but it was hard. Apparently, Jean and Scott didn't want to discuss the rest of it here, or maybe not with Mom at all. "Why don't I take them on over to the house, and I can start catching up?"
Joyce nodded, looking faintly worried as a knot of people started towards some paintings. "Sure thing, honey. I'll be over when the gallery closes."
They started walking along the sidewalk, Buffy both glad for her Slayer stamina and wishing that she could afford a car. Even some worn out clunker that was almost as old as she was. Even Giles' old car. "So, why couldn't you two have just… I don't know, flown Delta or something and rented a car when you got here?"
"What, no car of your own?" Jean smiled a little, almost teasing.
Buffy frowned, kicking at a small rock. "License, check. Car… no. I'm a college student, I don't have time for a job that actually pays money. Mom's… well, she doesn't have the spare cash to buy me a car, Dad's… footing the rest of college, so he doesn't have the cash to get me a car, and oddly enough, banks don't want to give an unemployed college student a loan to buy one."
"Logical. Not very fun for you, but logical." Scott nodded, looking almost amused. "But one of the things… There's this tendency for interesting events to happen, and it's good to be able to leave on our own schedule. And sometimes… some new students wouldn't be ready for a public airport, if you follow."
For just a moment, Buffy didn't follow at all, and then she remembered the swim team. Not all mutants looked as normal as Scott and Jean. "Yeah, I guess not. So… what's with the red glasses? New York fashion trend or something?"
Scott sighed, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. "Or something. It's… they're a special type. My eyes are… sort of sensitive, I guess you'd say."
Buffy nodded, thinking that his evasive answer reminded her an awful lot of the way Angel used to try not to mention the whole vampire thing. So the red glasses probably had to do with his mutation somehow, and it made him feel self-conscious. "Alright… it could be worse though. You could have an obsessive compulsive love of badly played bagpipes. There was this neighbor for a while down the street… We used to wonder if he was doing cruel and unusual things to cats. But no, it was him trying to play the bagpipes…"
"Bagpipes? And you said trying… was he that bad?" Jean was smiling now.
"He was that bad." Buffy nodded. Then, inspiration hit her. "Oh, maybe… I've got Sunnydale Yearbooks, maybe one of them might help you identify that guy."
"Might be good. Of course, a name isn't quite the same as knowing exactly where he is, but it's better than a vague description." Scott smiled. "One little thing… why exactly did the school blow up?"
"umm….. the Fire Marshal decided that there was… this really big gas leak?" Buffy offered the official verdict, wondering if her cousin would believe that laughable story.
"And the real reason was….?" Scott sounded like he was trying not to laugh. "You already told me the people here practice denial like a religion."
"Well… fine." Buffy sighed, fumbling for her keys. "We blew it up to destroy Mayor McDemon after he turned into a sixty foot snake that was planning on eating the graduating class."
"oh." Scott and Jean both sounded a bit stunned. "Sounds like school was… memorable for you."
"Yeah. Giles even found my diploma for me. It's a little singed on the end, but hey, all graduated and in college now." Buffy smiled, swinging open the door to the Summers home.
"I think catching up is going to take a while." Scott lightly tapped her shoulder with his fist, as if in this case, Buffy were one of the guys, grinning like they had years ago.
Jean looked over, focusing on Buffy. "The giant not quite a snake that ate this… annoying man in a suit? I know that you… you find and fight things… terrible things all the time. What I'd like to know is why."
Buffy sighed, sitting down on her mom's chair. "Okay, there are a whole lot of nasty things out there that would like to put humans on the menu, vampires and whole huge books full of demons. I could show you one, but they're rather heavy and not very fun reading. But the good news is that there are some people that fate, destiny, God - whatever you want to say is responsible – has chosen to fight those nasty things. To help keep the world turning. I'm one of them. It's an important job, with lots of danger, and a lousy medical plan. I don't get paid either."
"You make it sound like you're out stopping the apocalypse, Buffy." Scott looked like he wasn't certain if he wanted to believe that, filled with worry. "This is just… It seems like such a big thing to have missed."
Buffy sighed, looking at her cousin. "For some reason that I've never understood, trying to end the word or destroy all of humanity seems to be one of the big goals of a lot of demons. We've had to stop a couple nasty things." Closing her eyes, Buffy tried to figure out that tally. The Master hadn't been trying to destroy the world, only rule it. The Judge had wanted to wipe out humanity, there had been Acathala… she shuddered at the whole mess that brought screaming back to memory, those freaky Jhe demon chicks with their plan to open the Hellmouth, and the Mayor's planned Ascension, although she wasn't quite certain if that counted as attempted world destruction, or just a really big and bad plan for urban renovation.
"What is the proper plural for Apocalypse anyhow?" She looked over at Scott and Jean, suddenly curious. "I mean, you said you're at a school, maybe you know."
They were both looking shocked. "umm…" Jean began slowly, looking as if she was trying to pick her words carefully. "I've always gone on the assumption that there was only supposed to be one, and that it should be avoided as long as possible."
"Yeah, avoiding it sounds good. I just wish it were quite that easy, you know?" Buffy sighed.
End part 7.
