Disclaimer: Still not mine? Humph!
A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There
By Colleen
Chapter 4
Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough. ~Dinah Shore
Over the next couple of weeks, Xander answered more questions, did some physical tests and stood still for two rituals that Giles cast in an attempt to cancel out the Halloween spell. Attempts that, sadly, fizzled out and did nothing.
At the start of all of this, Buffy and Willow were obviously uncomfortable with him. Thankfully, they loosened up as the days went by, as the only thing that seemed to have changed about him, was a tendency to get into quip wars with Left Hand, and this, when one thought about it, wasn't much of a change.
Strangely, Cordelia didn't treat him any differently at all, which didn't make their interactions good, but it did continue the status quo.
By the end of two weeks, everyone had become relaxed enough about the situation that he, Willow and Buffy had gone to a movie together. Willow and he had even started kibitzing like they always had as the three of them walked back to Buffy's place. Buffy herself was comfortably zoned out as her two friends argued playfully.
She shook herself out of it as they reached her house and she pulled out her key to open the front door. The front door that swung open when she started to insert said key. All three of them sobered immediately and stared at the entrance, concerned
"You guys wait here a second."
Xander closed his eyes and listened as Buffy moved through the house. The sound of glass breaking in the kitchen and Joyce Summer's voice raised in denial caused him to bolt into the house, with Willow tight on his heels.
They piled up to a stop behind Buffy, who was standing in the entrance to the kitchen, looking at her mother and the guy she was standing very close to.
"Uh, hi, Mrs. Summers and guy we don't know," Xander said, giving them a wave. Buffy's mom was cute when she blushed.
"Um, this is Ted. Ted, this is my daughter Buffy and her friends, Xander and Willow."
"Well hey there guys, come on in. Hope you can stay for dinner, 'cause I'm making mini pizzas."
Buffy, Xander and Willow looked at each other and then shrugged before joining Ted and Buffy's mom in the kitchen.
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While Buffy grilled her mom about her possible new boyfriend and where she had met him and how long they had been going out and what his social security number was, okay, not that, but if she could have, she would have. Anyway, while she was doing that, Xander looked over the ingredients Ted had out for the pizzas.
He had been noticing over the last couple of weeks, that he wasn't eating as much as he normally did. At least, not where his beloved junk food was concerned. He still ate normal food, but his meals were much more protein based now than they had been in the past. Steak was great, hamburgers were often eaten without the bun and he'd started to buy sushi, a meal that had always been something he could take or leave.
On a green vegetable note, spinach salads had also become a mainstay of his diet. A fact he intended to take to his grave.
Sadly Twinkies, Ho-Ho's and the like didn't appeal much and even when he tried to eat them, they sat like so much lead in his stomach. As far as liquids went, soda and milk were just plain bad. Fruit juice wasn't out of the question, but coffee, tea and plain water seemed to be the better choices.
Pizza, with the cheese and the sliced meats, might be all right.
"Here," Ted said, sliding the pizza sauce over to him. "Why don't you sauce one of those puppies up and we'll see what else we can put on it for you."
Xander breathed in the aroma of the sauce and felt the air in his lungs freeze. With a panicked look on his face, he backed away from where the pizzas were being put together, until he was as far away as the room allowed him to get.
He started to cough uncontrollably. Willow had a brief moment of panic, before she grabbed a glass out of one of the kitchen cabinets and filled it with water, bringing it over to him.
By this time, he was only wheezing and he took the glass of water with a nod of thanks, drinking a few sips of it.
"Are you alright Xander?" Mrs. Summers asked. Xander looked over at her to see both her and Buffy looking at him with concern. Ted stood further behind them, a slight frown on his face.
"I'm fine Mrs. S," Xander croaked out, his voice hoarse from the coughing. "I just forgot that I have an allergic reaction to a basic pizza ingredient."
Joyce gave him a startled look. A teenager unable to eat pizza, it was almost unheard of.
Buffy looked at the ingredients and back to Xander. "What could you be allergic to…oh, oh right, I forgot."
"Makes two of us," Xander said. "Please, don't let me stop you from making supper. I'll be fine over here and besides, I wasn't really hungry."
"Are you sure Xander? If it's really that bad maybe you shouldn't be in the room with it."
He shook his head. "It's fine, just so long as I don't go getting that close to it again."
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Xander would have felt more envious of Willow and Mrs. Summers obvious enjoyment of the pizzas, if he wasn't feeling slightly nauseous at the very thought of eating one. Garlic, blah. Buffy also didn't seem too thrilled with the thought of them as she turned down all of Ted's entreaties to try one.
It was obvious that Buffy wasn't very comfortable with the idea of her mom dating, although Ted seemed to be a nice guy. Well, maybe a little too nice, but he was probably trying hard to make a good impression on Buffy.
To bad for him it wasn't really working.
Xander had to chuckle over it. When he did, he felt his left hand twitch and he knew it really wanted to ask him what was so funny. For once, he seemed to know better than to do so in front of a stranger and Buffy's mom.
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"If you say one more word, things will become dire." Buffy said as she, Willow and Xander walked down the hall at school.
"Aw, come on Slayer, you could have at least tasted one of them. They smelled great, even if the guy I'm attached to here keeps turning green at the very thought of them."
"They really were good." Willow said.
"Yeah, rub it in why don't you," Xander grumped.
"Fine, okay, so he can cook, that doesn't really tell me anything about him." Buffy said, ignoring Xander's whining.
"You don't like him?" Willow asked, surprised.
"I don't know him. I, I mean, so far all I see is someone who apparently has a good job, seems nice and polite and my mother really likes him."
"What kind of monster is he?"
Both Willow and Buffy stopped for a moment to look at Xander. "Did we just get that in stereo?" Buffy asked him.
Xander frowned down at his hand. "Get your own quips."
Left hand snorted back at him.
They arrived at a vending machine in the student lounge area and Xander looked over the selection, before slumping slightly and deciding not to bother.
"You know Slayer, if this Ted guy is making you this uncomfortable, then why don't you just give into the inevitable and start checking into him. Besides, with your luck the guy's probably some kind of demon, or worse, a Shriner.
"Or a demon Shriner."
Xander and Buffy looked at Willow, who shrugged.
"Either way, he might be a guy with a fez…" Left Hand continued.
"Yeah," Xander said, always willing to run with a joke. "He might be… Ted!"
"Well of course he's Ted." Buffy said, ready to get wound up on the subject again.
"Yes Ted, Ted who's here." Xander said, stopping her before she could get going.
"Hello kids."
Ted, it turned out, was at the school updating their software. Since he was there, he also passed on some computer discs he'd promised Willow and invited the three of them to Miniature golf and a picnic on Saturday. He even promised to have something other than mini pizzas there for Xander to eat.
Buffy tried to lame excuse her way out of the outing, but Xander jumped in and practically accepted for her.
After Ted left, she whapped Xander on the shoulder.
"Ow, what was that for." He asked, rubbing at it.
"Why did you go and say yes?" She asked, fuming.
"Buffy, if you're going to find out that this guy's not right for your mom, then you're going to have to hang out with him, even if it's just to keep an eye on him."
She growled at him. "I hate logic."
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Saturday rolled around and the five of them picnicked in the park adjacent to the mini-golf course. Willow and Joyce once again raved about Ted's cooking. Xander found himself a bit depressed about it. All this food just waiting to be eaten and he couldn't handle more than about a fourth of what he'd normally plough through. On top of that, his sense of taste must have gone a little wonky. He found that some of the food had an odd, bitter aftertaste to it. One that no one else seemed to be noticing.
Still, it was a lovely day and he wouldn't let a little thing like that spoil it, not sir. He shook his head. Where did that come from?
Buffy, as par for the course, hadn't eaten anything. At the rate she was going, Ted wouldn't have to win Buffy over. All he would have to do was hang around long enough doing the cooking and Buffy would push herself out of the picture by starving to death.
After food, they headed for mini-golf fun. Left Hand had heard of golf, of course, but not miniature golf. He had asked Xander for clarification of the sport, but apparently, Xander's explanation left something to be desired. He hadn't understood it until they got there. He took one look at the place and started to laugh uncontrollably. Xander hunched over and turned away from the group, trying to give Mrs. Summers and Ted the impression that he was the one doing the laughing. It was times like these that he could understand why D would shut the parasite up with a painful squeeze of his fist.
"What's tickling your funny bone so hard there son?" Ted asked him.
Left Hand's laugher had faded off to a mild snicker when Xander turned around, wiping his eyes as if his laugher had driven him to tears. "Sorry, I just find little windmills to be hilarious." He said, indicating the one that was in sight a couple of holes over.
"Well, it's nice to know that kids today can still enjoy the simple things." Ted said.
Xander mentally blinked. Maybe Buffy was right about this guy; nobody should be this upbeat about everything, especially when what he'd just done with the laughing was down right odd.
Speaking of which, Xander let the group get a little ahead of him before he asked Left Hand a question.
"What the hell was that about?"
The parasite snickered again. "Sorry," He said quietly, "It's just that as soon as I saw this place, I had a mental image of D playing a round here, in full armour and cape."
Xander thought about it for a moment and had to snicker as well at the image it invoked.
"Ahem. "
Startled he looked behind himself at the group that was waiting to play next.
"Ah, sorry." He dropped his ball and played his shot, quickly catching up to Buffy and the rest of them.
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At the castle, Buffy and Ted disappeared to the other side of the hole for a moment. When the rest of the group caught up with them, Xander had to wonder if something had happened. Buffy looked shocked, however Ted seemed his usual self. He was jovial and offered them cookies for dessert.
Xander bit into one gave a perfunctory 'Mmmm.' However, Joyce and Willow seemed transported to heaven by the taste. Obviously, his screwed up taste buds had struck again. To him, they had that same bitter aftertaste as the picnic foods, only more so.
He looked around the course for a bit, trying to find a place he could get rid of the rest of the cookie. An almost polite little cough came from his left hand and he put the rest of it into that hand. It disappeared with a quiet chew and gulp, that was followed by a surprised sounding, "what the?"
Briefly, Xander wondered what the problem was, but decided to find out after the game.
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When Xander got home, he dropped the extra cookies that Ted had given all of them onto the kitchen counter, figuring his parents would eat them.
"Ah, kid, I know you're not all that fond of the 'rents, but you might not want to leave those out where they can get at them."
"Well, I don't want to eat them." Xander said, looking at them sadly.
"Don't blame you; tranquilizers and chocolate don't really go all that well together."
"What?"
"Yeah, not sure what it is exactly, but it would make the most uptight man on the planet melt into a gooey puddle of mellow. Noticed it as soon as I ate that bit of cookie, although it took a while for a full analysis. Given the way everyone was acting, I suspect there was some of it in the picnic as well."
"Well that might explain the bitterness I tasted, as well as the bright sunny day attitude. Damn, what the hell is this guy up to?"
"Don't know, but I don't think it's the usual thing your group deals with.
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"Ha!" Buffy exclaimed the next morning after he had told her and Willow about the cookies. "I told you there was something wrong with this guy. Even more wrong than him threatening to slap me yesterday."
The air around them seemed to chill by several degrees and Xander looked at her with a face that appeared carved from marble. "He threatened you yesterday?"
The two girls shivered. "Xander, I can take care of myself, so chill… or unchill as the case seems to be."
Xander took a deep breath and tried to shake off the sudden moodiness.
"That's the problem with tranqs and a dhampir's constitution." The gravely voice of his left hand said. "For as mellow as you were yesterday, you're probably going to end up twice as uptight today."
Xander sighed. "Great."
"Okay," Willow said. "We know he's doing bad, but what do we do about it?"
"We stop him. Willow, I need you to find out everything you can about him, preferably by tonight. Xander, once Willow gets you an address, can you check out where he lives? Xander nodded. "While you two are doing that I'm going to spend the day following him…err, just as soon as you find out where he works. You can do that, right?" She asked Willow.
"Of course, but why do you need the rest by tonight?" Willow asked.
"Cause mom and I are having dinner with the creep and surprise, surprise, he's cooking. I would really rather he didn't get the chance to drug her any more than he already has."
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Willow set computer searches on Ted, but managed to find out where he worked simply by claiming to have problems with her laptop and asking the Guidance office who had done their work a few days before. They passed on Ted's business card and Buffy left soon after to shadow Ted at work.
Xander chose a nice sword and an axe that he could fit into a duffle bag and after a bit of thought he added a crowbar for good measure. They had already shanghaied Cordelia into providing transportation over to Ted's place, which was where they would go next, just as soon as Willow tracked down his address.
It took most of the afternoon, but Willow did better than that, digging up personal records and marriage licences as well as the address.
Xander checked his watch. "If we head over to Ted's place we should get there just as he's leaving for Buffy's. We do a quick check, collect anything incriminating, like hopefully the drugs he's been using in his food, and then we go over to Buffy's place and show Joyce…err, Buffy's mom, just what a creep her boyfriend is. Sound good? And no Cordelia, your answer will not count."
The cheerleader glared at him for a moment. "People who want rides shouldn't throw insults."
"Enough with the fighting you two." Left Hand said. "Just give into the hormones and start making out already."
The two of them looked at each other in horror. "Not." Xander said. "Going to happen." Cordelia continued. "Ever." Xander finished.
Willow, who looked just as horrified at the thought as the two of them did, added her own ending. "Amen."
Giles, who had been working around them for the last hour looked at the library clock. "As riveting as this all is, shouldn't you be going if you're going to implement this plan of yours."
They all looked at the clock and quickly gathered their supplies before heading out to Cordelia's car.
Giles looked around the now empty library. "Finally, some quiet." He shook his head. "For a library that doesn't get used much by the student body, it's always far too loud in here."
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Team Scooby arrived at Ted's place just as the computer salesman was leaving. After trying all the windows and doors, they finally gave into the inevitable. Xander used the crowbar he'd brought to force an entrance to Ted's workshop. Once they were in, Cordelia and he spread out to search the place while Willow checked over the personal papers they'd dug up on Ted.
Turned out he'd been married four times, going all the way back to 1957, which should have been impossible.
Just like this place was. Xander was definitely confused. Ted always struck him as a neat freak, yet this place was dusty, messy and generally unused looking. He couldn't see Ted working here, much less kicking back with a beer after a hard day at work.
Cordelia came back from the area she was checking and said pretty much the same thing that he'd already been thinking, plus one more thing.
"And that rug totally doesn't go with the rest of the décor."
Xander could have hit himself. His ears had been telling him that there was an empty space under the floor and he'd completely ignored it. The three of them grabbed the rug and pulled it aside, revealing a trap door set into the floor.
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Now this space seemed a little more like somewhere you could kick back with a beer, if Elvis had just recorded his first song. The fifties lived again in a basement in Sunnydale. Well, is shouldn't really be surprising, the seventies lived in a lot of them in this town as well.
"Xander, light." Cordelia said, sounding a little nervous.
"Oh, right, sorry." He shook his head; he hadn't even noticed that it was dark in here. He quickly found the light switch and flipped it. As soon as he did a record player dropped a disc and started to play 50's lounge music.
The three of them began to look around. It didn't take long for Xander to decide the best thing to check out was the closet.
What he saw in there went into his current top five worse things he'd ever seen. He slammed the door shut and hustled the girls out, telling them that he'd found Ted's first four wives as he helped them up the ladder and out of the psycho time capsule.
"Buffy's place, now. I'm not leaving those two alone with… whatever the hell he is."
Pale, the two girls nodded before the three of them piled into Cordelia's car and peeled out of there towards Buffy's place.
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Buffy glared at Ted as he stood in her room, holding her diary. The guys were late, she hadn't been able to stop her mom from eating Ted's cooking and now he was going through her things.
It was almost a relief when he hit her, because she was more than happy enough to return the favour. They exchanged blows until Buffy's mom appeared. Then, over her cries for her daughter to stop, Buffy executed a punch and a kick that sent Ted falling down the stairs, to land at the bottom with a noise that sounded like his neck breaking. Joyce was halfway down the stairs trying to get to him when the front door opened and Xander, Willow and Cordelia piled in. She was about to tell them to phone for an ambulance when she noticed Xander hefting an axe up in his hands.
Time slowed down to a crawl as she watched him bring the blade of it down on Ted's neck, severing his head from his body.
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Buffy could have sworn she'd only had time to blink, before she found herself having gone from the top of the stairs, to her mom's bedroom. Her mom locked the door and then backed away from it.
"Oh, my God, oh my God."
"Mom?"
"Phone, we need the phone." Her mom said as she headed over to the one next to her bed.
Buffy got there first and picked up the entire telephone, holding it away from her mother.
"Buffy!"
"Mom, look, I don't know what's going on, but Xander wouldn't have done something like…." She swallowed and blinked, realizing just how emotional the last few days had been for her. "Like that without a really good reason."
Buffy was fairly certain that her mom was about to start yelling, when a tentative knock came at the bedroom door. "Buffy, Mrs. Summers?" Willow's voice sounded uncertain on the other side of the door.
"Oh, my God, the girls." Joyce ran over to the door. "Willow, where's Xander?"
"He's coming up the stairs, heeee…" Willow's sentence skittered off wildly as Joyce opened the door and pulled the two girls into the room, locking it again once they were in.
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To say that Willow and Cordelia were surprised that Xander went and beheaded Ted would be an understatement. However, they had both been in the Scooby game long enough to know that a body ought to bleed. Xander used his foot to kick over Ted's head, showing the wiring that had once connected it to his body.
"He's a robot!" Cordelia said, truly shocked. "Just when I thought I had this place figured out."
Willow looked like she could happily start taking Ted robot apart right there, to find out how he worked. However, Xander was hoping to head off a bigger problem. He nodded up the stairs. "Can you two go run interference?"
They could hear Buffy's mom freaking out over their heads and they nodded before heading up to see what they could do about it.
Xander picked up Ted's head, looked down into the wiring and frowned. "Damn, this thing is some piece of work." Left Hand said, as it looked it over from a slightly different angle.
"How come I didn't notice? I tend to filter it out, but I can hear people's hearts and lungs working. Why didn't I notice his not working?" He put the head down and gave a sigh. He looked around for a moment, then reached over and locked the front door before heading upstairs himself. While it was unlikely that anyone would just walk in, there was no reason to risk it, not with the way their luck usually ran.
"You actually didn't realize he wasn't human until after you cut his head off, did you?" Left Hand asked him, and then laughed. "Every now and then you really do remind me of D." Xander said nothing, although his right hand tightened around the axe handle until his knuckles turned white. The little, whatever he was, in Xander's hand decided not the press the issue at this moment and went back to taking about the robot.
"We won't be able to tell until we look him over a little better, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that whoever made him gave him a system that would imitate a heart beat and breathing. It wasn't unusual for them to be made like that in my time. The system would no doubt be a little too regular, but you would probably have had to be around him a lot more, before you would have noticed. Besides, you're still fairly new at this; I'm surprised you're actually able to filter most of that noise out."
Xander shrugged. "It seems to be instinctual." They arrived at the door to Joyce's bedroom, where they could both hear Mrs. Summers yelling at Buffy, for having gone and pulled the phone out from the wall.
"Looks like damage control isn't working too well, kid."
Xander sighed, and then knocked on the door. The room inside got very quiet.
"Xander?" Buffy's voice, slightly muffled by the door.
"Hey, do you guys think you could come out, so we can show your mom what's really going on and so she doesn't think I'm an axe murderer?"
"Uh."
"Look Buffy, I know you don't want her to know about this stuff, but it's going to get her killed if she doesn't even know when she needs to duck."
"Buffy, don't…" Not surprisingly, that came from Buffy's mom.
Buffy opened the door, her mother stood behind her brandishing the disconnected phone in her hands.
Buffy growled at him. "I told you, I hate logic."
Xander smiled at her and handed her the axe, the movement causing Mrs. Summers to raise the phone into an offensive position and then lower it again once Buffy had taken the weapon.
"Alright then," Joyce said, looking from her daughter to Xander. "Show me what's really going on."
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Joyce would have liked to have pulled the weapon out of Buffy's hands, but realized that the distraction of fighting over it might give Xander a chance to do… something. Besides, the important thing was to get downstairs and get to a phone. She could humour the crazed teen for the few minutes that would take.
Xander was in front, with Buffy right behind him. Joyce, Cordelia, and Willow following. There was a bit of a pile up as Xander stopped short, halfway down the stairs. Buffy skilfully manoeuvred the axe out of way, narrowly avoiding cutting into Xander's back.
Buffy peered over Xander's shoulder to see why he had stopped. She blinked as she realized what was missing from the bottom of the stairs. "Xander, why did you move Ted's body?"
He looked around. "I didn't."
"Oh."
"Maybe we should head back up." Xander said.
Joyce was ready to push pass the two teens and get to a phone to end this nonsense, when a voice came from behind them.
"Well, don't change direction on my account."
They all turned to look up the stairs as Ted came out of Buffy's bedroom and stepped to the top of the stairs. This wouldn't have been all that weird, except for the fact that Ted was carrying his head under his left arm while holding a sword in his right hand. Xander glanced down the stairs and noticed the almost empty duffle bag that he had used to carry the axe, crowbar and sadly, the sword that Ted was now holding.
"Ted?" Joyce said, before her knees attempted to fold up under her. Buffy managed to catch her one handed and hoisted her back up into a standing position.
"Everyone downstairs, now!"
Xander jumped the rest of the distance to the ground and ripped open the duffle bag, mentally gripping that robot Ted had actually been tidy enough that he had zipped it shut after retrieving the sword. Thankfully, he hadn't gotten rid of the crowbar at the same time and Xander pulled it out, kicking the now torn bag to the side. Buffy come down the stairs a little slower, though only because she was helping to keep her mom upright. Willow and Cordelia scrambled down and took over as props for Buffy's dazed mother.
Ted started down the stairs. "Now that really wasn't very nice of you, and look, you've upset your mother. Still, it will be alright, just as soon as you see the house."
"The house?" Joyce asked, weakly.
"Yep, I've decorated it just the way you like it, spared no expense." The sound of wires crossing in a way they probably shouldn't came from inside the body part of Ted and it jerked, almost stumbling down the last couple of stairs. "Hmm, going to have to fix that. Damn inconvenient during an intimate moment."
All of them looked sick at the very thought of Ted being intimate, Xander especially, as he'd seen the bodies of Ted's past wives.
"I'm sure you'll love the furniture. I spent a lot of time getting the room just right. We'll be very happy together, without any lying, cheating brats to get in the way." His head finished the last of that line with a glare towards Buffy.
Mrs. Summers' legs firmed up under her and she reached over and grabbed onto the crowbar that Xander was holding. He looked at her, startled, until he saw the pure fury in her eyes. He let go and stepped back a little, leaving the field to the two Summers women.
Buffy swung high with the axe, which Ted blocked with the sword. At the same time, Joyce swung low with the crowbar, hooking him and taking his legs out from the back. Ted crashed to the ground. His head popped out from under his arm and rolled a couple of times before Joyce stopped it with her foot.
"I have to bring you home Joyce, just like I always do." The head said up at her. "Husband and wives are forever."
"Forever this." She said, before ramming the end of the crowbar into Ted's eye and halfway into whatever it was that passed for his brain. At the same time, Buffy brought the axe down on the centre of Ted's chest, finally shorting out the system that was keeping him running.
Joyce looked around at the mess and then up at the teenagers. "Okay, now you can explain what's really going on."
Dead silence filled the house, as each of them tried to figure out just where to start.
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The fights that night between Buffy and her Mom and the next day between her and Giles were legendary. Xander, Willow and Cordelia stayed out of the way, although they stepped in once or twice to stop the participants from saying something they'd regret. Otherwise, the three teens kept their heads down and spent the time disposing of Ted and coming up with a way to anonymously inform the police about the bodies in the robot's basement rec room.
In the end, they went back to Ted's place. Wearing gloves, they wiped down anything they might have touched the first time they had been there. Once that was done, they left the door they had originally broken into the house through open, pulled the rug back, opened the trap door, turned the lights on and even opened the door to the small room that held the bodies of Ted's ex-wives. They called the police from the pay phone at a nearby convenience store. Left Hand did the talking, reporting the sounds of glass breaking and having seen someone running from Ted's place. Naturally, they hung up without leaving a name.
With everything laid out for them, even the Sunnydale PD shouldn't be able to screw up finding the bodies, they hoped.
The next evening the fight between Mother and Daughter was still going on, causing Giles to take over patrol for the night. Xander wasn't sure what happened during that patrol, but it must have been good. The next morning Giles and Miss Calendar had made up to the point that the teenagers caught the two of them kissing in the library the next morning, much to Buffy's disgust. She'd had more than enough of the adults in her life getting smoochies, but at least she didn't distrust Ms Calendar the way she had Ted.
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Joyce looked around her art gallery and rubbed at the space between her eyes. Not surprisingly, she'd had a headache for the last few days. A combination of finding out everything about Buffy, as well as going through withdrawal from Ted's drugged cooking, no doubt. It didn't help that she would also be going on a vampire hunt that evening with Buffy and her 'Watcher'. She was still unhappy about the librarian's part in Buffy's other life and she really didn't want to have to believe in the existence of vampires. The robot had been bad enough, thank you very much.
She looked up as the bell on her shop door went off and she wasn't exactly surprised to see two uniformed police officers enter with a woman. There had always been a good chance that the police might trace Ted to her.
"Ms. Summers?" The woman asked.
"Yes?"
"I'm Detective Winslow, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"
"Certainly." Joyce said, indicating that the detective should sit in one of the chairs in the viewing area. Joyce took the other and appeared to give the woman her full attention, even while her mind raced.
The detective pulled out a photo. "Do you know this man?"
Joyce looked at it. Unsurprisingly it was a picture of Ted.
"Yes, of course. That's Ted Buchanan. Has something happened to him?"
"What was your relationship with him?" The detective asked, ignoring Joyce's question.
"We were dating for awhile."
"Dating, not engaged?"
Joyce looked at her, surprised. "No, we hadn't known each other that long. As it was, we broke up a few days ago."
"May I ask why?"
Joyce grimaced. "Actually, he didn't get along with my daughter." She looked at the detective, unsure she should say anything more.
"It was more than just that, wasn't it Mrs. Summers?" The detective looked like she'd finally found a thread she could pull on.
Joyce took a deep breath and hoped that this wouldn't start them looking in places they shouldn't. "He threatened her, physically. I probably shouldn't say this to a police detective, but I would kill anyone who went after my little girl. As far as dating goes, he wasn't ever going to so much as touch me or her again."
The detective nodded and handed her a card. "If you see him, call me. Don't try to approach him, just call."
"Detective, what's going on?"
"I'm unable to say. Just, make sure that you lock your doors and if you have a gun in the house, keep it with you." The detective sighed as she took in Mrs. Summers' terror-stricken face. "Mr Buchanan is a dangerous man, be glad you broke up with him when you did. We honestly believe he's left town, so you should be safe, but if you do see him, call me."
"Of course." She saw the detective and officers out and locked the door behind them, sagging against it for a moment. Then she straightened up and started to walk to the back of the gallery. She was slightly shaken, but smiling just the same. "And my parents said I'd never have any use for drama class."