Normal
Spike watches Buffy pace the living room, worry evident across her face. Her feet wear down the carpet and Spike is starting to get dizzy watching her monotonous travel. It's become obvious over the last week that Dawn has been sneaking out. At first Buffy gave the situation a little space knowing that her sister is growing up and making connections of her own in the outside world. Now, however, it's past two am and Dawn has yet to return home. Buffy immediately went on full alert and called up the scoobies to be on the look out for her. "Pet, please sit down… you're giving me a bloody head ache. Dawn's a smart girl; she's fine I'm sure," Spike says
Before Buffy has the chance to respond to Spike's reassuring comment there is a flash of light seen from under Dawn's door. Buffy immediately rushes to the door and flings it open to see her sister unwrapping the scarf from her neck and unbuttoning her coat.
"Dawn, where have you been?"
--
Three cups of hot chocolate warm three sets of cold winter exposed hands in a small coffee shop down from the Council building. Buffy, Willow and Xander sit at a small round table in the shop and watch through the window at those passing by outside in the chilly morning air.
WILLOW: "So Dawnie has a boyfriend."
BUFFY: "Yup."
XANDER: "She sure has grown up a lot; it feels like it was just yesterday that she was still crushing on me."
BUFFY: "I just don't know why she didn't tell me… I'm cool and with it… I'm not that much older then her, I would have understood… it's not like I'm some old fogy … I'm not an old fogy am I?"
WILLOW: "Buffy, you're not an old fogy."
XANDER: "Buff, you're only 22… you're no where near fogy territory."
WILLOW: "Maybe it wasn't that she was keeping him secret from you… maybe she was keeping you secret from him?"
BUFFY: "not really seeing the difference Will."
WILLOW: "Well, you know how our lives are, maybe she just wanted to have something… normal for a while… not to mention our lives and relationships… it's all just disastrous."
XANDER: "Right, because of how everyone we seem to date either once was evil or ends up becoming that way."
BUFFY: "Relationships and our lives are kind of un-mix-y."
Buffy's thoughts wander. For the first time since she decided to jump into this relationship with Spike she becomes acutely aware of the problems that surround it. For a split second the longevity of their relationship seems impossible. Buffy's thoughts wander, I'm the slayer, he's a vampire. He'll live forever, I won't, not to mention the possibility of sudden death waiting around every corner… but I love him. In that moment Buffy decides that maybe love is enough. At very least maybe enough to hold on to something as long as she can. With that thought Buffy decides something.
--
Perfectly round and smooth Kennedy holds a stone in her hands. It's the size of a baseball and weighs about that as well. She tosses the rock up into the air and catches it with ease in the same hand.
KENNEDY: "We need to take out Spike."
VOLTERNAS: "The Vampire?"
KENNEDY: "Him and Buffy, they have a thing… if you want to get to her, take him out."
VOLTERNAS: "If there's one thing that can sway a person to the side of evil it certainly is the loss of a loved one… she loves this vampire?"
KENNEDY: "I've seen her do anything to try and save him."
VOLTERNAS: "What's your plan of attack?"
Kennedy spins the rock between her fingers and then glances at Volternas with a malevolent gleam in her eyes.
KENNEDY: "We make him weak and when the time is right we'll take him out… simple as that."
--
Dawn lies on her stomach across her bed. Her head is buried in a novel and she's zoned out the rest of the world… that is until Buffy bursts through her door and Dawn spins around surprised by her sister's entrance.
DAWN: "Knock much."
BUFFY: "Oh… sorry… I just um, I wanted to tell you that I'm making dinner tonight and that you should invite your boyfriend over."
DAWN: "You're making dinner?"
BUFFY: "Okay, so there may be take-out of some kind involved… My point is that I want to have a family dinner and I'd like to meet Alton."
DAWN: "Alden."
BUFFY: "Right, Alden… that's what I said… so I'm going to get started with the…"
DAWN: "Calling of restaurants?"
BUFFY: "Preparation of food, so you should give him a call. Dinner's at 6."
Buffy smiles and quietly exits Dawn's room shutting the door behind her.
--
Xander walks down the hall, he's headed to archery hall. He's found since the loss of his eye that learning to use a weapon that requires good eye sight, and learning to use it well is a great confidence booster. He reaches the door and pulls out his keys to unlock it. Any room with weaponry lying about gets locked, this was a rule they decided on from day one; but now as Xander fiddles with his keys he wishes that he'd had voted against it. Distracted by the unlocking of the door Xander doesn't notice as a young girl with amber eyes turns the corner and walks toward him. However, he glances up just in time to see Myla smile at him.
MYLA: "Hey there Xander."
XANDER: "Oh, hi Myla."
MYLA: "You having some trouble there with those keys?"
XANDER: "Yeah… the thing is I can never remember what one it is… Where are you headed?"
MYLA: "On my way out actually… I can only stand so much of the food here until I need something decent. I was just gonna pick up a few boxes of Chinese."
XANDER: "I guess Lucie the Lunch lady never will be able to compete with fortune cookies."
MYLA: "…Would you… um, would you maybe wanna come back and split a thing of sesame chicken with me? I'll give you one of my fortune cookies."
XANDER: "I don't know… I…" Xander looks at Myla and thinks about what he really wants. "…you know what, yeah. I'd love to."
As Xander smiles at Myla he feels a warmth inside of him, a tenderness that has long evaded his senses.
--
Spike watches Buffy buzz about like a bee setting the table with absolute precision. She moves almost frantically trying to get it perfect. Perfect and normal; she's even dressed up a little for the occasion throwing on a pair of heels to match her black blouse and A-line skirt. He watches as she attempted to put the silverware in the right order, rearranging it several times. Then finally Spike walks up to her and puts his hand over hers. She stops what she's doing and Spike finishes putting the silverware in the right order for her.
SPIKE: "What is it about this dinner that's got your knickers all in a twist?"
BUFFY: "nothing… and my knickers are not twisted… I just want this to go smoothly, it's Dawn's first real boyfriend and I just want him to think that we're a nice, normal family…"
SPIKE: "So you're trying to compensate for the fact that we're the farthest thing from normal by covering the table with frilly doilies and the good plates then?"
Buffy rolls her eyes at Spike, although inside she knows that what he said is exactly what she's doing; However, before she has to admit to him that he's right the door bell rings. Buffy walks to the door to buzz Alden in through the intercom when Dawn bursts out of her room and runs to the door pushing her sister out of the way with startling force. Dawn hits the 'talk' button on the intercom and says "hey, just wait right there and I'll be down to let you in." She turns to face Buffy and Spike giving them a nervous smile and then leaves to walk down to the first floor and lead Alden up to their flat.
--
Alden had brought flowers which now sit in a vase on the kitchen counter, Buffy glances at them as she eats and thinks about how the introductions had gone. They've barely started to eat and already Buffy is evaluating how the night has gone. Overall though she thinks it's gone well with the exception of thinking up a story as to how Spike got his name. The four of them sit around the dinner table and begin to poke at small talk.
ALDEN: "So, Dawn tells me that you both work here. What's it like working with all these run-away girls?"
BUFFY: "Run Away's? Right… well it's very…"
SPIKE: "Rewarding."
BUFFY: "Yes. Rewarding… we just like to help," Buffy says stumbling over her words a little.
ALDEN: "That's really cool… I think it's great that you guys are here helping these girls, giving them another chance."
BUFFY: "Yeah… so, um… Dawn tells me that you're in college. Have you decided on a major yet?"
ALDEN: "Nah, I'm still undecided… I figure I still have three more years to figure it out though… what did you study in school Mrs. Summers?"
BUFFY: "Buffy, call me Buffy… and well, I um… started college back when we lived in Sunnydale, but I just had a calling to… help run away girls, and then we came out here and set this up and that was that."
--
Myla unlocks the door to her room as Xander stands in the hallway with a sweet smelling bag of Chinese food in his hands. After she swings the door open and steps inside Xander hovers in the doorframe for a moment. He'd never been into one of the slayerettes rooms before and it seemed a little weird to him. This was one of the many girls he was mentoring and here he was on a date with her. That is if this was a date, Xander wasn't positive about that. All the slayerettes had rooms in the council building. Floors eight through twelve were all for them, set up in a hotel like configuration. Myla's was just like all the rest, a single full-bed, one room, one bathroom, kitchen-less space.
Xander steps inside and looks around. Pictures of Myla with friends and family, as well as Myla's bedspread from home made the room her own. Xander's eyes catch a photo of Myla and friends in purple gowns, and Xander thinks to himself that Myla has at least graduated high school. He sees this as a good sign. Xander had never asked her how old she was, slayer powers didn't kick in until a girl was at least 15, but that bit of information didn't help Xander much.
XANDER: "So, this is your place."
MYLA: "Yup… it's not much, but I guess that goes with the gig huh?"
--
Black powerful eyes stare at the perfectly round stone. Platinum blonde and skin pale as milk the former Wiccan, turned slayer, gone rogue stands before Kennedy. In her outstretched arm she holds the baseball size rock that Kennedy had been throwing around before and now offers it to the Slayer as an enhanced magical weapon. Kennedy smiles looking at the rock as it now glows softly. "Good, now it's time to send the slimy ones in for the dirty work," Kennedy says taking the Rock and tossing it in the air one final time before walking away.
--
In the Summer's flat the conversation continues over the remainder of dinner.
SPIKE: "So… just how did the two of you come to know each other then?"
DAWN: "Well, I was touring the campus one day and Alden helped me with some directions when I got totally lost."
ALDEN: "I helped her find the office, it was no big deal."
DAWN: "…And then I ran into him again at the coffee place down the street and he asked for my number."
ALDEN: "How did you and Buffy meet?"
SPIKE: "Oh, uh… well um…"
BUFFY: "We met…"
SPIKE: "Through a friend in common."
BUFFY: "Right… right, our friend…"
SPIKE: "Angel, yeah… bloody poofter, we're not really friends, just old acquaintances… but anyway, I was uh, in town one night… in Sunnydale. I had stopped by to pay Angel a visit and well Buffy and I just hit it off right away."
Buffy's eyes grow big for a moment as she listens to Spike's story and watches as he ends it with a smirk across his face. She thinks about Spike's first appearance in Sunnydale, sure he came to see Angel, but to cure Drusilla; and while she and Spike had hit things off it was more of the fighting kind of hitting then the getting along kind. Buffy, however, goes along with the extremely watered down version of the story and continues to play pretend that their life is normal.
--
Xander and Myla sit at the edge of the bed, white boxes of Chinese food rest in their laps and Myla shows up Xander's fork with her graceful use of chopsticks. The lights are dim and an old monster movie graces the screen of the small TV sitting on the desk before them. Both their eyes are glued to the screen at moments and occasionally glace over at each other.
MYLA: "This is one of my favorites."
XANDER: "Yeah, I've always had a thing for the classics."
Myla smiles and looks at Xander who smiles back at her. She notices a small smudge of sauce on Xander's lip. "You have a little something…" Myla says gesturing with her hand to his lips just before she brushes it away with her thumb. "There." Their faces are near now and their eyes start to wander across each others face as they realize the thinning distance between them.
Ring. Loud and clear, the mood killing noise reverberates through Xander's pocket.
--
Buffy answers her phone. It rang just as she was carrying plates into the kitchen, and comes as a relief from all the lying that took place over dinner. She sets the dishes down and turns to the group still seated at the dinner table. She looks straight at Spike. "I have to go… something's going on downstairs… stay here, I'll be right back."
--
Green slimy demons push at the front door of the Council building. Buffy makes her way into the front lobby at the same time Xander does. They both enter the room to see Willow, Giles, Faith and Andrew standing in front of the doors and watching the demons try to get through the magical barriers that have been put in place to keep them out.
BUFFY: "What should we do?"
WILLOW: "I don't know… the barriers are holding just fine, they just won't leave."
FAITH: "I think we should grab some weapons and start stabbing... it's not like these things are hard to kill."
Shattering glass sounds in the air and all faces turn in the direction of the noise. Through the window a baseball sized glowing stone has flown, breaking through the glass, and landing with a thud on the floor. The demons at the doorway break apart and leave realizing that their attempts to get in are in vain, but also that their mission has been accomplished. Buffy walks over to the rolling glowing ball on the floor and hesitantly picks it up.
FAITH: "What is it?"
BUFFY: "I don't know."
GILES: "It looks as if some kind of spell surrounds it."
BUFFY: "Willow… take it to the wiccans, do a spell, whatever it takes… find out what it is."
--
After Buffy had returned upstairs with the simple explanation that someone threw a rock threw the window Dawn left to walk Alden to the door. Now Buffy stands before the sink washing dishes as Spike finishes clearing the rest of the table. He walks up to the counter and stands beside Buffy. Her face is sullen, she always did the dishes to get her mind off of things; but right now she couldn't banish her thoughts from her mind. "We're never going to have normal lives," Buffy says without removing her gaze from the soapy sink before her. Spike's brow furrows as he contemplates her words.
SPIKE: "Maybe they will be someday… in all honestly though I rather hope we're never normal… I don't think that it's all that its chalked up to seem."
BUFFY: "I just don't know if anything can last with the way that our lives are…"
SPIKE: "Nothing lasts Buffy, at some point everything changes and everyone dies."
BUFFY: "…Not you."
Buffy turns to face Spike now, after an initial glance she walks away in silence to the bedroom, Spike hovers for a moment by the sink contemplating her worlds.
A/N: Yes, there is some conflict arising with Buffy and Spike, don't worry though eventually it will be resolved. I'd love some feedback on Myla and Alden, you'll be seeing a little more of them in future chapters. Next chapter ('B' My Eyes) should be up soon.
9/7/08 A/N: Ah, My computer blew up last night and I'm unable to get to any of my files for the next chapter. Luckily I had been saving it on a usb memory stick too, so I'm only out like a page. I'm taking my computer in tomorrow to fix it, but if it takes too long to get it back I'll just re-type what I didn't get to save on my memory stick. Next chapter before the end of the week.