Okay I have about another 13 chapters or so left of this fic, so enjoy chapter 21! Also Grace's thing will not be as important for a while, its sort of just going to linger there for a while. Onwards! Also hurray 60 reviews! Small achievement! I love you guys keep em coming!
Four days had passed and everyone was still spending the nights at Buffy's apartment. It made too much sense not too, if they went outside there was no telling who would end up like Kennedy did. Faith, Grace and Anya were sitting on the living room couch watching documentaries on various endangered animals when Anya broke the silence
"Why are we watching this again?" she asked, seemingly unable to take her eyes off the TV screen
"Because its educational" Grace replied without emotion and Faith nodded
"Because there's nothing else to do," Faith corrected
"Well yeah and there's the fact that no ones around" she complained
"Where did they go? Its almost dark" Anya sounded slightly worried
"Spike and Buffy went to go food shopping, Robin, Xander and Ashley went to go enroll Ashley and Grace in the high school" Grace made a noise of pain at that notion "Giles is at his apartment and Dawn is" the door flew open at that exact moment "right here now" Faith informed them with a bored tone of voice
"I though Ashley was in her first year of university?" Anya questioned, she remembered Ashley talking about her psychology course there
"Yeah she's doing some TAFE program, teachers aid type of stuff" Grace explained, making a mental note to not do psychology as a subject.
"How'd you know all that?" Grace wondered, she'd never remember all that
"Note on the fridge" she explained and Grace laughed and nodded. Dawn closed the door and then ran towards her bedroom
"Hi Dawn, good to see you Dawn!" Faith yelled loudly down the hall as Dawn slammed her bedroom door on them.
"Should we go see what's wrong?" Grace questioned and Faith sighed
"If we have to" she jumped off the couch and scratched her stomach, then she and Grace made their way down to her room. Music was playing loudly in her room and Grace recognized it right away
"Ah Hannah Montana, the music of death" Grace muttered spookily when the door flew open and Dawn was glaring daggers at them
"Its not Hannah Montana, its Miley Cyrus!" she corrected and Grace just rolled her eyes. Faith let herself into Dawns room and Grace walked away to go watch TV with Anya. Faith grabbed a purple love heart shaped pillow and started twirling it around in her hands for something to do
"So, you wanna tell me what's up?" Faith asked casually when she suddenly smelled something "and by the way you may want to open a window, for a girly room it smells wicked gross" she plugged her nose dramatically. Without warning Dawn slumped down onto the floor and began wailing
"I… can't… handle… this," she sobbed, her breath breaking after every word. Faith didn't know what to do in this situation; it was somewhat awkward
"I didn't mean to say gross, but hey a bit of air freshener and who's gonna notice?" she tried desperately to make her stop crying
"Who's not gonna notice? Oh God I'll get kicked out!" Dawn was screaming now and the tears made red stain marks down her face making her look like a drowning rat
"Um… its just a smell… I don't think Buffy's that harsh"
"I don't know what to do!" she cried
"Are we talking about the smell anymore because I'm seriously confused" Faith started walked around the room trying to think of something to lighten the mood
"Hey how about that Nick huh? What base are we talking?" Faith asked excitedly, boy talk was probably the only lifeline she had left right now
"Base-he-hates-my-stinking-guts" she mumbled miserably
"Didn't seem like it to me" Faith replied
"No he does! Ever since that he wont even look at me anymore" she bawled
"Ever since what?" Dawn was being far too vague for Faith to understand anymore
"What do you think? You've got more experience than anybody… it probably not hard for you!" she complained as her tears started to slow down
"More… ooh… your talking about that" she realized
"Of course I am" Dawn said looking bewildered
"Oh… okay then" Faith didn't understand why she was getting so upset – the first time really never matters – or at least not to her it didn't. She resumed walking about the room thinking of things to say when she approached Dawns desk she saw something rather… interesting.
"Dawn" Faith called her over calmly and showed her what she had found
"Don't tell anyone! Especially not Buffy!" she pleaded quickly
"I won't tell but you're gonna want some help with this" Faith couldn't help it; she didn't want Dawn to be left alone for this task.
"Okay so since your starting late?" Robin handed Ashley a yellow folder full of homework and information about the schools activities. The three of them stood in the middle of Robin's office, which Xander was marveling at the order of everything
"Faith doesn't beat you up right?" he asked out of the blue
"Uh… no?" Robin was slightly confused now "why?" he asked suspiciously
"Its just this whole room is very Sleeping with the Enemy-esque, even your folders are in alphabetical order" Xander said pointing to the bookcase
"Xander do you wanna wait outside?" Ashley joked as if he were a little kid misbehaving
"Shutting up" he replied with a small grin
"Right well you guys wait here, don't touch anything," he demanded and then left the room without waiting for reply
"Where's he going?" Ashley asked Xander. Xander chuckled and then took a folder out of the bookcase and began flipping through
"Trust me, you'll wanna be surprised" he fought the urge to just tell her
"Trust me, I don't wanna be surprised, after the whole Darla thing, surprises just do not seem as fun anymore" she half joked, though she really didn't want something else going wrong like that
"Okay… but you cannot go telling everybody okay?" Xander shifted his eyes like he were about to dispatch some top secret mission
"Okay" Ashley shrugged, ruining Xander's little James Bond moment
"He's going to book the gymnasium," Xander whispered
"Oh heavens forefend!" Ashley whispered back with mock shock
"For the wedding!" that sentence shut Ashley up. She thought about that for a moment
"Uh… I don't think a school gym is the ultimate wedding spot… not exactly what girls dream about" she felt a little bad having to break that news to Xander
"Faiths not exactly a typical girl" Xander reminded her, Ashley had to nod in agreement, he did have a good point after all
"Wait how come you knew first?" Ashley asked, she didn't know Robin and Xander were friends
"Because I'm his best man," he informed her
"How are you his best man? In what way are you his best man?" she didn't bother to whisper now "he's closer with Giles than he is with you!" Ashley barely saw Robin and Xander talk to each other for more than five seconds
"Yeah but Giles is going through enough right now, what with Jenny being all gone" he pointed out and she nodded knowingly
"So really what your saying is you were his second option?" she grinned
"Shut up"
"I can hear the ocean," Drusilla sang as she swayed on the cold metal floors
"That because we're on a boat Dru" Angelus said as he walked down the stairs to greet Drusilla with a kiss on the neck
"Clever daddy" she hummed as Angelus looked up
"Dru?" he started softly "where's the teacher?"
"The tide came and washed the sand away… all away" she replied dreamily "and the silly wriggling jellyfish used it nasty stingers" she clicked her fingers and made a zapping noise with her teeth
"Did you drown her or something?" Angelus asked, all the metaphors were lost on him
"No" she giggled
"What's with the jellyfish talk then, hm?" he encouraged her to continue
"The naughty watcher came and took the mean teacher," she explained again
"Why'd you let him do that?" he asked, his voice sounded sweet, but underneath it he was boiling with rage
"He had nasty stingers he did" she nodded to herself then turned to Angelus with a pout plastered on her lips "naughty red shocks all over" she chimed as she held up her hands that looked like they had been stuck in boiling water
"Holy water?" he asked her quickly, she whimpered and nodded "Bastard!" Angelus yelled and kicked the walls of the ship
"Don't be cross" she pleaded and Angelus whipped around to face her
"We'll get him for this… no ones steals from me, NO ONE" he barked and Drusilla started bouncing up and down from excitement
"I love it when you yell" she laughed and gazed at the walls dreamily "but the bells… the bells don't want t be disturbed!" she shivered and Angelus ran to her side
"What do you see?" he asked, hoping that it had better be good
"Oh fire! Pretty dancing fire!" she chorused and put her hands to her ears
"Fire? Dru your gonna have to do better than that!" he warned her angrily
"They're going to be party" she grinned
"A party" he repeated, sometimes he just didn't know what was going on inside her head
"No" she chided playfully "a wedding, inside a school" she stared at the walls again, like she could see it all now
"Who's wedding?" Angelus' first thought was that it must be Buffy's, but somewhere deep down he refused to believe Buffy would marry a moron like Spike
"The slayers" she replied like it wasn't obvious enough already
"Buffy?" Drusilla shook her head
"No, the other one" she laughed like she were playing a game
"Faith?" she clapped her hands in applause then pouted again
"Can we go?" she asked innocently
"To the wedding?" Angelus seemed to see a plan behind attending Faith's wedding and he grinned his evil grin and Drusilla "we'll be there" he promised
"But we must be back before the clock strikes 12" she laughed
"Oh I'm sure it won't take too long" he put a finger to his chin as if to ponder the possibilities and Drusilla rubbing her middle and giggled like a child on her first day of school
"And we'll arrive in a pumpkin carriage!"
Wow, I've never fit so many references into one chapter. I hope everyone gets them! I'm a bit of a movie buff so I don't want to confuse people!
Please review! You know you want to :)