Disclaimer: Nope. 'tain't mine, except the plot and the original characters.
X X X X X
"I am curious," Jane said, "Why you wanted me to say that."
"It's another one of the things I can't tell you," Daria said. "Though I will go so far as to say that Glory and Ben are two of the reasons we're running?"
"A transvestite hit man?" Jane asked. "No, don't tell me. I think I'd be disappointed."
'I can't, but you wouldn't," Daria said.
"I have a confession to make," Jane said.
"Let me guess: You're a transvestite hit man."
"Nope."
"A transvestite hit woman?"
"Hey," Jane said, "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it."
"You've tried it?" Daria asked.
"No. But then, I don't knock it either." After a second, "Anyway, my confession."
"Well, see, now that I know you're not a transvestite hit man, anything you say now is bound to disappoint me."
"My confession is, that's what got me interested in you in the first place -- seeing that Billy Idol wannabe back there try to convince you that whoever this Glory is was the same person as whoever this Ben is, and having a hard time doing it. I'm guessing that they look nothing alike."
"There's a vague resemblance. They're both human. At least, they both look human." After a second, Daria added. "And something about my reaction intrigued you?"
"You seemed to be trying to get your head around the concept," Jane said. "Everyone else simply seemed to be trying to able to understand it. Except for that girl back there, who said, "That's nice," and fell back asleep.
"That would be Anya. She doesn't think like you and I do."
"I would venture to say few people do."
Smiling faintly, Daria said, "True. But Anya definitely has a unique way of thinking. As for the rest of them, it's not fair to sell them short." She couldn't give Jane the real reason. "It's a lot to try to understand."
"And now, you seem to have figured out a way to do it."
"Two, actually," Jane gave her a "please continue" gesture. "The first was while I was dreaming. I have exceptionally lucid dreams. While talking with -- part of me --" Daria broke off, slightly worried.
"Don't mind me," Jane said. "My mind didn't boggle at learning you'd had multiple personality disorder, it's not going to start now. Please. Keep going."
"While talking with a small part of myself -- I call her the echo --" a small lie, but of course Daria couldn't risk Cameron Kim hearing the truth -- "I found out that she could say the same phrase." Damn. What was it, again?
"Glory is Ben," Jane helpfully supplied. "Keep going. This is fascinating stuff."
"When I woke up, after talking with you for a while it occurred to me that maybe our difficulty in comprehension might be negated by asking someone who had no reference for who either Ben or Glory were to repeat the phrase, maybe that would circumvent the problem."
"So that's all I am to you, Morgendorffer?" Jane asked. "Your trained parakeet?" The tone in the voice was one of gentle teasing, so clearly she wasn't offended.
"Jane want a cracker. Come on, you can do it." Then she said, "I'm glad I was able to give you an answer to your problems, but --" she looked at her watch -- "within about 35 minutes you and I are going to be headed in separate directions."
This was hard for Daria. "Um," she said. "I was kind of hoping maybe this wouldn't be the last time we talked."
"Do you want me to be your fwiend?" Jane said. Then, noticing Daria's slightly hurt expression, said, "Sorry, amiga. Force of habit. It's been so long since I've been able to talk with someone who seems to share my rather odd worldview that I forget, sometimes, the rules of basic social interaction." Then, speaking seriously and without a trace of mockery in her voice, she said, "Daria Morgendorffer, I would be delighted to continue this conversation, or any other conversation with you, at a time and place of your choosing."
"Any other conversation?" Daria asked. "Good. I choose the one between Stalin, Truman, and Churchill. And this time let's not concede Eastern Europe so readily."
"As long as I don't have to be the one with the mustache," Jane said.
"That would be Stalin," Jane said. "And no, you don't want to be him. Unless you have aspirations to being a murderous dictator."
"No interest in killing people. But the dictator part sounds cool," Jane admitted.
"True. But it also sounds like too much work."
X X X X X
When Buffy woke up, she wasn't sure where she was for a second.
Then she remembered: Plane to St. Louis. Homicidal hellgod one flight behind them. They were running away to protect Dawn.
And for a brief second, she wished she was still asleep.
Then the professionalism kicked in and she knew that, no, dammit, it was better that she was awake.
Damn professionalism. When this was done she was going to have to take it into the backyard and have a long talk with it.
She looked around to see where everyone was. Giles was reading a book, Spike and Willow were talking about something, and Daria was talking with the girl in front of her.
She caught Cameron Kim's eye. The shapeshifter was clearly listening in to everyone's conversation, but Buffy would have been willing to bet no one had said anything incriminating. She nodded slightly, and the shapeshifter nodded back and smiled.
Of course she wouldn't have fallen asleep. It would have been unprofessional.
Everyone else was sacked out. Looking down at her watch, Buffy noticed that it was about 25 minutes from their scheduled arrival time. Any minute now someone would tell them to put their tray tables up and get ready to land.
Unbuckling her seat belt, Buffy stood up and looked around. Everyone's table was actually already up except fro Giles', and he was awake to hear the announcement. Better to let everyone else sleep. They'd likely have a long night ahead of them.
Initially, their plan was to stay in St. Louis, but now with Glory likely a flight behind -- and there was one more flight out of LAX to St. Louis tonight, they'd checked before they left, leaving at 11:07 PM local time. Assuming they were on schedule, they'd be getting into St. Louis at 2:45 AM local time, collecting their luggage, and, with Dr. Vaughn's indulgence, picking whatever the hell flight left next as long as it wasn't headed back to Los Angeles and getting on it.
If Glory was out of the picture for the next several hours, then there likely wouldn't be any massacres when they got to St. Louis and didn't find Buffy there.
There were two ways to work this: Make sure they left an easily visible trail, or make sure no one knew where the hell they were going, so that it didn't matter how many people Glory killed, it wouldn't get them any closer to where Buffy was.
They hadn't had the time to work things that way in LA. Since Glory and her merry band of cutthroats had made it to the Hyperion, she would have known they were getting the hell out of Dodge.
You'd think that would have been a good time to simply fade into the woodwork, except by the time they figured all of this out their luggage was on the airplane already. That would have left them confronting Glory with nothing more than Olaf's Hammer, Faith's flail -- both still inconspicuous, either that or they were flying with the most blasé flight attendant in the world -- and Willow's spell components. And, of course, it would have actually, you know, meant confronting Glory. And Buffy's reasoning was this: If they stayed ahead of her until her deadline passed, they'd win.
Of course, what happened to Glory when that deadline passed was still an open issue. An angry hellgod with an axe to grind and nothing to lose might not be a whole hell of a lot of improvement.
On the other hand, maybe once she lost she'd give up.
And maybe the Justice League would swoop in and take care of things. Buffy wasn't counting on that either.
She walked over to check on Daria, and found that she and the girl in front of her were talking about a TV show called Sick, Sad World. Buffy'd never heard of it, herself. Of course, her TV-watching hours were typically taken up with school and vampire slaying.
Damn vampires ruining her TV fun.
"Daria," Buffy said.
"Yes?"
"So, who's your new friend?"
Daria nodded slightly. "Buffy Summers, meet Jane Lane. Jane, Buffy." A smile and a nod apparently took the place of a handshake.
Jane said, "Greetings and felicitations. Glory is Ben."
Yes. Yes she was. Then Buffy realized something and turned to Daria with a sick look on her face. "You didn't --"
"No. I didn't. But Jane can say the words with no problem. She just has no idea what they mean."
"Yes," Jane said wryly. "Because I don't actually understand the English language. I'm a parakeet. Chirp. Chirp." Then, a bit more seriously, she said, "But if you're worried about whether yon Daria has been spilling state secrets, don't be. She wouldn't tell me who either of these people were." Then she smiled. "But if I'd had my thumbscrews, things would have been different."
"I think you're only allowed to bring thumbscrews on a plane if you put them in your checked luggage," Buffy said. "So if Daria didn't tell you anything --"
"Again, it's because I understand the English language. My guess is that Ben/Glory is a transvestite of some kind." Buffy choked back a laugh at that one. "The only other thing she's revealed is that you're really, really trying to avoid -- him? Her?"
"Her is fine," Buffy said. "We're mostly avoiding Glory," Still, Daria shouldn't have even said that much."
"Okay. Her. Well, that's the only thing I know, and like I've said, she hasn't told me anything else despite my best efforts. So you don't need to worry about me ratting you out or going to the media." A beat, then, "Possibly Sick, Sad World."
"I don't think we're quite strange enough for that," Daria said.
"Your friends? Maybe not. You? You're plenty strange. And that's not even counting the whole dual personality issue."
Daria seemed to trust this girl with an awful lot, but the dual personality thing was her secret to give -- Buffy presumed she was being careful so close to Cameron Kim. In any event, there wasn't much Buffy could do at this point. If Daria had said anything more -- which Buffy doubted, as she seemed to get this whole secret identity thing -- then their only options were trust her, kill her, or knock her out and stuff her in a broom closet somewhere. Buffy was perfectly willing to do the third option if she had to, but she didn't have any reason to here, so far. Jane's jokes about talking to the media seemed to be just that -- jokes.
So she just made a mental note to hash things out with Daria later and said to her, "You're clear about what we're doing at the airport, right?'
"Scavenger hunt. First one to find a sober pilot wins." At Buffy's glare, she said, "Collect the luggage, find the next convenient flight, and get on it. Provided it's not headed back to California."
"That could be the flight to Baltimore." Jane said. "Good luck. It leaves an hour and a half after we touch down."
"Will that give us enough time?" Buffy asked.
"Glory's flight would have left two hours after ours did," Daria said, "And she would have had an hour layover in Denver. We should have plenty of time. She's at least three hours behind us. Even if she gets the most favorable tailwind possible it's only likely to shave a half hour off of her time. That should give us ample time to maneuver through the airport's surly late-night bureaucracy. Should, of course, being the key word."
"Right now, that's the best plan we've got," Buffy said. "Okay. I'll make sure everyone's awake and ready to hustle down and get the luggage while you and Dr. Vaughn get the tickets."
"We shouldn't have any problems boarding the plane," Daria said. "There aren't likely to be a lot of standby passengers waiting to grab our seats."
"Unless there's a vampire convention in time."
"And how likely is that?" Daria said quickly, covering nicely for Buffy's tired bewilderment. She was starting to see how Daria's quick thinking alone could keep her in fights.
Speaking of vampires, though -- Buffy needed to talk with Spike for a second. "Nice to meet you, Jane. If you'll excuse me --"
"Oh, please," Jane said. "Think nothing of it. Any acquaintance of Daria's is an acquaintance of mine."
When she walked back to see Spike, Buffy had the distinct feeling that she'd just survived a test of some kind. Weird. "Spike?"
Spike broke off a quiet conversation he was having with Willow and said, "Yeah?"
"I realize this sudden change in plans isn't going to do you any good --"
"No, it ain't," the vampire said. "But when we started out we hardly expected her blondeness to--" and he dropped his voice -- "go on such a prolonged killin' spree. I'm already along for the ride. I'll see it through. "After a pause, he added, "But if whenever we get wherever we're getting to it turns out we're in for a long ride across the tarmac, I make no guarantees."
"We'll try to protect you from the big bad ball of fire," Buffy said.
"Better had," Spike muttered.
Right then, the captain announced that they were beginning their descent and politely asked everyone to get in their seats. Buffy hustled around and woke everyone up --- Anya cursed her in a language she was fairly sure had been dead for several centuries -- and got back in her seat before a flight attendant who was far perkier than anyone who wasn't undead had a right to be at that hour came along and told her to sit down herself.
From there, they got into the airport -- no one still noticed Olaf's Hammer or Faith's flail. For a brief second Buffy was tempted to start making holes in the wall to see if anyone noticed, then realized exactly how tired she was to even be considering it.
Jane invited herself along, either oblivious to the suspicious stares of everyone else, or more likely, simply not caring about them, and talked with Daria. The two of them and Dr. Vaughn peeled off when it came time for them to get the tickets. Everyone else went to get the luggage.
They got their luggage with no problems -- Buffy doing a lot of the carrying despite being the one carrying the freaking big hammer, Daria and Dr. Vaughn picked up the tickets, and everything thing went through almost without a single problem.
Almost, of course, being the key word.