"Wait, what?" Vi said. She was confused. By the looks of things, Willow wasn't doing any better. Saying the last week had been an emotional roller-coaster ride was an insult to roller coasters everywhere. She'd been flung about like a ping-pong ball in a dryer.
"Sheriff Carter," Fargo said. "I've been known to technobabble sometimes. Was anything I said beyond your understanding?" Terrific. He was being a comedian.
Jack didn't particularly seem to appreciate his tone, either. "No,Fargo. Thank you for using the little words," he said sarcastically.
"You're entirely welcome," Fargo said, but from the fast grin on his face it was obvious he was intentionally missing the point.
"I can't figure out what to object to first," Vi said, though she wasn't offended, just stunned.
"How about sacred duty?" Willow said.
"Okay," Vi said. "We'll go with that. I'm a vampire slayer; it's kind of in the job description for me to kill vampires and demons."
"Didn't you say there were like seven hundred vampire slayers out there now?" Jo asked.
Right. "738, last time I checked," Vi said.
"I honestly don't know: Are you all needed all the time?"
Vi opened her mouth – you never knew when a crisis would hit (unlike apocalypses, they didn't tend to cluster around Tuesdays in May) and then closed it again, thinking: Well, Buffy took several months off. Vi didn't blame her at all; Buffy had been Slaying continually for over seven years by that point. And if Buffy could, it at least wouldn't be unreasonable for her to make the suggestion. "No. Good point."
"Aren't about a tenth or so on reserve?" Vi asked.
"Yeah," Willow said. "I suppose Sacred Duty does get easier when it's split up, you know, seven hundred ways."
"Still: Why do you want me? Because, no offense, Jo, but I don't do security work."
Jo blinked. "Sure. And I'd be thrilled if you wanted to join up. But we don't draft, here. This isn't the army." Then, quietly enough that Vi was sure that no one else in the room heard her, she muttered, "Unfortunately." If Vi was reading the tone right, though, it was nostalgia for the army, not a secret desire to force her into security work.
"We have security personnel fighting to get in here," Fargo said.
"Literally," Jack said. When everyone looked at him, he said, "What? I've seen the interviews."
"Anyway," Fargo said, "It has nothing to do with magic, or you being a Slayer, and everything to do with your skill as a plant biologist. I asked Dr. Peterson to send me a preliminary report on your theories for how to help eradicate giant hogweed from North American soil, and based on that report, we both think your idea is viable."
"Really?" Despite her skepticism, this excited Vi.
"Yes. Some fine-tuning will be necessary, of course, but if the experiment has the results we believe it will, then it could greatly simplify the way we deal with hundreds of different invasive species. It would have to be retailored for each plant, of course, and there are some plants that your theory won't work on, but I'm actually quite excited by it."
"Cool!" She looked over at Willow. "Willow? What do you think?"
Willow said, "We're going to have to talk about that with everyone – but I don't have a problem with it. Me, though, I'd have to be temporary – Kennedy."
Vi nodded her head. "Yeah, I can't see Kennedy being particularly happy here." Understatement. She liked Kennedy – brash, yeah, but she'd done a good job leading the New York contingent; she still had a hair trigger emotionally where Willow was concerned, but otherwise was a lot better than she was when they met. "check that: I can't even see her wanting to come – except for one reason." The obvious one.
"Yeah. And I can't do that to her," Willow said.
"Kennedy?" Jo asked. "The one who threatened you, Carter? Why would she have to come here?"
"Didn't I mention that?" Jack said. Quadruple in-unison shakes of heads indicated he hadn't, although Vi and Willow obviously knew why. "Yeah. Kennedy's Willow's girlfriend."
"That would explain it," Jo said.
"Yeah," Willow said. "And she'd come if I asked her, but even if she joined the security team she'd be bored out of her mind here within a week within no vampires to kill, plus she's kind of in charge of the Slayers based out of New York City right now, and doing a darn good job of it if I say so myself. But speaking of bored out of your mind – Vi, how would you be able to deal with it?"
"Deal with what?" Jack asked.
"Slayers have something inside them urging them to go out and hunt demons," Vi said. Just like with all things with Slayers, they had it to a greater or lesser degree. Buffy, for instance, was heavy on the Slayer dreams, light on the ability to mystically sense vampires. Vi had the urge, just not to the extent some of the Slayers seemed to. She'd seen some of her fellow Slayers practically tear a hole in the walls with their teeth if something kept them from going out and hunting two nights in a row, like a broken limb. Vi, though, wasn't nearly that bad. "That's what Taggart caught me doing in the woods – I was seeing if there was anything evil out there that needed Slaying. Like we said, this is the cleanest down, demonwise, I think I've ever seen. A few nature spirits in the woods is about it. But I've been able to vent my urges well enough, through jogging with you, Jo, and the runs through the woods." And hitting the other Eureka's police, but she didn't want to give them the idea that she'd explode in a burst of violent rage if she didn't get to beat someone up once in a while.
"So you could handle it?" Jo asked.
"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I could."
Willow stood up. "Okay. Do you mind if we think on it?" Vi bit back complaining that Willow was answering for her. Excited as Vi would be to be able to stay in Eureka, it was only partly her call.
"Of course not," Fargo said. "And about the possibility of, well, diplomatic relations between our two groups?"
"I don't see why not," Willow said. "Whether or not we agree that we –" she pointed to Vi and herself –"should have asked for help in advance, I think that would be a good idea. Based on your story, though, Sheriff, you, probably not the best choice to be a diplomat."
"I like my current job just fine, thanks."
As Vi and Willow headed for the door, Fargo said, "See you tomorrow?"
"Bright and early," Willow said.
"Spit in Beverly Barlowe's face at least once for me," Vi said.
"I'll do it twice," Jo said.
XxXxX
The discussion that evening with everyone back at the Academy was hectic, to say the least; everyone in the senior circle was there at the other end, so Buffy, Xander, Faith, Dawn, Giles and Kennedy joined Vi and Willow to hash things out. Willow didn't really think that the Eurekans were going to listen in, but just to be on the safe side, she magically scrambled the call. All anyone listening in would hear was a long discussion about whether the Enterprise could take the Death Star, with a sideline in whether Spock would make a good Jedi.
"First things first," Buffy said. "Thanks. I know things didn't work out quite like we planned -"
"Do they ever?" Xander said. "I mean, really. We can count 'times our plans went off without a hitch' on one hand. And that's without getting into the whole 'is a thumb a finger' argument."
"But," Buffy continued, ignoring Xander, "We're cured. And you're not going to jail. And that Barlowe woman is. So yay, us."
"You gonna do what they ask and plug up the hole?" Faith asked.
"I think so," Willow said. "It'll help them in case people who're less good guys than we are try to break in. And any hole I can fill up, I can unfill – though I'm kind of hoping we don't go that route."
Giles said. "Yes. They wish to establish diplomatic ties. I must ask: Did they make any threats, open or implied?"
"No," Vi said firmly. "No implications, hints, suggestions, or anything of the sort. But now that, at the very least, five people there are in on the existence of magic and the supernatural, I think it's a good idea for us to stay friendly. This isn't the first time we've run into superscience as the issue, and while Eureka's the most demon-free place I've ever been, that doesn't mean it'll always be that way."
"Is it really that clean?" Kennedy asked.
"There were more demons at the Vatican," Vi said. Willow hadn't been along on that trip, but apparently a group of ambitious vampires with far more guts than sense had holed up in Vatican city with some half-baked theory of converting the Catholic hierarchy and getting them to abandon the use of the cross, thus being heroes to vampires everywhere. To say it had failed was a massive understatement. "At least we might want to find out why. Sure, Taggart explained why there weren't any vampires, but there's a whole lot more than vamps out there."
"Maybe they thought it was too cliché," Dawn said. "You know, vampires, the Pacific Northwest . . ."
"Naaah," Faith said. "That'd bring more of 'em there, trying to sucker in the young, innocent and stupid."
"Back to the subject," Giles said. "Despite the, um, somewhat rocky start, there may be benefits in at least establishing informal relations with Eureka. Providing we believe that they will not try to exploit any of us, of course."
"I couldn't find any evidence when I was looking through their records of any experiments like that, except, you know, the one we just dealt with, and that was just Beverly Barlowe, anyway," Willow said
"Not that I don't trust your judgment, Will – or yours, either, Vi – but I think this is something we'd need to be pretty damn sure of," Xander said.
Willow said, "We can't make them unknow it without throwing forget spells around. And you know that's never going to happen." Everyone knew her position on forget spells. People brought it up at their peril.
"No one's suggesting that," Buffy said. "At least, I hope they're not."
"Nothing of the sort," Giles said. "But I believe we need a clearer picture of the histories of these people."
"You said you're going to shut down the hole you used, right?"
"Right," Willow said.
Dawn said, "So, before you do, just look through the records once more."
"And while you're at it, sweetie," Kennedy said. "Check the experiments too. Barlowe, when she was here, said she didn't know exactly what the Initiative people were up to. Doesn't mean she's telling the truth, but if these are good people it doesn't mean that everyone underneath them is as good as they are."
She had a point, Willow supposed. But – "None of them know about us."
"Yet," Buffy said. "It's a town full of geniuses."
"Which is something we probably should have thought about before this whole thing started," Vi said pointedly. "But, as Isaac Asimov says – there's no way to get that mushroom cloud back in that nice shiny uranium sphere."
"No," Willow sighed. "There isn't. I'll check. I don't have enough time to check everything and still get any sleep tonight; will a spot-check do?"
"Certainly. You are not expected to do the physically impossible," Giles said.
And Xander said, "Yeah. That's a Slayer's job."
Vi said, "Unless Willow's check comes back showing that the Eurekans are eviler than a James Bond villain, I think I'm going to take them up on their offer. At least for a while. This doesn't mean I'd give up on Slaying; I don't think I could. But –"
"'dja really think we'd stop you?" Faith asked. "B spent six months in Rome. Chao-Ahn's Slaying in between chef training sessions, Kenny's going for a business degree in her spare time, Paula's studying to be a Watcher. Hell, even I got myself a GED."
"It's a sacred duty," Giles said. "But it is one under new management. The days of a Slayer being forced to do nothing but Slay are past. That said, it is not a position one can readily give up, either."
"Sure. I know that," Vi said. "Like I said, I couldn't stop entirely, and apocalypses pretty much mean drop everything. Though they've had their share of them around here, too."
"Really?" Dawn and Buffy said at the same time; then Dawn added, "Not a relapse. I promise."
"And if it were?" Willow said.
Xander said, "Okay, so you favor diplomacy."
"Darn right, mister."
"I assume you agree, Vi?" Giles asked.
"I see that 'darn right' and raise you a 'damn straight'."
"You've been hanging out with Xander too long," Buffy said.
"You say that like it was a bad thing," Xander said.
"Okay then. B and I got a heavy night of Slayin' ahead. We done?"
"I believe so," Giles said. "Good evening, all."
After she hung up, Vi asked Willow, "Anything I can do?"
"Get a pizza and something caffeinated. We're going to be up for a while."
