Interlude 11A – It's My Birthday, and I'll ... KABOOM!
***Amy POV***
-Winters Residence : Tuesday Night-
I drag the last hamper into the laundry room.
The laundry I had sorted out into piles by color is of course all dumped on the floor in the middle of the room.
"Seriously!? Again? You're worse than Red."
Jack looks up at me from where he's lying buried in the pile of dirty laundry with an affronted expression.
"Hey, Cat and I reached an agreement. I get any piles of dirty laundry, it gets any piles of warm clean laundry. You and Faith of course get your laundry back once it's neither covered in your scent nor warm." Oh yes. Of course.
"Why is this even still necessary? Oz doesn't even look at you funny anymore." I'm still not convinced he ever was aside from that one night back at Ms. Bellevue's.
"True, but he stopped looking at me funny when I started doing this. Might be coincidence, but I think not. Now that you mention it though, he's started giving me a new kind of weird look lately and I'm not really sure what's up with that yet. I'm certainly not stopping before he does."
"Fine... but is it really necessary to do it while I'm trying to do the laundry?" I do the laundry every Tuesday. You know that.
"Hey, you're the one who insisted I needed to shower." Excuse me Mr. Crazy Vampire?
"Yeah, No! Common decency was the one that insisted on that. You wore a dead demon as a suit, you needed that shower!"
"I'm not saying I didn't. I'm just saying that you played a role in our arrival at this moment."
...
Why am I arguing with a crazy person? "FAITH!"
Rapid footsteps precede her arrival seconds later. "What's wro- oh." She rolls her eyes. "I've got it."
Ignoring his halfhearted protests, Faith scoops the obnoxious one up off the pile of laundry and carries him away.
Waving goodbye, I set about sorting the laundry by colors for the second time today.
-Winters Residence : Wednesday Evening-
"Am I a terrible person?"
"What the shit, Ames. Why would you say that?"
"You know how I had dinner with my dad tonight? He just seems... so much happier than when I was living with him."
Faith waggles her eyebrows at me. "Well, he is gettin laid all the time now right? That'll-"
"Faith! NO!" I fight back the urge to vomit. "That's my dad you're talking about. I do not need those mental images."
"Just sayin, I don't think it has anythin to do with you. Unless this new girlfriend of his is a screamah and-"
I throw my hands over my ears. "LALALALALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Making sure Faith's lips have stopped moving I take my hands off my head.
"Anyway, you've gotta get dressed for tonight right? Jack's little birthday surprise for just the two of you?"
"Yup. Has he told you what's going on?"
Faith smirks at me but shakes her head no. "I've got your present though. You can open it when you get there."
Taking the shoebox sized gift, I give it a little shake and can hear things rattling around inside. Faith just grins at me so it can't be anything fragile.
- An Hour's drive into the Desert -
"Now can you tell me what we're doing?"
"I figured we'd make a camp fire, roast some marshmallows for S'mores, and then..." I raise my eyebrow as he pauses. "I have a couple kilos worth of plastic explosives and remote detonators for you to blow stuff up with."
...
"AWESOME! Screw the S'mores, let's make with the KABOOM! already."
Jack laughs. "Okay, I brought along a bunch of things for you to destroy too. Grab the box on the left and pick out what you want to start with and I'll start wiring up the first charge."
-Many KABOOM!s later-
"And now for the pièce de résistance." Jack takes my mom's old cheerleading trophy out of a box.
"Oh Goddess, I hate that thing. It's so creepy. I always feel like it's watching me."
"Oh. Yeah, your mom trapped herself in it, so it probably is."
"WHAT!?"
"Now, given what we've seen one-tenth to one-half kilos do... I was thinking a whole kilo ought to be a good bet for reducing her to constituent parts."
"What if she gets loose!?"
Jack just smiles. "That's why I'm going use ten. Also, you'll have this." He pulls a pistol out from behind his back and hands it to me.
"You know I don't like-"
"It's a tranq gun." He cuts me off as he resumes pulling stuff out of the truck. "There shouldn't be nearly as much recoil, so your wrists will be okay. If not, we have green goop in the emergency kits. Besides, that's just in case we somehow get separated." He pulls out the AK-47 he 'found' in Budapest. "If it looks like she's gotten loose I'll just go ahead and empty an entire clip into her."
"You're sure nothing bad will happen?"
"As sure as I can be, and I take your safety very seriously." Yeah yeah, I know, can't have your witch malfunctioning again. "After all you're my Amy."
"Of course you c- Wait what? What happened to me being your witch?"
...
"Don't be ridiculous." He mock-glares at me. "How can you possibly think I would ever say anything as insulting as that!? Witches are totally replaceable, but there's only one of you."
I... choose to ignore how ridiculous that statement is in favor of enjoying the moment.
"So, what do you say? You up for putting that chapter of your life behind you?"
-Later that night-
"And the first S'more of the night goes to the birthday girl."
As I'm taking the S'more Jack just made me, I remember I still have Faith's present in the truck.
"Hang on a moment!" Shoving the S'more in mouth so I can't drop it, I run back to the truck and grab the box.
"What have you got there?"
"Faith's present." I try to say around my mouthful of chocolate and marshmallowy goodness.
Jack appears to get it, he nods and goes back to roasting his own marshmallow. I note that he's still keeping that tub full of water nearby while doing so, even with the extra long metal skewers.
Swallowing, I start ripping off the wrapping paper. It is a shoebox. I really doubt Faith would get me shoes though. Harmony would, sure, but not Faith.
Popping open the shoebox with it aimed away from me in case there's a spring mounted prank turns out to be a mistake. Jack looks over and sees the contents, bursting into laughter before I check and find an economy sized pack of condoms and a vial of... is that blood?
"Oh, Goddess! Why, Faith, why!?"
Jack leans over and looks in the box again. "Maybe she explains in the card?"
What card? I check the box. There's a little note card with Faith's handwriting on it.
'Wanted you to have fun. Not ready to be Aunty Faith yet though, so remember to use BOTH parts.'
"Did you two plan this?"
"Plan what?" Jack's confusion sounds genuine, and he's not doing any of the little things he does when messing with Buffy.
"Never mind." I glare down at the note card, fighting back a smile. At Jack's eyebrow raised look I elaborate. "Faith seems to have embraced your arbitrary definition of family."
"HEY! What do you mean arbitrary!?"
-Winters Residence : Thursday Evening-
The lock box Jack and I have been working on opening for weeks finally unlocks with a super satisfying hum.
Well look at that. I did it. I guess the fact that I opened this magical lock means that these books on arcane theory were just far too complicated for me to understand, huh Mrs. Post? After all I'm just some little girl. Suck it Mrs. Post I'd like to see you manage to get one of these damned things open.
Okay. So I might have issues with people invading my library and telling me I can't understand my own books. Maybe.
Now, let's have a look at what Jack wanted so badly. Erm... Two little red crystal balls with gold engravings? The hell are these for?
Hmmm... I wonder if- Oh shit! I'm supposed to be getting ready to go to The Bronze with Harmony.
I race out of the map room and up the stairs to start getting ready.
The wards tell me that Harmony is of course here right on time moments before she pokes her head into my room. "Amy!? You ready to go?"
"Almost. Just give me a minute." Harmony sighs impatiently at me. "Yes, yes, I know, you want to get there early to see-" I suddenly can't remember the name of the band she's so excited about. "Oh hey! You should go check out the magic jewels in that box thing Jack and I were trying to get open."
"You two got it open?"
"I got it open. By myself, thank you very much. Jack has been dicking around down in the lab since Faith and Buffy started their spelunking run. But you should go take a look while I get ready."
"Okay, but you better be ready soon."
"I will. I will. Promise." Harmony huffs, but leaves my doorway to head downstairs.
She returns a second later. "And you should wear that dress I bought you for your birthday."
...
Sigh.
-Harmony's Car : Saturday Evening-
"Okay Eric, I'll tell him. Bye." I hang up the phone.
Harmony glances over from the driver's seat. "Who was that?"
"That was one of Jack's umpteen billion projects needing more money. Apparently some sort of bank servers thing broke down." So far, Jack's plan to make us a lot of money is just expensive.
"Oh... Eric's one of those Google people right?"
"Yeah... I don't- Hey!" I point at the people fighting on the sidewalk "Is that Jack and Faith?"
Harmony looks over at them for a moment. "I think so?"
We look at each other for a moment before saying in unison, "Pull over."
As the car comes to a stop, I can begin to make out words in their apparent argument.
The blonde guy in a trench coat looks to be drunkenly trying to take a swing at an annoyed looking Faith while Jack stands between them, struggling to hold them apart. "You take that back! Dru's not crazy!"
"Oh come on William, even ignoring her love of... extreme S&M... you have to admit that she's a bit off her-" Jack sounds as exasperated as he looks.
"You shut up! She's just playful is all."
"Miss Edith would say otherwise. If Mother isn't a bit off, Miss Edith would... have... to... be... oh. SON OF A FUCK!"
Jack flashes purple and both Faith and the blonde guy stagger back a bit. That's... definitely a new one for my wall of weird things Jack does.
Harmony doesn't seem overly phased by it as she and I climb out of the car. "Hey guys! What's going on?"
Finally noticing us, the three stooges all turn and look at Harmony and I. Jack's shirt has a large bloody hole in it over his heart. "What happened!?"
After a brief moment of silence Jack finally responds. "That's... a rather long story... it all starts with William here being told the most insane thing ever down at Willy's bar..."
...Why is Jack glaring at me?
