"Why is it the living always steal all the damn jellies?" Spike grumbled as he sorted through the dozen donuts Robert had purchased that sat atop their table at one of the local, all-night donut establishments. Next time he wouldn't be so quick in volunteering to get the drinks once the donuts were sitting on the table.
"Didn't think vampires would have much of an affinity for jellies?" Dawn smirked as she took a bight into an oozing strawberry jelly donut, a small amount of it running down her chin. "Pictured you as more of a cake donut kind of demon."
"Excuse me?" Spike raised a brow at her. "Rich, gooey, red, inner-filling once you pierce the soft, yet still satisfying outer shell. You didn't think something like that might interest a vampire?"
Faith, smiling at the exchange between them, glanced over at Robert, who was quietly enjoying one of the sweet snacks with a steaming cup of coffee. "Not a bad idea you had here Robbie," she could not deny that relaxing and spending time with her friends was just the kind of break she needed as much as any of the rest of them. With everything that had been going on, it had been a long time since they were all able to just sit down and spend a few minutes of time together.
"Guess I can't go trying to disprove all the stereotypes about police officers in one night," though he considered donuts and coffee more of a necessity than an unwanted stereotype.
"Hey, I don't think anyone around here is complaining about it," Kennedy remarked as she sunk her teeth into a grape jelly donut.
Spike glared at her for a moment but finally agreed. "Except that you could have gotten more jellies. I mean seriously, did everyone got a jelly except the vampire?"
"Well we kind of figured you needed to cut back," Faith quipped as she bit into her own jelly donut. "I mean, you're kind of getting a little chubby around the midsection. I was almost afraid you wouldn't make that jump onto the truck."
"You jumped onto a truck?" Dawn asked, her eyes wide and her mouth full of donut. "Never were one for the easy entrance were you?"
"Hey, the Slayer here did it too," Spike nodded his head in her direction.
"You know we're definitely going to have to pull the videotape from the camera in my patrol car and watch that whole thing one of these nights." Robert polished off the donut and took a long swig of coffee.
"Going to be some damn weird things on that tape," Spike commented, finally getting over not having a jelly and sinking his teeth into a cruller. "Good thing it's just yours and a few other cars with all that stuff."
Faith and Robert shared a glance with each other. In the excitement, they had almost forgotten about it. "Oh god," they both said in unison.
***
"Well that wasn't," as the ending credits to the Sunnydale Police edition of "Cops" rolled across their television screen, Tom Bellard struggled to find the words that adequately expressed his opinion on it. After initially turning away from it and discovering that there was nothing else on TV, they had decided to give it a chance. "Well that was ... interesting, yeah it was interesting."
"I wanna be like the guy on the motorcycle!" Their son enthusiastically said from in front of the television set.
"No you don't," Mrs. Bellard quickly shot down that idea. "So what do we watch next?" A possible answer to her question appeared on the screen. The image split in half, the left side devoted to the credits and the right side devoted to John Walsh against the familiar "America's Most Wanted" backdrop, obviously a preview for an upcoming episode.
"Tonight on America's Most Wanted," Walsh's enthusiasm for his job never seemed to die. "Police and Federal authorities need your help in tracking down this man," an image appeared in the corner above Walsh of a man, likely in his thirties with mid-length brown hair, dressed in what seemed to be the traditional collar of a preacher. "A dangerous fallen preacher who, last year, moved from church to church preaching only one thing, murder! Federal authorities were hot on his trail until he was sighted in Sunnydale, California last year and seemingly disappeared, leaving only a cold trail behind with months of no additional leads. Tonight, you can help bring this dangerous man known only as Caleb to justice!"
Tom Bellard looked around at his family. "So what do you think, we change the channel?"
"Yeah." Click.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Gary Boshears
GO TO EPISODE SEVEN: FAITH MANAGES