Fic: What The Hell(mouth) Happened?

Author: mkcrl120

Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.

Summary: I'm writing some of these, as I've come up with ideas that I honestly don't know what I'll be doing when the Ultimate series gets that far. In the meantime, these won't go away from my brain unless I do something with them. Warning: It may be a standalone it may be spoilers for something later; only time will tell.

Rating: 15 probably... mainly for language.

Setting: Season 3 - I think you'll recognise when.

What The Hell(mouth) Happened? - 14/?

"Xander was the one who staked you... in my reality." Cordelia informed the group.

"Oh that." Jesse said, seemingly undisturbed by the comment.

"What do you mean, oh that?" Willow asked.

"That's some freaky shit..." Faith agreed.

"She'd told us that already." At their looks, he added. "We were discussing my death. It's something you tend to pay attention to."

"Right..." Xander said, "I think I overlooked the part where you mentioned it was me that staked him."

"Cos that story was all about you." Jesse teased.

"Sorry bro."

"No troubles." Jesse smiled back, grasping his friend's forearm. "Just don't do it again." He added with a wink.

"So was that a normal night?" Cordelia asked. "Not the vampires, the number of them... seemed a bit hectic even for a group with two Slayers."

Faith responded first. "That was a little crazy... I mean you were there when we found the graves... five all together like that. Only thing I can think of is that someone was doing some recruiting."

"Five. All at the same place? We found something similar just before we ran into the vampires." Buffy added, while Willow and Jesse nodded their agreement.

Xander thought about the implications. "Question is though. Did our staking all we found put them off their recruitement plans, or did it give them the incentive to create more?"

"Them?" Cordelia asked.

"Two guesses... and you have to guess one name each time." Jesse answered.

"Oh." Cordelia responded, coming to the same conclusion the others had. "Good job we have two Slayers then."

"I'll say." Giles responded, entering from his office.

"Dunno." Faith added. "If we have to spend nights like that everynight... simply to try and keep numbers down... it'll just be a matter of time." She conceded.

"We'd need a new plan." Buffy agreed with her fellow Slayer's assessment of the situation.

"They cannot keep this up forever." Giles informed them.

"Why..?" Jesse asked.

"Any ecosystem based on a predator-prey relationship has to find any balance."

"Eh?" Faith asked.

"He's saying it's like with lions and antelope on African plains. You can only have so many lions, else they don't have enough of a food source."

"So too many of them is bad for them... as well as for us?" Xander asked confused.

"In theory." Giles stated.

"Where's the hole in the theory?" Willow asked, confused.

Giles cleaned his glasses as he contemplated his response. "It depends how many they expect to survive. And they can travel to more densely populated areas if necessary."

"LA isn't even an hour from here." Jesse said.

"So we're fucked?" Faith voiced the feelings of the group.

"Possibly." Giles admitted. "We need to gain control of this situation before it all goes out of hand."

"Shouldn't we be calling in for backup... from the Watchers or something." At their looks, she added. "I'm not saying we can't handle ourselves... cos at one point we managed to defend a Hellmouth completely Slayerless." Cordelia responded. "Well Xander and Giles did."

"Where was I?" Both Faith and Buffy asked simultaneously.

Cordelia pointed at Faith. "You'd just been called, and hadn't moved here." Then she pointed to Buffy. "And you ran away after Angel bit the dust."

"So where was I?" Willow asked the same question, Jesse managed to stop himself in time.

"I think you were on holiday for some of it. Oz was here to help them though."

Buffy just looked to Faith. "I abandoned my post over Angel." She said, disbelieving she could do such a thing.

"Wasn't you." Faith reassured her, "But would you do it if something happened to Xander?" Faith asked.

"I don't know... I'd hope not... I might be tempted to take some time out if I knew you were here to cover me." She conceded.

"You got my back, I got yours." Faith told her.

"Always." Buffy agreed, turning to face Xander. "Seems you were quite the hero."

Xander started to look smug, but it was soon ended when Cordelia informed everyone. "Yeah. Nighthawk here, sorted out patrols and everything while you were gone."

Buffy smiled at him. "Nighthawk?" She asked.

Faith couldn't stop laughing. "Very macho, Xan." She commented condescendingly.

"I'd like to deny it, and remind everyone here that it wasn't me." Xander commented, waving his finger at everyone in turn.

"Oh it sounds like you." Willow added. "Remember when you went through your motorbike stage as a kid?"

Xander closed his eyes, realising what she was implying. "Oh god."

"I'm lost." Faith asked.

"He thought Streethawk was so cool." Willow added.

"And you still reckon Nightwing is the coolest member of the Bat Family." Jesse added, supplying the final nail in Xander's coffin.

"He is." Xander defended automatically, then realised what he'd done. "Shit."

"You go, Nighthawk." Faith teased.

"As fun as this is... he was good at it." Cordelia defended the Xander she'd dated. "And talking of sneaky little nighttime vigilantes. If you don't want to talk about getting help off the watchers, why don't we contact Angel... three fighters are better than two right?"

"Angel..?" Buffy asked confused. "Angel's dead."

Post Residence

Gwendolyn Post opened her laptop up and placed it on her desk. While waiting for it to boot up she carefully removed the handwritten report Giles had given her the previous day.

Opening a word processing document she began to type it up, reading some of it aloud as she did so.

"Faith and Buffy... Two seperate patrols... grand total of ten vampires... oddity concerning the burial patterns. Believe that current big bad is recruiting..." Gwendolyn summarised each section as she continued to type it up.

Smiling to herself, she thought about the situation which had lead to this predicament.

Soon after she'd arrived, she had realised that Giles still sent his reports in weekly by courier. Relying on the telephone to request aid or information should it be required more urgently. After the first few days of being unable to find the Glove, she'd realised that she wouldn't be able to stay any longer. Her initial attempts to leave with Faith in tow had been over-ruled. There was no way Giles was willing to let her leave with her own Slayer.

That left her with two options; she either left then and cut her losses, possibly coming back when she found more information on the Glove Of Myhnegon, or she found a way to stay.

Giles' lack of computer skills had provided such an opportunity.

She suggested that he be the one to look after them during the day. He was the one the Council had arranged a job at the School for. Therefore, she suggested, it would be easier for her to remain at home during that time. She could then be available for doing any research that was required, and for being the one to update the Council.

Giles' protests had been cut short, when she'd suggested the use of computers and email as the method of updating. 'Really Rupert,' she'd thought at the time. 'Living with a computer teacher, yet still being such a technical illiterate.'

When she'd argued that sending copies electronically was a far better means of communication; incorporating all the benefits of the written document, such as allowing the council to peruse them at their own leisure; while also having the benefits of instant communication that a telephone conversation would have, if you need to call them for anything, the fact that they can rapidly bring themselves up to speed as they should only be a day behind at most, would certainly have it's benefits.

Giles himself had been reluctant to change. Luckily for Ms Post though, both Ms Calendar and Ms Rosenburg had argued her corner; criticising Giles directly for being unwilling to enter the silicon age. Giles conceded defeat, but did insist of keeping up the tradition of the handwritten document by requesting that Ms Post send all original copies of his documents once a month. As such a compromise had been made, which everyone seemed to be in agreement with. Not least of all Ms Post.

Giles also requested print outs of all of her documents, so that he could go over what she was sending herself. Each day she'd recieve her own report back, dotted with notes in red pen stating where she should expand on some details and other comments.

Pausing at the thought, she stopped typing and took a quick glance at the 'corrected' report he'd provided her with. Yet again it was covered in notes. She made a mental note to change her document to incorporate some of Giles' suggestions when she had time.

She quickly returned her attention back to the document she was producing. Soon she reached the point where she had to pay close attention.

The end of the night, when the Slayers gave their report on the situation. Reading through the last section of the document, she g athered the general summary of their meeting that Giles wanted to portray.

She concentrated as she need to work it out in her mind. And then began to compose her own paragraph, which covered basically the same information but ensured that she was never mentioned.

Once complete she re-read the whole document, to be certain that it felt in the same style that Rupert used. It had to be perfect if it wasn't to draw the attention of the council.

Satisfied she'd done another good job, she printed the document off and arranged for it to be sent via courier.

She knew it would inconcievable to anyone that knew Giles in real life, that he himself would be comfortable relying on a computer to send his work. But he may just be comfortable enough to use it to produce it. Again, enough of a change that wouldn't arouse suspicion, but wouldn't rely on her being able to reproduce his handwriting.

Still she thought. 'Keeping this up for any length of time is risky. I need to find the Glove before Travers starts proceedings for Buffy's Cruciamentum.'

Realising she was working on a deadline, she got back to researching the Glove of Mnyhegon. Once she had that, then there would be no reason to have to hide from the Watchers. Once she had that, she'd never have to hide from anyone again.

The Old Master's Lair.

"And we have electricity!" Trick commented on the lights in the centre chamber.

"Watch this..." Jonathan said, pressing the power button on the television. "It's ALIVE. It's ALIVE."

"There's no signal." Trick said, pressing buttons on the remote. "It doesn't work."

"We have a video and a dvd player... we can always steal more things to watch" Jonathan informed him, pointing the small pile that some vampires had fetched for them. "We need to find someone from a cable company tomorrow night."

"Where is the electrician?" Trick asked. "He could fit out the rest of the rooms."

"He'll be back in a few days." Jonathan replied, not concerned.

"He'll be back?" Trick asked in disbelief. "Why would he do that? You told him if hooked us up with power you'd let him live... what, is he on commision now?"

"Couple of days." Jonathan waved him off.

"And he's coming back?"

"Well, think of it less as 'returning' and more as 'rising'." Jonathan informed him.

"You turned him." Trick said, smiling.

"He's a very useful man. All the time it'd take to hook up all the rooms, and that's just here. We've got three other sites remember? That sort of amount of time, without sunlight, well it's not good for a human... so I took that worry away from him."

"Added the fact that all the guys would be looking at his neck all the time." Trick added.

"Exactly... this time instead of worrying about becoming a meal, he can get his delivered. He's too important to risk getting staked eating out. If he does feel the urge to go, well we can provide someone to escort him."

Trick thought about it. "Gets his meals brought, some little hot vampire chickette to please him. Face it, as a human, he never had it so good."

"We should keep our employees happy." Jonathan agreed.

"Pity he's the only useful one." Trick mumbled

"So far." Jonathan corrected him.

"True." Trick said, "Television in every room, hot and cold running babes or dudes - depending on your gender and personal preference... man, every vampire in town is gonna want to join with us."

"And that's the plan."

"To the plan." Trick toasted, with an imaginary glass of wine.

"The plan." Jonathan moved his own imaginary glass and making a chinking noise as the two hands approached. "Next time we do this we should have some glasses of blood... it'd be far cooler." Jonathan added, staring at his empty hand.

End chapter fourteen