"Mama! I'm awake! Can I come too?"
Mama looked around as if she hadn't seen Cara before. Clark and Daddy came round from the barn, and Buffy was tagging along with. "There you are, sweetie!" Mama gave her a squeeze.
"Hey, Cara! Glad you're up! Buffy was just asking about you," Clark said. Cara squiggled free from Mama's hug.
"Can I come?" she repeated.
Buffy smiled brightly at her. "I know I'll be glad to have you along!"
Daddy brought over the booster seat from Mama's little car. Buffy shoved the boxes around to make room. Cara bounced up and down. Mama said, "Cara, you better go use the bathroom first." Cara almost argued, but she saw Buffy looking at her, and remembered what she said before.
When she got back, Clark boosted her into the booster seat and put the seatbelt on. Buffy got in next to her. Cara told her to put her seatbelt on, too. Clark got in. Cara told him to put his seatbelt on. Clark laughed, but he did what she said!
"Okay, Cara, you pay attention to the route. Tomorrow I'm driving it, and you'll have to help me not get lost," Buffy said.
"Okay!" Cara felt proud. She waved bye to Mama and Daddy.
Then all three of them drove away to do the deliveries.
-
"So, you deliver stuff all over the place here," Buffy said at last, when they were done and on their way back to the Kents'.
"That's how we keep in business," Clark said. Cara was diligently watching out the windows. They'd told her that she was the navigator for the next day's delivery run, and then they'd explained what a navigator was. She had promised to "not let Buffy get lost."
"To Metropolis, too. I saw you take off with some stuff when Cara was napping."
"Yeah." Clark was silent for a little while, eyes responsibly on the road. Then he sighed loudly and said, "Buffy?"
"Right here," she chirped.
"Lex told me you once said that the Sunnydale Police had a 'strict anti-Buffy policy.' I've never run into that before. But now... I was in Metropolis, so I made my deliveries and then I changed into, you know, and I went to get the lay of the land. For when the President's here in a coupla days. And when I went around checking stuff out, there were these guys..."
"Secret Service?"
"Yeah, I guess. I went to talk to them first, 'cause, you know, cooperation with legitimate law enforcement authorities is important."
Buffy raised her eyebrows in disbelief, but she managed not to comment out loud. Clark looked really upset about this. She reminded herself that he was a kid; okay, yes, huge and hulking and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but not really any more mature than Dawn.
"They pulled their guns on me! They said get lost or they'd call out the Air National Guard! They threatened to arrest me! You'd think that Superman worked for Al Quaeda or something!"
Buffy tried not to laugh at how outraged he was. She failed.
Fortunately, her laughter made Clark smile instead of getting even more upset. "How do you deal with that?" he asked.
"What did you do?"
"I put my hands out to look harmless and backed off slowly, like with a mad dog or something. I hope they wouldn't have opened fire in the middle of the doggone city, but by then I wasn't any too sure. Then I did my surveillance and got a little idea of what was what from a lot further away, so they couldn't see me and get all hysterical again."
"Sounds good. I always try to go around the police, or authorities of any kind, really. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't."
"What do you do if it doesn't?"
"Break out of jail and take care of what I have to. Just 'cause they're jerks doesn't mean I get to ditch my sacred duty."
"Yeah." Clark nodded and looked like he was thinking it over. "You know? Another thing - they weren't setting up the way I would have."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when there's somebody you need to protect, or something, there's a way you go about scoping out the area and setting up your watchpoints. They were doing something else."
"I don't really have any grasp of the Theory-of-Bodyguarding. Shouldn't the Secret Service be good at it, though? Maybe they, if you don't mind my saying so, know how to do it better than you do?"
"Maybe. But... Maybe."
"How do you deal with the regular everyday cops?" Buffy asked.
"Some of 'em like me; some of 'em don't, but leave me do my work anyhow. I guess I mostly go around, like you said. I get along great with the Fire Department, though!"
Buffy laughed again. "Yeah, firefighters are cool! Once I thought maybe I could get a job doing that, but somehow it never worked out."
"I'm gonna be a fireman when I grow up!" Cara declared importantly.
"Good for you!" Buffy told her. Cara was still watching the landmarks (which mainly consisted of six-foot-high stalks of corn in all directions) so they wouldn't get lost tomorrow. "Can I come visit you in your firehouse then?"
"Yes!"
They drove in silence for another little while. The weathered wooden sign for Kent Organic Farm came into view.
"I wonder what the Metropolis PD thinks of these alleged Secret Service guys?" Buffy wondered out loud.
"Huh," Clark said thoughtfully. "Maybe I should find out."
As they drove into the lane, Cara squealed, "There's Mama!"
"Clark! Buffy!" Mrs. Kent called, waving.
Clark parked the truck, and everybody got out. Cara launched herself at her mother, who caught her with a big smile and an exaggerated "oof!"
"Clark, sweetie, Dawn just called from Metropolis. She and Lex think there's a big problem."