CHAPTER 10
"Gee, Ken!" Willow stage-whispered as the two of them stepped back in the hallway, "Thanks for letting me know in advance!"
"Oh, c'mon, Red!" Kennedy replied. "We both know it's time to move on!"
"Maybe so," Willow looked at her. "And I guess there are less subtle, less diplomatic, more public ways of letting me know. Like flying hijacked airliners into a skyscraper, or sinking a bunch of battleships on a Sunday morning without declaring war first!"
"It was fun while it lasted," Kennedy shrugged, "but we both knew it wouldn't."
Willow followed her into their room, then quickly packed up her toiletries and nightclothes and walked out without a word. She stepped back into the hall to see Buffy and Xander waiting for her.
"You okay, Will?" Xander asked.
"I suppose," she nodded, then followed them into the living room of the Kolchaks' suite, where Dawn was still up and surfing the web on her iBook. "Just a little incensed." She turned to Buffy. "Your grandparents won't mind if I sleep on the couch here, will they?"
"What happened?" Dawn asked.
"Kennedy just volunteered to go with Faith to Cleveland," Buffy told her.
"Announcing it very publicly without a word of discussion with me first," Willow fumed.
Dawn made an exaggerated gasp. "Whoa! Big shock here!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Willow looked at her.
"It means," Xander said, "that I could've been wearing the patch on the wrong eye all along and still would have seen it coming a mile away!"
"And maybe I've never been on a real date- at least one that wasn't triggered by an enchanted jacket," Dawn said, "or that didn't end with me killing the guy because he turned out to be a vamp who was trying to turn me. But even I could tell there was no chemistry in that relationship." She smiled more gently. "She's not Tara. But then again no one but Tara was."
"I feel so used!" Willow grimaced. She turned to Buffy. "But you all saw it coming?"
"Xander and Dawn are right," Buffy said. "Nobody's really surprised. No real chemistry." She paused and added, "Don't be so hard on yourself, Will. You're not the first person who's had a fling that was headed nowhere. At least it wasn't a one-night stand."
"Does Kennedy know that Faith doesn't go both ways?" Dawn asked with a slight giggle. "Maybe just because Faith was in prison, Kennedy assumes that she's learned to switch hit."
"Boy, is she in for a big letdown!" Buffy laughed.
"Well," Willow sighed, then looked at Buffy and Xander, "at least the three of us are in the same boat now, as far as our love lives go."
"Not exactly," Xander smiled sadly. "At least your last lover didn't die violently, with the Sunnydale Crater for a final resting place."
"Yes, she did!" Willow snapped back sharply, and Xander turned beet-red. "The more I think about it, the less and less I think of Kennedy as any kind of lover. Whatever we might have done physically, you were the ones who just pointed out that what we had was nothing like what I had with Tara." Willow smiled with a wicked gleam in her eye. "But if you insist on classifying Kennedy as my last lover, the violent death thing can be arranged too! Or better yet, ever since Amy became human again, I kind of miss having a pet rat..."
"But at least Dawnie has a love life!" Buffy laughed, looking for a quick way to change the subject. "That's a switch!"
"Me?" Dawn squealed. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, come on, Dawnie!" Buffy giggled. "Everyone saw the way you and Mr. War Veteran Helicopter Machine-Gunner were looking at each other!"
"I could see that a mile away with the patch on the wrong eye too!" Xander grinned.
"Hey, I just met the guy this morning!" Dawn turned red. "Don't rush me!"
"Who's rushing who?" Buffy smiled. "It's okay. Grandpa says he's a good kid. He told me he wasn't out to play matchmaker, but he's not surprised at how the two of you hit it off."
The next few days were largely involved with vehicles. The first task that next morning was for Andrew to drive the Sunnydale school bus near the Ventura Armory, where the Sunnydale Relocation Support Center had been set up, and park just within sight of the security checkpoint with the keys in the ignition, and for Giles to follow immediately in his rental car and drive him back to Glendale as quickly as possible. They then returned the rental car; Dawn was waiting for them at the car rental, and from there drove them to shop for a car for Giles and one for Kennedy and Faith to drive to Cleveland. Buffy, Willow and Xander, in the meantime, began shopping for vans with which to transport the Slayers. Although Willow and Xander would be able to borrow the vans, Buffy and Dawn's Mercedes or Giles's car as needed in the immediate future, they began casually shopping around for their own wheels in the process.
In between vehicle shopping trips, Willow and Dawn began working on setting up their "Virtual Platform Nine and Three Quarters". Robson had been gradually hiring a small support staff for his office at an old Council satellite building in the Colindale section of London, mostly from his own relatives and close acquaintances and those of some of the deceased Old Council members. A couple of the staff were quite computer literate, and coordinated with Willow and Dawn in setting up so that any phone calls or web activity at Lake Keogh appeared to originate in Colindale, which was an already known location to those outsiders familiar with the Council. In the meantime, and along the same lines, Xander and Andrew established a mail drop-off address in LA for the Slayer Academy.
Within a few days, armed with the Swiss bank account, the mail drop-off LA street address and the old and little-used Federal corporate tax number of the Old Council, they had struck a discount deal with a Chrysler/Dodge dealer and purchased two new Dodge vans, a new Chrysler Sebring for Xander and Willow to share similar to the one Xander had lost in the crater, and a used three year old Chevy for Kennedy and Faith. On his own, Giles found a three year old BMW convertible coupe similar to the one he had owned before his return to England, although in a more conservative silver. They'd also set up debit card accounts for Faith and Kennedy, mailing Faith's card to the house on Lake Keogh along with a disposable cell phone.
There was a party for Kennedy the night before she left; it was mostly the other new Slayers marking her departure, with the Scoobies making a token appearance. Willow's was the most token, with her saying nothing and presenting body language that said little more than "no hard feelings". Willow did, however, call Faith on the cell phone and tell her to be sure to call as soon as Kennedy got there; the simple fact was that she couldn't rule out the possibility that Kennedy was going to use this as an opportunity to break free not just from Willow but from the New Council's control, and leave Faith in the lurch.
The next morning, Buffy, Giles, Vi and Rona got up to see Kennedy off. Three hours later, the Scoobies breathed a sigh of relief when Faith called Buffy's cell number and confirmed that Kennedy had arrived. Everyone breathed an even bigger sigh early that afternoon when Faith called again to tell them she and Kennedy were across the state line in Nevada.
Everyone waited a few days for Faith and Kennedy's trail to go cold, and then there was a lot of shuttling back and forth between Glendale and Lake Keogh, mostly on the part of Giles, Buffy, Willow, Dawn and the Kolchaks as they prepared the lodge for habitation and operation, with the rest continuing to stay put and relax at the hotel. To Dawn's delight, Tony showed up frequently at the lodge to help Giles and Buffy with setting up the gym and a training plan, and to help her and Willow with the setup of "Virtual Platform Nine and Three Quarters".
The next Saturday, Tony asked Dawn out to the movies at the Mall multiplex. After checking the theater's website and having a quick deliberation on the selection, they decided on Whale Rider over Hulk, Finding Nemo and Dumb and Dumberer.
"I'll give it the benefit of the doubt," Tony smiled as they got into his Pontiac. "I'm not assuming it's a Chick Flick."
"I don't think it is, either," Dawn replied.
They stopped at one of the fancier Italian restaurants just off the UCKC campus for dinner, then held hands throughout the movie.
"So it wasn't a Chick Flick," he nodded as they drove back to the lodge.
"Not really," she replied. "More about cultural upheaval."
"Kinda like with the Slayers and what we're doing with the New Council," he chuckled. "A New Order, girls getting their due and more of a say-so in their own futures."
"But there have always been female Watchers," she said. "Or almost always."
"And they usually got the short end of the stick, from what your own grandpa tells me about his own dealings with the Old Council. And we're talking more about the Slayers getting their due."
They continued the discussion on the drive, drawing parallels and similarities between the Maori girl heroine and her tribe, and the situation with the Slayers and the New Council. When they pulled into the lodge driveway and got out, they looked up at a clear and starry sky, still with a faint band of orange light on the Western horizon from the late-setting near-solstace night.
"Let's go around back to the deck," she suggested. "May be a little too dark and too cool for a swim, but we can sit."
"Sounds good to me," he smiled as he went around the car and resumed holding her hand, "but let's go through the house and let Buffy and your grandparents know we're back."
"Oh!... Okay."
They went into the main foyer. They looked up to find Buffy standing on the landing of the bedroom level, leaning against the rail.
"We're back! Safe and sound!" Tony grinned up at her.
"You guys have fun?" Buffy smiled back.
"Oh, yeah," Dawn nodded. "Great movie. You should check it out yourself."
"Maybe sometime," Buffy said. "Not ready to get back into going to the movies yet."
"Yeah," Dawn nodded knowingly. "We'll be out in back."
The young couple went down the stairwell to the lounge and then out the door onto the deck. Across the lake, the lights of other houses and buildings sparkled and reflected in the water while the band of light in the sky continued to shrink and disappear behind the mountains.
"You seemed pretty eager to let Buffy know we were back," Dawn noted as they sat down.
"As a newly appointed Watcher, I wouldn't want to piss off the Senior Slayer, " Tony grinned. He hesitated before adding, "Buffy made a point of letting me know that this was your first real date."
Dawn felt herself turning bright red, and was grateful that it was too dark to be that noticeable. "She told you that? God! She's my sister, and she's saved my life, and I love her, but I oughta kick her ass for that!"
He laughed. "Could you? I know you're a Slayer too, now, but she's got, like, seven years' experience on you."
"I'm bigger than she is!"
"She said it was your first real date. Was there something up with Mr. Hottie Quarterback and the Enchanted Letterman's Jacket?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but Buffy interrupted that pretty early on." She laughed. "Then she fell under the jacket's spell."
"Must've been a real mess!"
"It was. Then there was the time in 9th Grade I snuck out of Xander and Anya's Halloween party with a guy, who turned out to be a vamp who wanted to turn me. He ended up being my first kill." Dawn suddenly realized that, although it had been a quite painful as well as embarrassing experience at the time, she had no trouble talking about it with Tony.
"Only in Sunnydale," he laughed softly and shook his head.
"Only in Sunnydale," she laughed with him, and then before they knew it, they had leaned their heads in toward each other and were engaged in a series of soft, gentle, and increasingly slower and deeper kisses.
Afterward, they continued smiling into each other's flushed faces. Dawn tried to think of something witty to say, and came out with, "Oh, please don't make me have to kill you now!"
Tony laughed, while Dawn realized what she'd just said and turned red again. "Don't tell me!" he shook his head. "You kissed the vamp before he tried to bite you. And it was your first kiss."
"Well, um, well..." She regained her composure. Her defenses were down and yet she felt safe and comfortable . "Let me put it another way. You're my first kiss... with a real live boy- uh, man! Man!" Her blush returned.
"It's okay," he said, and she could see his reassurance was genuine. "And... I'm not all that experienced with the socializing with the opposite sex, either." There was a sudden shyness in his look.
Her eyes opened wide. "Really? No way!"
"Why is that so hard to believe?" he replied, genuinely hurt.
"You're a soldier. You've been in a war and killed people!"
"Different kind of war, but so have you!"
"I haven't killed any real people people!" she squealed.
"Plus, I'm not that much older than you, Dawn. And I'm a good Catholic boy, my uncle's a priest, thirteen years of parochial school with nuns, saving it for marriage. The whole works."
"Mom couldn't afford parochial school for me and Buffy. But I guess I'm a good Catholic girl, more or less."
"So your mom was pretty religious? Your grandpa's a pretty devout Catholic, he always shows up for Sunday Mass at Uncle Phil's church when he's home here in KC. And your grandma came with him the one weekend he brought her up here after they got back together."
"Grandma's pretty devout too. I guess that's part of why she never divorced Grandpa after she left him. She raised Mom and Aunt Polly as pretty strict Catholics. Mom took me and Buffy to Mass every Sunday when we were younger. After Buffy became the Slayer, she was usually too tired on Sunday mornings to come along after being up slaying all night Saturdays, so Mom gave up on trying to drag her along. But I continued to go with Mom until... the end. I even went by myself after Mom was gone, even though I was being looked after by two Wiccans." She paused thoughtfully and then giggled. "I think it has less to do with Mom and Grandma being so devout than with the fact that, in a previous incarnation, I was kept in a Czech monastery in the custody of monks for over a thousand years!"
Tony's eyebrows raised. "Is this the thing that everybody keeps telling me not to ask you about? About why either you or Buffy had to jump off a tower to save the world?"
"Yes," Dawn nodded and straightened up in her seat. "And I think I'll save that story for another time."
"So will I see you with your grandparents at Uncle Phil's church tomorrow morning?"
"Count on it!" Dawn smiled.
FEEDBACK/REVIEWS ARE INVITED. PLEASE KEEP 'EM COMING!
My apologies to anyone following this story for taking so long to update. I honestly thought, working for a public school system, that I'd get a lot of this story done and posted during my summer vacation. Unfortunately, a lot of travel and some significant hardware and software problems that put my computer in the shop for several weeks threw a few kinks into my plans. Plus, to overcome writer's block, I followed my muses and started working on the other books in this story. At least I got this chapter up by Labor Day!
;-)