"You've got company, MM!" Kelly grins as they pull into Buffy's driveway.
"Not just me - you too! That'll be Tara and Willow here early - go figure" Buffy grins while looking at Kelly. "I wonder how long they've been here. And stop calling me that!"
Kelly mumbles "If the shoe fits…"
"As soon as I figure out a good nick-name for you, you are so in for it" Buffy says with a light growl.
"Promises, promises" Kelly laughs when Buffy backhands her on the shoulder. "If I tell you I realllllly like that, will you keep doing it?" Kelly says in a low timbered husky voice. Then waits for a second to watch Buffy's face turn red and busts out laughing loudly. "Come on, let's get all this stuff in. It's probably a good thing Tara and Willow are here, they can help us."
"I can't believe you bought a Hummer! I thought the salesman was going to shit his pants when you told him if he had the paperwork done and us out of there in less than 30 minutes you would pay cash" Buffy just shakes her head.
"I didn't want to waste time at the dealership, we had some serious shopping to do before we needed to get back here" Kelly says while grabbing a couple bags of groceries and heading towards the house.
Buffy grabs a couple bags and follows Kelly to the front door 'Serious shopping. She says serious shopping. We filled up the Hummer - that is something more than serious. I don't know what to call it, but something more than serious.' Buffy thinks to herself.
"Hey guys, get your clothes back on and get out to the vehicle and help us bring the stuff in" Kelly yells as she comes in the front door and heads straight to the kitchen.
"Kelly, I'm sure they aren't making out in the…" Buffy trails off as she glances into the living room. "Oops, guess so." Buffy quickly follows after Kelly into the kitchen.
Kelly looks at Buffy's blushing face and starts laughing. "How long did those two live with you, Buffy? You can't mean to tell me you haven't caught them in 'compromising' positions before? Hell, I figured they were up to something, since when we left the house this morning the drapes were open in the living room and now they're closed!"
"I haven't caught them doing anything before. And why didn't you give me some kind of warning" Buffy questions Kelly with her hands on her hips after she sets the bags she wascarrying down.
"I don't know how much more of a warning I could give you. After all, I yelled out for them to get there clothes on - you were the one that had to go and peek into the living room" Kelly hesitates and gets a devilish glint in her eye as she looks at Buffy. "Oh, I get it now. Voyeur, huh?"
"Wha? No no no no. Not enough world of no" Buffy is almost hyperventilating by this time. Then she actually looks at Kelly and sees her smirking at her with her arms crossed across her chest. "Enough. Enough. Enough. No more picking on me for the rest of the night - I want you to promise me."
Kelly slowly grins at Buffy and shakes her head as she heads out of the kitchen to get more bags from the Hummer.
As Buffy follows her whining for her to promise to stop picking on her, Tara and Willow come out of the living room blushing lightly and following Buffy and Kelly to the vehicle. When they see what Kelly's bought they stop in the middle of the yard just looking at it. It's an Metallic Red H2 with the complete package.
"When you two stop staring, we got quite a bit of stuff you can help us bring in" Kelly smirks at Tara and Willow.
"You bought a Hummer?" Tara turns and looks at Willow and starts to grin. She leans over to Willow and whispers in her ear "Maybe she'll let us borrow it and we can break it in for her properly" Tara smirks as Willows eyes get big and she gulps.
"Vixen" is all Willow says back and proceeds to the vehicle to help take some of the bags into the house.
"You can borrow the vehicle, just make sure you clean up any… messes you may make" Kelly smirks looking from Tara to Willow and back.
Willow turns the same color as her hair and Tara turns bright red. "I can't believe you are insinuating we would even contemplate doing anything---"
"Oh, save it for Buffy. She'll believe you. I know better. Look me in the eye and tell me you weren't thinking about it" Kelly grins looking at Tara who just gives in and smirks at her.
"Hey, I resemble that remark" Buffy states coming from the back of the H2 with some more bags and heads towards the house. "It would go quicker if you guys would actually grab the items and bring them in the house."
"Goddess, did you buy out the stores? You have to have 50 bags in here" Willow groans looking into the H2.
"Well, I'll let you in on a little secret. I needed to buy everything clothes wise, since all I have is my military gear along with a few t-shirts. Also I bought you two some housewarming gifts, so stop your whining or I'll be mean and take them all back" Kelly states with a straight face then starts to break into a grin as she grabs bags and runs with them towards the house.
"Evil. YOU ARE EVIL" Willow yells after Kelly who just laughs as she heads into the house. "Love, I really like your sister. She's going to be good for us, isn't she?"
"Yeah, I believe so. Make sure you keep an eye on how Buffy acts around her - see if I'm imaging things, okay sweetie" Tara says while leaning towards Willow and giving her loving kiss. "If we don't help get these things in, I wouldn't put it past her to take them back out of pure meanness. So let's grab some and get them inside."
The rest of the bags are brought in while Kelly is in the kitchen putting the groceries away and getting dinner started. "Hey, Buffy. Can you do me a favor and see if you can find one of those food mixers for me? And be sure to keep those two out of the rest of the bags until I can get in there to see their faces, okay? I might even try to be nice to you for a while" Kelly winks and grins at Buffy.
Willow and Tara walk to the kitchen doorway unobserved while Buffy and Kelly are talking and just watches them for a few minutes.
Buffy grins back at Kelly and tries to say with a straight face, "I don't know if you know how to be nice. You've done your absolute best to embarrass me at every store we went into today. I mean, God. Did you have to drag me into Victoria's Secrets? I think they would have banned you from going back in there if you hadn't droppedover $500 with them!" By then Buffy is giggling and shaking her head.
"Oh, like you were complaining. Once you realized I was serious about taking you shopping for whatever you wanted, you were more than willing to add quite a few items to that pile, weren't you MM? Of course, you weren't willing to model any of those items. I think that I shouldn't have given in to that. I bet if I had pushed a little more I could have talked you into it" Kelly smirks at Buffy. "Of course, the store manager by that time was ready to throw us out. I think she thought I wasn't serious! Or maybe she was more upset because you wouldn't model the underwear, either... I bet that's it!" By then Kelly's trying not to laugh. "You ticked her off by not modeling and then I pissed her off royally when I gave the sales commission to that young lady that was helping usby running interference for us with the old bag. Oh God, the look on her face" By then Kelly and Buffy are both laughing so hard they are leaning against each other and the island in the middle of the kitchen.
Willow grins at Tara and nods her head towards the living room. "Definitely something there. Let's keep an eye open."
"Meatballs are in the oven and the sauce is a bubblin'. Time to sort the goodies in the bags?" Kelly asked as she came into the living room looking at the group.
"Please before Willow bounces herself right out the front window" Buffy laughs looking at the hacker practically bouncing out of her seat on the couch besides Tara.
"Willow, if you're this excited over housewarming gifts, what are you like on Christmas morning?" Kelly smirks at Willow.
"Oh, Goddess. Kelly don't even ask that. For a Jewish Wiccan witch, she gets extremely hyped at Christmas." Tara just shakes her head reaching over to give Willow a kiss on the cheek. "My Jewish Wiccan Witch." Willow smiles and kisses Tara back.
"Ok, do you two want to continue the smooch fest? Or do you want to look at your gifts…. Oh, please forget I asked that extremely stupid question. Here, let me start passing you the items. I just got generic white on the appliances - I have all the receipts, so if you want to take anything back and switch it out for different colors or something else please do so." Kelly grins to herself as she grabs a couple bags and looks inside quickly then hands them to Willow and Tara and heads back to the other bags sorting through them for the gifts.
As Willow and Tara start pulling out item after item Tara stops and looks at Kelly. "Kelly, we can't accept all this. This is just way, way too much."
"No arguing allowed." Kelly smiles softly at Tara.
Buffy starts laughing "Tara, forget it. She definitely has a stubborn streak a mile wide. Just from our little shopping spree today I got that figured out."
"Time to a check on the meat-a-balls" Kelly laughingly states in a cheesy Italian accent.
"They're done, anyone want to be the guinea pig?" Kelly says sticking her head out from the kitchen and starts laughing as Buffy jumps up and comes running into the kitchen. "Hey, guinea pig, only one!"
"Oh, Gods…." Buffy is literally drooling at the mouth when she comes back in the living room. "I don't ever remember tasting something that good."
"I'm gonna head upstairs and change for dinner. Someone, please keep an eye on Mighty Mouse here, before she eats all the meatballs and there aren't any left for dinner, okay?" Kelly laughs as she grabs a couple bags with clothes she bought and heads upstairs. At the top of the stairs, she yells down "Would someone check the spaghetti noodles, I think I'm gonna take a quick shower and they'll probably be done before I get out."
"Got it covered" Buffy yelled back up to her and runs back into the kitchen grinning 'meatballs here I come'!
Tara and Willow look at each other and start laughing as they follow Buffy into the kitchen knowing what Buffy was up too. "Buffy, stop that. Kelly specifically said to keep you away from the meatballs." Willow grins as Buffy turns with a guilty look on her face with chipmunk cheeks.
"But, but, Willowwww" Buffy whines when she finishes her mouthful. "Here, you try one. See if you can resist them." Buffy grabs a fork and spears one and hands it to Willow.
"I guess one won't hurt" Willow mumbles as she grabs the fork that the slayer is waving in front of her face. "Oh, Goddess. What did she put in these? They're absolutely delicious. Give me another one."
Buffy starts grinning madly and starts to reach for some more meatballs when Tara steps between her and the food. Tara crosses her arms over her chest and puts her best 'Mom' face on looking from Buffy to Willow and back again.
"Living room, now!" Tara states then points to the living room. "I'll watch the sauce and the noodles, while you two try and behave yourselves."
"Tara! But look at all the meatballs, there's plenty for us to have a few of them. Kelly's a vegetarian and won't even be having any." Buffy stops and then thinks about what she's saying and looks from Tara to Willow and back again. "Speaking of which, how weird is that? She fixes these delicious meatballs and she doesn't eat meat?" Buffy gets an absolutely mischievous grin on her face as she states "She's evil, I say, E-V-I-L. I'm just gonna have to keep her chained up here in the kitchen. Make sure she doesn't terrorize anyone else with her evilness, yep, that's what I have to do. Where's the chains? Still down in the basement?" Buffy starts mumbling to herself as she heads back to the living room.
Tara reaches over and pulls Willow into a hug. "It's been way too long since I've seen Buffy smiling and carrying on like this. Actually, I don't remember the last time she was like this, if she ever was." Tara gives Willow a questioning look.
"Honey, to be honest, I haven't ever seen Buffy acting this happy. She's been the 'Slayer' for so long now, that I think she's forgotten what it's like to just let loose and have fun. She's had moments, but you could always see in her eyes that she was worrying about the next 'Big Bad' that would be coming to town. I can actually see a happy light in her eyes without the worry or sorrow. She needs this so much. I just hope she doesn't shut Kelly out like she has other people in the past." Willow whispers softly into Tara's ear. Then lightly kissing the blondes earlobe she grabs a meatball as she pulls away from Tara grinning to lighten the mood. "These really are delicious!" she waves the meatball around as she runs into the living room.
"Oh, God. Kelly, you are gonna have to fix this again soon." Xander groans as he leans back in his chair at the dinner table rubbing his stomach. "This was absolutely delicious and I can't believe I am actually going to say this, but I am stuffed!"
Everybody at the table starts laughing. After all Xander had five platefuls of spaghetti and meatballs, not counting the salad and bread.
"Thanks Xander. After the holidays, maybe we can set up a weekly dinner get together. I enjoy cooking, and I can tell it probably won't go to waste" Kelly states looking at the food crumbs that was all that was left. "I guess next time I need to make more? I would have thought five pounds of meat for meatballs with everything else would have been plenty for six people. My bad. I'll plan a little better next time" Kelly laughingly states while shaking her head.
" Who wants ice cream?" Buffy asks to the room as she helps gather up the dishes to take to the kitchen.
"What kind of ice cream do you have?" Xander asks, his interest piqued.
"The bottomless pit has spoken. So much for him being stuffed." Willow grins at her long-time friend.
"There is always room for ice creamy goodness" Xander defends himself.
"How about I grab bowls and spoons and you grab the different containers of ice cream. The way the dinner was demolished, I hold out no hope that the ice cream will make it out alive." Kelly laughingly states to Buffy.
As Buffy grabs the ice cream she grins at Kelly "I guess I should have warned you. Xander can definitely put a hurting on the food." She leans in closer to Kelly whispering "I don't think Anya can cook. And the one time I looked in the refrigerator at their apartment…Ugh. Let's just say that it isn't anything that a normal human would eat. But then again, we are talking about Anya and Xander…" Buffy smirks as she heads back to the dining room, leaving Kelly laughing and following her back in.
"Thanks for dinner you guys. It was great. See you later." Xander says as he and Anya leaves with Anya smiling and waving at them as they walk out the door.
"I need to go get changed and ready to go out on patrol. Are you still wanting to go with me, Kelly?" Buffy asks Kelly as she gets ready to head upstairs.
"Yeah, if you don't mind me tagging along. I'll see Tara and Willow out and get the particulars for what's gonna be the plan for tomorrow. Then I'll get myself changed and my gear together." Kelly states smiling at Buffy.
Buffy nods her head and goes upstairs.
Tara grins at Willow and Willow just smirks and shakes her head. "We figured wewould come over tomorrow morning around 9 o'clock and bring bagels and mochas for breakfast. Then Willow and Buffy can go out and do their thing while we can sit here in the comfort of Buffy's house, since we don't have any furniture yet, and have a serious discussion about everything. Okay?" Tara looks up at Kelly with a serious look in her eyes.
Kelly looks into Tara's eyes and knew in her heart that she would have to tell her pretty much everything about the past. She nods her head with a sad look in her eyes. "Yeah, sis. We'll discuss everything." Kelly gives her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head before Tara got into the vehicle. "You two be careful. Love you."
"Love you, too Kelly. We'll see you tomorrow." Tara says with a sad smile after giving Kelly an affectionate kiss on the cheek. Willow looks from Tara to Kelly and just says goodnight.
"What was going on between you and Kelly as we were getting ready to leave" Willow questions Tara as they head home.
Tara sighs and looks over at Willow. "You know my home life wasn't great. After my, our, mother fell ill, Father had me convinced that I was a demon. He mentally abused me and Donnie mentally and physically abused me. Fortunately, the physical abuse wasn't real bad. Mostly just being smacked around occasionally. I know it was worse for Kelly. I don't know to what extreme, but I was basically giving Kelly a heads up tonight that I would want the full story tomorrow. E-e-everything. She understood what I was saying and from the reaction I got from her and the fact that I read her aura while I was talking to her, I believe it was bad. Extremely bad." Tara states with a tear running down her cheek as they pull into their driveway.
Willow parks the car and leans over and gently wipes away the tear looking into her lovers sad eyes. "Honey, it'll be okay. I know this is going to bring up bad memories for both of you. But just remember, that they are memories now. That what happened is in the past and all that matters is the fact that you are both here, together at last. That is the most important thing to remember. You have each other now and those…" Willow growls out the next word "bastards, can't harm either of you now."
"How did I get so lucky to have you in my life?" Tara whispers.
Willow smiles gently at her as they head into the house. "Love, you aren't the lucky one. I'm the lucky one. I almost screwed it up royally and I thank the Goddess every day that you gave me another chance. I don't know what would have happened without you in my life. I just know that it would have been meaningless and I will never, ever take you for granted."
Tara smiles lovingly at Willow with tears running down her cheeks as they get ready for bed and asks "Hold me tight in your arms tonight?"
"Always." Willow states while turning out the lights and climbing into bed besides Tara pulling her close and kissing her gently. "I will always hold you tight and love you forever."
Tara snuggles in against Willow with her head on her chest and her arm wrapped around her waist and smiles as she feels Willow gently running her hands through her hair. "I will always love you, too" she states softly as they both slowly fall asleep in each others arms.
"Hey, are you just gonna watch, or are you gonna join in?" Buffy laughingly yells over at Kelly who is sitting on top of a tombstone watching Buffy fight three vampires.
"You're the slayer, your destiny, one girl in all the world, yada yada yada." Kelly laughs while hopping off the tombstone. She goes after one that was just getting back up off the ground from where Buffy had knocked him down. "You know, I think I like vampires the best out of the majority of the evil demons I have run across in my travels." She says while ducking the punch the vampire throws at her.
"Why is that?" Buffy says while she stakes one of the two vampires she's fighting while keeping an eye on Kelly to make sure she doesn't need any help.
"Because…" Kelly stops talking as she drops to the ground rolling away from the vampire that tried to tackle her. As she pops back up into a low crouch holding both hands toone side almost like she's holding something, she lets the vampire get within three feet of her and swings. The vampire suddenly dusts and Kelly grins watching Buffy finish the last vampire. "There's no clean-up."
Buffy stands there with a stunned look on her face and points to where the vampire was standing a moment ago "What the hell happened to him?"
"Liked that, did you?" Kelly smirks while Buffy is looking at her first in disbelief and then with an expression that said it was explanation time. "It's actually very simple. No magic involved, at least not now there wasn't. It's a sword. Other than myself, no one can see it. Also it's completely undetectable except for when I'm using it, of course. Wouldn't do a bit of good if you couldn't feel it when I needed it, huh?" Kelly says with a quirk of an eyebrow and a half smile.
Buffy looks at her with an unbelieving look in her eyes as she slowly walks towards Kelly. "Well I would say seeing is believing, but considering I can't see the sword, can I feel it?"
"Here, let me show you" Kelly states while reaching for Buffy's hand and slowly running it along the handle and the back of the blade. "I have actually done this to all my weapons so I don't have to worry about them being found by accident." Kelly says while letting go of Buffy's hand.
"You have got to be kidding me" Buffy shakes her head slightly in disbelief.
"Nope, no kidding. Here, watch this" Kelly says smiling at Buffy as she puts the sword back up in her jacket. "Now, feel along the jacket."
Buffy reaches over to where she just watched Kelly put the sword away. She carefully feels along the jacket trying to find the sword.
"I'll be." Buffy says with a disbelieving shake of her head.
"If you're a good little Slayer. Maybe Santa Claus will bring you your own little play pretties for Christmas." Kelly states with a smirk as they continue on patrol.
Buffy's eyes light up and she looks over at Kelly. "You can do that for other people?" Buffy asks with an unbelievably bright smile on her face.
'God, she is absolutely stunning.' Kelly thinks to herself looking at the smile on Buffy's face. She mentally shakes her head and smiles back at Buffy. "Yes, I can do it. But, uhh, I need blood so I can 'key' the items into your essence so that you will be the only one that can see or use them. Well, that's not entirely true, unfortunately because I do the spell, I can always see them and use the items. I haven't figured out a way around that, yet." Kelly states that last part, as if she is still trying to puzzle it out.
"How much blood would you need?" Buffy hesitantly asks Kelly.
"Depends on how many items I will be doing the spell on. A couple drops will let me do roughly ten items." Kelly states calmly. "If you're not comfortable with giving me the blood, I can use your hair, the only thing is I have to work it into the items that the spells will be done on which isn't permanent. The hair will usually be dislodged sometime or another. Where as the spell will let the blood soak into the items and be permanent."
Buffy thinks about it for a few moments while they finish patrolling and start to head back to her house. "I don't see a problem with giving you some of my blood. Do you need any other supplies to do the spell? Wills and I can pick up what you need tomorrow at the Magic Box if you do need anything else."
"I believe I have everything else I need. But I'll double check my supplies" Kelly smiles as they walk up to the front door. "For the Hellmouth, I expected it to be a lot busier. We fought those three vampires and that…orange demon with two heads? What the heck was that thing?"
Buff laughs and shakes her head. "Your guess is as good as mine. I'll see if Willow can research it for me later on this weekend. Maybe she can find out what it was. At least you had your sword and was able to take the heads off. That hidey spell on stuff would be great. It's kind of hard to carry a sword around with me - not exactly easy to explain." Buffy laughs as she takes off her jacket and hangs it up heading into the kitchen to grab a water.
"That's the main reason I created that spell. Makes life a lot simpler. Thanks." Kelly says smiling at Buffy when she throws her a water. They both sit down at the island in the kitchen drinking their waters.
"Well, I can honestly say that I would be more than happy to have you patrol with me whenever you want. You can hold your own and you would keep me company. Makes for a happier slayer." Buffy smirks.
"I'll do my best, Mighty Mouse." Kelly laughs as she gets up and throws her empty water bottle in the trash. "I'm gonna go and check my supplies to make sure I don't need anything. I probably need to see Anya and give her some money to go towards future supplies and orders."
Buffy follows her up the stairs. "I'm going to take a quick shower while your checking your stuff and get some of the cemetery filth off me. See you in the morning."
"Night, Buffy. Sweet dreams" Kelly says with a slight smile heading into her bedroom as Buffy heads into the bathroom.