A Day In The Life

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A Day In The Life

6 MONTHS EARLIER...

The early morning sunlight shined lazily through a small gap in the thin bedroom curtains, casting a golden glow over the just waking body of Buffy Summers.

She moaned in satisfaction as she reached her arms above her head, stretching out all the muscles that had been given one hell of a workout the night before.

She stilled, frowning as she remembered the many vamps she had dusted as she had patrolled the previous night. Not that she was complaining about the vamp killing, cause hey, funzies! But she had been living in Cleveland for a year and a half now, and in all that time she'd never seen so many blood sucking baddies come out to play in one night.

She made a mental note to call Giles later in the morning, before snuggling back down in her duvet, grinning in pleasure as she debated about what to do on her rare day off. She'd been working seven day weeks since they set up the slayer training school six months before, and much as she loved her friends, they didn't seem to realize that sometimes she needed the occasional day off. She tried to ignore the image of Willow's face that sprung to mind. The raised eyebrows as the expression on the witch's face clearly stating that she thought Buffy was shirking her responsibilities. But for once, Buffy hadn't backed down.

There was a small knock on her bedroom door before it was flung open and Andrew was bouncing in, uninvited.

If it had been anyone else, Buffy might have punched them right there, right then. Straight in the face for invading her privacy. But somehow, in the two years since the destruction of Sunnydale, and and in that two years the year and a half she had been sharing an apartment with him and Faith, she had become...fond of the little blonde geek. God knows how it happened, but it had. And by now she was more than used to his annoying tendencies, like failing to wait for permission to enter someones bedroom. It was, in fact, the reason that Buffy had had to start wearing pajamas to bed when she went to sleep.

"Morning sunshine!" he chirped, flopping down on her bed and holding their cordless phone out towards her. "Phone for you."

Grumbling, she sat up, sparing a short glance towards the alarm that sat on the table next to her bed before taking the phone.

"Whoever this is better have a damn good reason for calling me at quarter to seven in the morning," she said, her voice terse as she spoke down the phone.

"It's me."

Buffy silently groaned, wondering what it was that she had done so wrong in her life that Kennedy should be thrust into it on a daily basis.

"What's up, Kennedy?" she asked with a sigh.

"Willow asked me to call you," the younger slayer replied in a clipped voice. "Vi ended up having to go out further South than originally planned to take out the Henznar demon. She just called to say she won't be able to make it back in time to take her class. You'll have to do it."

Just like that. No apology. Nothing. Just the demand of her presence and the expectations that she'd just show up. Even though they knew, they knew how much she'd needed some time off. How hard she'd been working. How exhausted she was.

Too exhausted to bother to fight them, that was for sure.

And she knew that there were plenty of other of the more advanced slayers who could teach the class. But still, she was the one they called.

She sighed loudly and dropped back onto her pillows. "Sure, Kennedy. I'll be there."

"I'm making eggs," Andrew announced as she entered the kitchen some time later, showered and dressed and ready to teach. "You want eggs?"

"Ooh, yummy," she chirped, sitting her self down on a stool and watching him flit about the kitchen in his red apron.

"It's so unfair that you have to work today," he declared with a frown. "If I was still evil I'd totally summon a demon on their asses. But I'm not," he added, almost as an afterthought. "Evil, that is. So there will be no summoning. Or conjuring."

"I think it might go against the whole watcherness thing." Buffy nodded.

"Alas, I'm not a watcher yet." He heaved a loud sigh. "I keep failing the written."

"That's because you spend the night before every test playing Star Wars on your X-Box with Xander instead of revising."

"True, true."

He deposited her eggs on a plate in front of her and she thanked him before digging in.

"Did Faith call last night?" Buffy asked, mid way through her breakfast.

Andrew shook his head and Buffy tutted.

Though Buffy tended to stick to Cleveland - teaching at the school and patrolling the Cleveland graveyards - Faith had become more restless. She liked to be on the road, and so the newly formed council had started to send her on missions that required her to be away for weeks at a time. But she always came back to the apartment she shared with Buffy and Andrew in the end. It was the first real home she'd ever had.

But Buffy made her promise to check in at least every other day, and she was supposed to have called the night before.

Buffy just wanted to know that she was safe, wherever she was. And she also liked hearing Faith's 'on the road' stories. Truth was, Buffy was a little envious. Faith wasn't the only one feeling restless. But Buffy had her responsibilities. She had the school, and the council, and her friends. She couldn't just take up and leave.

"I'll call her tonight," Buffy declared, once she'd finished her breakfast and deposited the dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

"Are we going out tonight?" Andrew asked, as Buffy gathered her bag and coat and prepared to leave for the school.

"You wanna?"

"Not really. I rented G.I. Joe from the video store. Channing Tatum has the most perfect abs. We could watch it?"

Buffy rolled her eyes and grinned. "Sounds like a plan," she said, before heading out the door.

"Man, those girls are hyper," Buffy moaned, groaning and stretching her aching arm muscles as she entered the slayer school library where Giles was waiting for her as he poured over some old texts.

Sometimes the library creeped her out a little. It reminded her far too much of the destroyed one in Sunnydale High.

"Yes, quite," he replied distractedly, not looking up from where he was hunched over the low table.

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Hi Buffy! How are you? I'm great, thanks. How was lesson? It was fine. That's nice."

Giles finally looked up, having the grace to look a little embarrassed at his ignorance. "I'm sorry, Buffy. How did the lesson go?"

"Fine and dandy." She smiled. "Although, suggestion...get the cooks to stop feeding the girls so much sugar. It makes them jumpy."

"I suspect if we told the cook how to do her job she might skin us alive."

"She is kinda scary."

Giles frowned for a second. "I thought today was your day off?"

Buffy flopped down on one of the chairs near by him and leaned her head on the table. "Was being the operative word. Vi couldn't make it so Willow told Kennedy to call me in."

"And there was no one else available?"

She shrugged and lifted her head. "So, what's with all the books?" she asked, hoping for a quick subject change.

It had the desired effect and an excited expression lit up Giles' face, just like it always did when he got all worked up about one of his old books. "Ah, well..." he started, picking up one of the heavier books and bringing it round the table so that Buffy could see. "You remember last week an old contact of mine called up and requested I meet with him?"

"The one with the bad teeth?"

"Yes, yes. I suppose he did have a rather bad dental problem."

"Oh. Well then, yes, I do. No one on this earth could forget those set of gnashers."

"He reminded me of a prophecy, one I haven't looked at in some years. He informed me that it would be of great importance."

"When?"

"Um, I'm not quite sure."

"Well, what's the prophecy?"

"I'm not quite sure of that either."

Buffy looked at him through narrowed eyes. "I knew we should have picked Andrew to be head of the watchers council," she teased.

Giles whipped off his glasses and began to rub them furiously on the bottom of his woolen jumper. "I only just this morning located the texts I need to translate the damn thing. It's in an old, forgotten language. I was working on translating it years ago before I was called as your watcher. In my eagerness to do my job it slipped my mind." He sniffed, forcing the glasses back onto his face and wincing as one of the arms poked his ear.

"I was just kidding, Mr Grumpypants. Besides, Andrew would suck at being head. He'd have us all wearing shiny tights and capes and masks. So, you say this language is forgotten?"

"Indeed."

"Then how do we remember it?"

"I believe with the resources we now possess and Willow's magical knowledge it shouldn't be as difficult a task as it may have once been."

"Cool beans. How long?"

"Four months. Maybe five."

She whipped her head around to stare at him. "Five months? Seriously? And that's not long to you?"

"Not in the grand scale of things, no."

"But what if it's all big and bad and apocalypsey?"

"Then we'll figure it out. I'm sure if there's a coming disaster then there will be other signs."

She sighed, pouting a little as she slumped into her chair. "I guess. But if we all get sucked into hell then I get full rights to say I told you so."

"Of course. Now, how was patrol last night."

"It was way up on the vamps, Giles. Like, every time I turned around there was another nasty crawling out of its grave. I swear, I've never seen the graveyards around here so alive...with the dead."

Giles looked at Buffy for a long moment, before ducking his head and giggling. "Quite amusing. Alive with the dead. Well punned."

"Lose focus much, Man of the Speedy Emotion Change?"

He cleared his throat and ducked his head. "Sorry. What do you think we should do about it?"

Buffy whimpered and stuck out her bottom lip. "I have to be plan girl now? Can't I just be the one who goes out there and kicks some evil undead butt?"

"Well, the first thing I suggest we do is get some people together to research some possible reasons as to why demonic activity is on the rise."

"Oh. I knew that."

"How long has this been going on for? Was last night the first night that numbers were unusually high?"

"I guess not. I mean, I've been getting more and more activity lately, but I've never really thought about it up until last night. But last night was still the highest since we've been here. Maybe we should ask some of the slayerettes, see if they've noticed anything unusual on their group patrols?"

"That sounds like a good start. I'll have Rona get on to it this afternoon."

"You don't want me to?"

"No." He looked at her over the top of his glasses, his expression softening. "I want you to go home and finish what's left of your day off."

Her expression brightened and the smile she gave him was dazzling. "You sure?"

"You deserve it, Buffy. You work too hard."

"Thank you, Giles!" she squeaked, wasting no time in jumping up and grabbing her stuff. "I knew there was a reason why you're my favorite watcher."

"Of course." He chuckled.

"And I'll do a sweep through town tonight," she called as she practically ran through the door. "I'll call you if there's anything unusual."

"Have fun," he replied, still smiling as he pulled the texts back towards him.