Oh, guys! I never meant to leave it this long between updates. I'm really sorry about the delay. I became engrossed in other projects but here is the last part of Act 3 and I'm devoting the whole of February to this series so that should mean regular updates for a while. Hope you enjoy it :)
"This is…" Kennedy began before shaking her head. She downed another shot before continuing. "It's Thanksgiving! How did I end up stuck in a bar with you two?"
"No one is holding you hostage," Oz said amiably. "Feel free to use the door if you want."
"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? This is my local bar! Remember that before you start trying to cock your leg all over it."
Oz chuckled. "I should thank you for making Willow's decision so easy."
"What the hell do you mean by that?"
"Arrrrgh!" Faith yelled before dropping her head into her hands. She was sitting between them at the bar and if anyone should wonder how they got themselves stuck here it was her. "You two are putting me off my drink! Congrats, guys, 'cause no one has ever managed that before."
"Sorry." Oz smiled sheepishly. "I'm just worried about Willow."
"So am I!" Kennedy said quickly.
"I never said you weren't."
"I never said you were!"
"Grrrrrr!" It was no surprise to Faith that the first growl came from her and not Oz.
"Faith, everything okay?"
She looked up to see Alex smiling at her.
She managed the makings of a smile back. "I'm fine! Apart from the fact that Buffy has gone awol and I can't figure out how to put these two on a time out."
"Doesn't Xander know where she is?" Alex asked as he refilled their shot glasses at Kennedy's unspoken bequest.
"He's gone to," Kennedy told him.
Faith saw a mix of friendly concern and inquisitive cop rise in his eyes and hurried to allay his worries. If Buffy and the gang really were gone in search of a magick expert to cure Willow, the worst thing they could do was accidentally start a witch hunt.
"We think they probably just took off for the day. Buffy was s'posed to be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for all of us and I reckon she got scared and convinced them all to head for the hills."
"Which is great for them," Kennedy added, catching on. "But sucks for us."
"Why?" Alex asked with a smile.
"Because we all hate each other," Kennedy said.
"Well, I don't hate Oz." Faith shrugged.
"And I don't hate Faith," he said with a quiet smile of his own.
"But we both hate Kennedy."
"And I hate both of them," Kennedy said forcefully.
"Which about sums it up." Faith shrugged again.
All three of them downed their fresh shots as one. Oz asked for another round, which Alex hurriedly fetched for them before running to the other end of the bar. He had a habit of doing that when Faith was around.
"Do you think he screwed B?" she asked anyone who was listening.
"Doubt it," Kennedy said. "They went on one date and you interrupted that when you tried to beat her up."
She nodded once. "Good."
Kennedy suddenly leaned over the bar to look past her. "Have you slept with Willow?"
Oz had been about to take a sip of his beer. He paused his glass half way to his mouth and looked at Kennedy. "Yes."
"You sonofa…"
Faith caught Kennedy firmly by the arm before she could leap off of her stool. "You slept with her since she's been in Boudenver?"
"Is that anyone's business?" he asked mildly.
"Let's say…" Faith had to put some effort into keeping Kennedy put, which she wasn't happy about, but she still did so decisively. "… for arguments sake, yeah."
Oz shrugged. "Then, no." He finally drank some of his beer.
Kennedy settled down slowly and when she tried to slap her hand away, Faith let her.
"This could be worse, ya know?" Faith tried to say cheerfully
"How?" Oz asked.
"We could all be drinking alone on Thanksgiving."
There was a pause and then Kennedy dropped her head to the side to stare at her. "Sorry, I was waiting for the not-worse part."
Faith sighed and, as one, all three of them downed their shots.
Xander had Willow's head curled into his neck. Her unstoppable tears were burning his cold skin but he didn't care. In fact in a totally selfish way he welcomed it – it was the only inch of his body that wasn't freezing. They were all dressed for Northern Ohio – except Willow who was still in her pajamas – but they'd been inside when Willow had sneezed. Plus, the nasty, wet weather they'd been having back home had been cold enough for him, but as it turned out not as cold as a clear, fresh evening in late November. The grass was beginning to get frosty under his knees and it wasn't even dark yet.
He kept one hand cradling Willow's head and wrapped his other arm around her tighter to offer more warmth.
"So what the hell did we just hear?"
Giles had his head in one hand and was staring at the back of the dorm. Buffy was kneeling just a few inches away from him, staring at nothing with tears in her eyes.
"Are we not there anymore?" he demanded.
"Doesn't sound like it," Buffy whispered hoarsely.
"Why not?"
"There could be a hundred causes, Xander," Giles said quietly. "Perhaps we all moved on for some reason."
Willow's crying grew harder.
"Perhaps we never make it back," Buffy muttered.
Xander glared at her.
"Well, that's how it sounded to me! We were nowhere in sight. Dawn was distraught. Faith was… I don't know what Faith was. I've never heard her like that before. Kennedy is…" she trailed off. "Surely if just one of us were still living here things wouldn't be that, I don't know, bleak?"
Willow sniffed and then wiped her eyes on his neck. "Sorry," she muttered, sitting up straight.
"It's okay," he said automatically, hating seeing her so upset.
"We have to get back right now."
"How, Willow?" he asked helplessly.
"The grass spell we used before."
Giles looked around him. "It's too damp to try that spell again and even if we could there is no guaranteeing we'll end up back home right away. And you are too weak to continue jumping dimensions without a proper rest."
Xander looked at her, taking in her complexion and expression. She was definitely way greener now than she had been back in her bedroom, and it wasn't just the green of feeling sick, it was the green of actually being green! She looked like the wicked witch of the west after they had overdone her make up. And the look on her face… he recognised the old Willow-resolve look trying to force its way through but it was trying to force itself through overwhelming tiredness and heartbroken anguish. It had a fight on its hands and Xander figured even if it won out the first few rounds it wouldn't last the whole night.
"You need to take a break," he said firmly. "For all our sakes."
"You think I can sleep right now?"
"Maybe not sleep but you need to lie down, rest your head, close your eyes…" Xander put a hand on her shoulder and tried to ease her down.
She resisted. "I can't close my eyes! Faith drank a toast to Kennedy today! That means Kennedy is dying today. I need to get back!"
Buffy leant over her, an arm around her back below Xander's hand. "And we will. But we have way more chance at making that happen if you're at full strength and you're never going to be at full strength if you don't conserve your energy now. You're sick remember, it's not your fault but you have to take a moment to reboot."
She helped gently push Willow down until her tired, heavy head landed comfortably on Xander's thigh.
To his surprise she was asleep within seconds despite her protests.
"It's the spell inside her," Giles said quietly. "It's growing stronger, feeding on her weakness. Twisting her magick more easily now that she doesn't have the strength to combat it."
"How do we stop it?"
"The only way is to do the spell we set up back home and we need to do it fast. I believe she's safe enough while she is sleeping but when she awakes…As the spell gains more control, the more erratic her actions will become. It won't be her doing, of course, but the magick could react through her in any number of possible ways. Factoring in her grief over Kennedy…things could get rather dangerous."
"She might go dark again?" Buffy asked.
Xander stroked the red hair falling over his thigh, visualizing the black seeping into it. He was out of yellow crayon stories. He had been too hostile with her for so long he couldn't even imagine making a speech with the same power his last one had invoked.
Giles hesitated but said, "Yes, it's a possibility that the spell will work with her pain and misery to strip away her humanity. Or it may turn her into a pillar of flame or a walking time bomb. It's unlikely but not impossible that it will turn her into a turkey or make her give birth to a hundred fluffy kittens. That's the point of chaos; we have absolutely no way to predict what might happen next. I think it is safest if we presume the worst, so that we will be better prepared."
"So we need to do that spell, and fast," Buffy summed up. "We can't get home to use the ingredients you already prepared, but we're still essentially home. Won't Willow's magic room have more we can use?"
Giles shook his head. "Some of the ingredients were flown in especially from other parts of the world."
Xander thought about it. "What about the ingredients we left upstairs?"
"You think they'll still be there?" Buffy asked. "It's been a year."
"If you three had disappeared without me and never came back I don't think I'd have it in me to clear your rooms out for at least a year."
"Your saying they might have left them alone, like shrines or something." Buffy's nose wrinkled a little as she thought about it.
"They obviously didn't keep mine as a shrine for bloody long," Giles grumbled. "But even if they left Willow's as it was, we can't risk entering the house."
"Not all of us but I bet Buffy could sneak in and out again without getting seen." He saw Buffy peer around the corner of the dorm. to look up at the house. "There's a couple of bedroom windows just covered with plastic. If you can get on the top veranda…"
Giles vetoed the idea before he could finish. "And if Willow's sneezes while Buffy is gone, she'll be left here."
"She hasn't sneezed in ages," Buffy said. "I bet I can make it there and back before she does."
"No," Giles said firmly. "I'm not prepared to risk it. We'll wait until Willow wakes up and then assess the situation further but right now the best we can do is stay here and…"
Xander cut him off this time. "Hope for the best?" He sneered. "Hoping for the best doesn't cut it, Giles. Hoping for the best doesn't work any more! We can't just optimist our way through this. Willow needs help now. We need help now!"
After his outburst they all fell silent, no one had anything positive to add. Xander carried on stroking Willow's hair as he looked aimlessly around. The sun was just disappearing behind the trees making the scenery bleaker and the air definitely several shades colder. It would be dark very soon.
As if to reinforce this they suddenly heard girls voices carrying clearly through the still evening. Buffy poked her head around the side of the dormitory again.
"Slayers, I think. Seven of them. The only one I recognise is Alison."
"Going on patrol?" Giles wondered.
"They're all armed. Hang on a sec." Buffy listened intently for a minute. "Alison's giving them instructions. Not patrol. She's telling them to spread out around the camp." She looked back at the other two. "They're guarding it from something."
"If they come this way we'll be seen," Giles said.
"We can't disturb Willow yet," Xander reminded him.
"I know. If one comes this way Buffy will have to immobilise her."
"You want me to immobilise a slayer?" Buffy didn't sound happy. "None of them look older than sixteen!"
Giles rolled his eyes. "I'm not suggesting you kill her, Buffy!"
"But still…" she looked around the corner again as she whined, "…something like that is gonna go on my permanent record."
"No it won't," Xander said with false cheeriness. "Because if we ever do it make it home, you knocking a baby slayer out cold will never have happened."
"I meant this permanent record," Buffy said, tapping the side of her head.
"Just keep an eye out," Giles said.
"Looks like we're gonna get lucky. Everyone stay real quiet."
Xander was already leaning against the back of the dormitory. He pulled Willow more along side him as best as he could without waking her as Giles pressed himself to the wooden wall next to him. Buffy pulled her body tight to the wood too but continued to look around the corner.
A teenage girl in bright blue pants and a red sweater walked past not more than ten feet away. Xander held his breath but she didn't even glance their way as she walked into the open land behind the barns, skirted the shower block and made her way towards the tree line. He exhaled noisily in relief and relaxed a little.
Buffy didn't. "What are they teaching these girls?" she muttered. "For starters she's going out there looking like a neon beer sign and she didn't even check behind here."
"That's a good thing!" Xander pointed out.
"Yes, but Buffy is right. Just because none of us are demons or vampires, the girl still should have detected that there was something here to be investigated."
"Again, good thing!"
"Things have obviously gone down hill since we didn't come back," Buffy muttered.
"The house already pointed that out to us," Xander said.
Willow slowly began to wake up. At first he tensed, half expecting his lower half to turn into something icky if she woke up irritable. She pushed herself up, slumped against his chest as she lost her balance for a second and then slid sideways onto her butt so that she could lean against the back of the dorm.
"Hey." She blearily rubbed her eyes. "Please tell me Kennedy dying was just this bad dream I had."
"I'm afraid not, Willow," Giles said softly.
She clenched her eyes closed, gave a loud sob but then took a deep breath. By the time she opened her eyes she was almost back to her old self.
"What did I miss?" She looked around. "Obviously I didn't sneeze in my sleep. Did we figure out a way back yet?"
"How are you feeling, Willow?" Buffy asked cautiously.
"Like I'm about to throw up and…" She waved a hand in the air. "Can anyone else see them?"
Xander chuckled nervously. "See what?"
"I have rainbows coming out of my fingertips." Willow sounded slightly in awe but seeing that she was making everyone else wary she changed the subject. "So no way back?"
"We're more worried about you right now." Xander's arm was still around her and he squeezed her shoulder. "We need to find a way to cure you, fast."
"Getting home is more important. A-and if you cure me I might not be able to get us home."
"Willow," Giles began gently. "If you don't get better very soon, any more teleporting… well, we probably won't get home anyway."
Willow was quiet for a moment and then she said softly, "Okay, so how do we get me better?"
"We need the ingredients for the spell, but the only place they possibly might be is your bedroom and we can't all go together in case we get seen and I can't go alone in case you sneeze," Buffy said, frustrated.
"So we just need to do a spell? Okay, come on." Willow stood up.
"Where are you go…?" As Willow went dizzy and fell back down onto Xander, Buffy changed her question. "Where are you trying to go?"
Willow held a hand to her head. "The woodshed."
Standing himself, Xander helped her up. "You think the Pixies will help?"
"I don't know, but I think they're our only shot."
"They were not very friendly the last time we encountered them," Giles reminded her.
"In fact they were tiny little assholes," Buffy backed him up.
"They were upset, but it's been over a year. Maybe they won't help us but I still think Beryan is the only one who can."
"There are Slayer guards posted all over the property," Giles said as he and Buffy joined them on their feet.
"Why?"
"We don't know," Xander told her. "But I'm guessing they're expecting an attack of some kind tonight."
"From what Craig said earlier, I assume we – they – have been suffering rather a lot of attacks recently," Giles said.
"We can't worry about that now," Buffy said, although Xander could tell the idea of avoiding slayage didn't sit well with her. "Get Willow better. Get home. Those are our only goals." She paused while she looked around the corner again. "Okay, no one's in sight. We have to run to the back of the training barn. Think you can make it, Will?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little… no, I'm fine."
Xander looked at her with concern but Buffy started running before he could ask any questions. He ran too, holding Willow just above the elbow to help her along.
Once behind the training barn, he began, "Are you…?"
She puked yellow fire in front of their feet before he could finish, kind of answering his question. It singed the grass and caused a mushroom of horrible smelling yellow smoke to rise up.
Buffy and Giles both grabbed hold of Willow, but while she coughed a little she didn't sneeze.
"Ow that hurt," Willow put a hand to her throat.
Buffy rubbed her back for a moment and then went to the other side of the training barn to look around.
"There's a Slayer twenty feet that way," she whispered, pointing into the training field. "So everyone be quiet."
As soon as she said it she darted along the hedge, past the truck, to the edge of the garage. Again he helped Willow along; again she puked yellow fire when they stopped. They all grabbed hold, she still didn't sneeze.
"Okay, I think I need a glass if water," Willow said hoarsely, rubbing both hands up and down her throat now.
Xander bent down and plucked a handful of the long, frosty grass. "Best I can do right now."
"You expect me to eat it?"
"I was thinking just suck it."
"What if Goorzie's pee'd on it?"
Xander chuckled as Buffy said, "Come on, if we go around the back of here we're only a hundred yard dash from the woodshed."
They followed her as Willow pulled the ice crystals from the green stems and licked them off her fingers.
"Helping?"
"Not really?"
They were twenty yards into their hundred yard dash when a bell started to toll. It sounded like a large, hand-held bell being shaken roughly in a panic. It made all of them stop and look around in alarm.
"Back behind the garage," Giles insisted.
They all did a one-eighty and ran back there. Willow wasn't sick this time but she did lean against the wall and groan.
"What the hell does the bell mean?" Xander asked.
Giles held his hand up, palm to the sky to indicate he didn't know.
"Something not good." Buffy was doing her thing of looking around the corner. "Shit, Faith's just ran out of the house – armed to the teeth. She's not fit to slay. She's wobbling!"
Xander was already reaching out but Giles caught his Slayer's arm first. "You can't go running in there, Buffy!"
"I can't just let her die either!" Buffy shook his hand off.
"At least wait until we know what the threat is," Xander said. "Maybe then you can help without getting seen."
Willow seemed to forget they were supposed to be staying as quiet as possible and started shouting "Ah! Ah! Ah!" while waving her arm around in the air. Three seagulls suddenly flew out of her sleeve, flapping around them until they gained enough height to just fly away.
Xander broke the stunned silence which followed with: "Well, that was unexpected."
Buffy and Giles both just nodded.
"I didn't like that," Willow said, her voice shaky. "They scratched."
They were all still staring at her, scared of what might fly out of her sleeve next, when pandemonium broke out around the corner.
"Okay, you think you're so...so clued in on the whole freakin'…"
Faith paused as an increasingly worried Alex reluctantly set another three shots on the bar. She downed it, sniffed, set the glass back down and leaned back to stretch. She caught herself with the edge of the bar to save herself just before she fell off the back of her stool. Eyes darting warily from side to side she wondered if she could get away with pretending she'd meant to do that. Nobody could focus enough to pay any attention anyway.
Kennedy threw back her shot and randomly asked, "What?"
"What?"
"Yeah, what?"
Faith frowned, "What what?"
As Kennedy groaned and laid her forehead on her arm, Oz reminded her, "You were about to ask a question."
"I was?"
She turned her head, confused, but just ended up grinning at him. Oz drunk was funny. He was sitting with his legs crossed Indian-style on his bar stool, his back perfectly ramrod straight, but he was swaying evenly from side to side like a mechanical metronome. Most of the time he was quiet but now and again a comment would catch his interest and he would answer in such a deep, philosophical way that not only did Faith and Kennedy have trouble following it, he even lost his own point a few times. It didn't seem to faze him, nor did Kennedy's bitchy comments. He just blinked, said a soft, "Huh." and downed another shot. He was a way better drinking partner than Kennedy anyway who was all grouchy and speechy and telling her what she should be doing like she could possibly know Buffy better than…
Just like that she remembered her train of thought. "Hey, don't interrupt me! I was talking here. Ya think you know her so well, like you're all…best buddies or whatever…like you can get in her head better 'n me 'cause…'cause you're like…" Alex set some more glasses on the bar in front of them and Faith raised a hand to him, snapping, "Wait!" She wasn't losing her flow again. "'Cause I know her…her…Buffy better than you ever could. We're joined; we have this… thing…this thing…this…" She waved a hand around, willing the word to come to her. "…this…name! We have a…a special name because… 'cause we're all joined and…and linked…and we have this…this…mystical…wotsit-thing."
Kennedy nodded, "Slayerisity. I have it too."
"No, 'nother thing. Name-thing from before… before you was… born."
Kennedy managed to get one eye focused on her without lifting her head. "I'm only tru…two years younger than you?"
Faith waved her hand around. "Ya know what I mean."
Kennedy raised her head just enough to put her shot glass to her lips and slurped up the amber contents. "We should do jello shots. It's a party, gotta have jello shots at a party. We should buy some jello from the place with the jello so Buff can make us some."
"Green jello," Oz said solemnly, like he was imparting the mysteries of the universe. Faith turned to look at him; Kennedy leaned around her to do the same. He gave the slightest of shrugs. "Orange is good too."
Kennedy wiped the back of a hand over her mouth and sat back until she could just see Faith. "What is it?"
Faith quirked an eyebrow at her, or tried to, it might not have been happening for real. "Orange? It's a…a fruity like kinda round thing they make…jello out of."
Something about that sentence didn't fit for Faith but Kennedy started laughing before she could try again.
"Noooo! What's the…thingy…thingy-name you and…B…"
Faith slapped her shoulder. "Don't call her that. That's…that's my name. Not my name, her name… but it's my name for her…name."
"So… what's this other name?"
"Um…" Faith thought about it. She thought about it for a long time. She thought about it for so long she forgot what she was thinking about. "…What?"
"Raspberry's good too. Willow likes raspberry jello."
Kennedy's arm swung around, finger wobbling few inches from Faith's nose as she pointed at Oz. "Give it up, White fang! She's not your raspberry jelling…raspberry jelloing…raspberry jello-loving girlfriend anymore. She's my cherry-flavoured-girlfriend loving girlfriend loving…no, just one loving…one me-loving girlfriend. No raspberries."
Faith blinked at her several times before asking slowly. "Did you just describe yourself as a cherry-flavoured girlfriend?"
For the first time ever since she had known him, Oz laughed out loud. In fact he didn't just laugh he broke into drunken giggles and his back and shoulders shook as he swayed back and forth on his stool.
"What makes you cherry-flavoured?" Faith asked earnestly.
Kennedy gaped for a second, her mind probably not working all that quickly right now and then tried to answer the question seriously. "I…I…I…"
"I mean do you eat like lots of…of cherries? Or do you…do you bath in…in…in cherry-coke or something? What is it?"
Kennedy was gone, leaning over the bar again, narrowly missing crushing her shot glass with her forehead, laughing helplessly at Faith's intense questioning.
Faith shook her head, grinning faintly and, against even her own better judgement, finally downed her shot. She knew she was kinda drunk now. Drunk to the point where she was enjoying not just Oz's company but even Kennedy's. That was pretty drunk. Shit. She groped in her pockets for her cigarettes but couldn't find them. In fact she couldn't remember picking them up before they left the house. Damn!
Everything was going wrong. Not that she was surprised; everything always went wrong around her. Buffy not wanting to spend Thanksgiving with her though really sucked the hardest. What had she actually done to piss her off that bad? They had been bickering the last few days, but then they'd been bickering ever since their failed date, actually they'd been bickering ever since the day they'd met! So that couldn't be it. It was probably just Buffy's way of keeping all the freakin' control between them. She'd probably heard them talking in the training barn and realised Faith was about to make some huge sacrifice to make life easier between them and instead of being grateful she found a way to screw it up. And disappearing had certainly done that. That way she didn't have to give any ground herself, let her own guard down, have sex with her, for fucks sake!
Surely B couldn't be that mad that Faith wanted to have sex with her. So mad that she completely ruined everyone else's Thanksgiving too? It wasn't exactly an unreasonable request for someone claiming to be her girlfriend. Although… come to think of it, Buffy was the one who kept saying they weren't 'properly' together yet, whatever the hell that meant. And if they were properly together Buffy never would have taken off for the holiday, right? Faith was damn sure her ass would be kicked black and blue if she'd shot through for Buffy's special meal but apparently it was okay for Buffy and the Superfriends! They were probably in Atlantic City, having a great time playing the slots and eating turkey sandwiches while she was drunk and depressed, rocking a bar stool on this special family fuckin' holiday.
So if Buffy wasn't her girlfriend yet, and wouldn't have sex with her, that must mean she was still allowed to have sex with other people, right? Buffy couldn't bitch her out for it. Girl had needs after all and it had been a long time. A long, long time… Great, she'd moved on from drunk and depressed to drunk, horny and depressed.
She turned on the barstool, checking out her options. A few middle-aged couples were scattered around the bar having a quiet drink. The old men who spent so much time there they might as well have just moved in were at their usual tables around the back. Finding nothing appetising, she turned back on her stool, grumbling under her breath until she spotted Alex. He was down the other end of the bar, opening a fresh bottle of something and… he was actually kinda good-looking – all big and muscley and his beard still wasn't much more than tufty stubble yet. Sensing her attention he looked down the bar to her with a smile. She gave him her best 'want-take-have' grin.
His eyes went wide and he nearly smashed the bottle against the bar as he tried to fumble it onto a level surface. As soon as he could let go without it falling over he did so and then he dashed through the door that led to the private area behind the bar. Faith leaned towards Kennedy, trying to peer through it but it wasn't long before she came to the conclusion that he wasn't coming back.
Faith slumped back onto her stool despondently. She needed some kind of action before she just shrivelled up and died inside. Slaying was lame around here, her and Buffy had been not-together for nearly two months and the blonde was still refusing to put out despite how patient Faith felt she was being. Something had to give and it had to be now, because she was drunk and she was going to lose it and do something stupid if it didn't.
She regarded Kennedy, who was just pulling herself together and sitting upright again and then tried to focus on the swaying Oz as she casually asked, "So…do two fancy a threesome?"
With a peel of laughter, Kennedy flopped over the bar top again, sending empty shot glasses and a half full glass of beer flying in her hysteria. On her other side, the unflappable Oz swayed the wrong way and fell backwards off his stool to slap the ground hard with his back.
"Why does nobody wanna screw me anymore?" Faith pitifully asked the world at large.
Hearing the crash of flying shot glasses and people hitting the floor, Alex came running out behind the bar again. Faith looked up hopefully, thinking he'd heard her plea but on second thoughts he didn't look in the mood for anything but…
"Okay you three, consider yourselves cut off. You can't be brawling all over my bar on Thanksgiving. It's a family holiday."
"We're not brawlin'" Kennedy pointed out, sounding offended that he should even consider they would do such a thing.
He stopped as he realised she was right.
"And there's no kids," Faith added, looking around to make sure. "Nope, no kids."
"I guess you're right, well in that case…" he began reasonably and then pointed firmly at the door and bellowed. "Out!"
Faith rocked back on her bar stool. "No need to shout, dude, I'm like right here."
"Yes, and I want you 'out there'. Go home, sober up, wait for Buffy and Willow." Alex came out from behind the bar, helping them from their stools and shooing them towards the door. "Here's an idea: why don't you cook the meal for them. Give them a reason to hurry home. But don't use the stove," he added quickly. "Eddie and Buck don't want to have to get the fire truck out on Thanksgiving. Enjoy the rest of your day folks and take it easy on the way home. It's getting dark."
Faith looked around as the heavy door closed solidly behind them, surprised to have found herself herded out into the cold with such ease. That would never have happened a few years ago. Prison had made her soft. Either that or she was wicked drunk.
Oz was standing there in the road, still swaying to a tune only he could hear, but Kennedy was less passive about being dumped on the doorstep. She turned to hammer her fist on the door, regardless of the fact that it wasn't locked, and called for entry.
Laughing at her, Faith pulled her away. "Come on, thanks to you we out stayed our…thingy."
"Tab," said Oz.
"No, uh…welcome."
"No, we didn't pay our tab."
Faith turned back to the door and then stopped, a roguish smirk slipping on to her face, and she turned back around. "We should probably get going, like the good cop said."
They started to walk up the street. With dusk falling and the holiday it was even emptier than usual. Ghost town quiet with swirls of leaves rushing helter-skelter across the road in place of tumbleweeds.
The general store was still open though and Faith stopped in front of it. "I need some smokes."
"And beer," Oz said and Faith nodded appreciatively.
"And jello," said Kennedy, and added decisively, "Cherry."
They disappeared inside for a few minutes, bought what they needed, and then left, already bickering mildly about who was going to carry the heavy case of beer. They were all far too drunk to notice the yellow eyes watching them from the alley opposite nor did they realise that the shadowy figure they belonged to followed them discreetly along the road out of town.
It took a while for the four of them to figure out what was going on in the chaos that suddenly rained upon the camp. Hidden as they were behind the garage. But the future inhabitants, or the inhabitants of the future maybe, seemed to know exactly what was happening and were obviously prepared for it and slayer-shouts echoed around the outbuildings as they were attacked from all sides.
"It's the lizards," Buffy said, feeling panicky at seeing Faith swinging a sword while so drunk. "But there's a hell of a lot more than thirteen of them!"
"The same lizard demons that attacked us a few weeks ago?" Giles asked.
"Well, they're not wearing name tags but I think it's a safe bet," she said impatiently.
"They're not the enemy," Willow panted.
"Gotta disagree with you there, Will," Xander said from where he was watching another couple of slayers battle a lizard at the other end of the garage.
"They're not the enemy," Willow repeated.
"Do you know something, Willow?" Giles asked carefully.
"Yes," she yelled, "I know they're not the enemy!"
Buffy stopped watching Faith to give her a wary look. The others did the same.
"Neither am I!" she assured them quickly. "Look, Andrew's research all said they weren't magick, yet they managed to do something pretty magickal to me, and not in a nice, fairy dust, happy ever after way. There is someone controlling them, someone who is magickal and now we're gone, or maybe just now I'm gone, they're stronger, so there's more demons. That's makes sense, right, Giles?"
He nodded. "It's certainly a feasible theory."
"That's great, Will, but we don't have time for theory!" Buffy's body jerked in revulsion and the need to fight as a slayer battling just a few feet from Faith had her throat slit by a lizard's long claws. "We need to act now!"
"That's just it. We do have time. We're out of time, I mean, out of our time. All we need to do to stop this is get back to our time and figure out who's controlling them and stop them before they can get this powerful."
"And we just leave Faith, and Dawn and…and Andrew to die like Kennedy obviously did?" Willow slumped against the back of the garage but Buffy didn't have time for sympathy, not when her own girlfriend and sister might still be saved from the same fate. "I'm going out there. I need to help."
Giles grabbed her arm. She could have shrugged him off like he wasn't there but Xander had already run back to them and he grabbed her too, helping Giles to pull her back behind the garage.
"Buff, you can't do anything. There's like sixty lizards out there, and that's just the ones I saw, that might mean there's really one hundred and twenty. And you don't have a weapon."
It wasn't that much more effort to shrug the two them off. "I'm sure Faith will lend me one."
"She can't be allowed to see you," Giles reminded her.
"I'm really not giving a crap about the stability of the universe right now, Giles!"
"And I'm sure the universe doesn't give a crap about your love life right now," Giles snapped back, harshly enough that she calmed down just enough to listen. "But you are The Slayer and you will think with your head and not your heart for two bloody minutes."
"I'm not The Slayer anymore."
"You are The Slayer," he repeated forcefully. "Now, would you rather rush out there and die gallantly by her side or do your damnedest to get back home and save her life? And possibly a lot of other lives in the process."
"Including Kennedy's," Willow said weakly.
Buffy hesitated, the blood was pumping fast through her veins at being so close to the battle and it was almost impossible to ignore the voice in her head telling her to slash, hack, slay! They had a point though.
"So what do we do? Willow's too weak to teleport. And even if she wasn't there's nothing to say we won't just spend the night tripping all over the place again."
"We stick with our original plan." Willow pushed herself away from the garage with a groan. "Woodshed."
There was only one problem to that plan now. In the time they'd been talking Faith, Rona and a slayer Buffy didn't recognise had begun forcing two of the demonic lizards towards the perimeter of the camp, taking a short cut directly between the garage and the woodshed.
"Oh boy, this vacation just keeps getting better and better," Xander griped. "Now what do we do?"
"Run like hell?" Buffy suggested.
"Maybe we can sneak past them," said Willow. "They look pretty absorbed."
"No, there's too high a possibility of being seen. We should wait until they've either dispatched the demons, or forced them beyond us and then make our way across."
There was a roar, making all four of them jump, and a startled look behind showed a lizard demon at the other end of the back of the garage. It had spotted them and looked real eager to claim the prize none of its brethren had spotted yet. It came towards them on stumpy legs that shouldn't have been able to move that fast.
"Run like hell!" Xander had the deciding vote and the other three were too alarmed to do anything but go along with it.
They shot out from behind the garage into the melee, with Buffy and Xander supporting Willow between them and the demon hot on their heels.
Where the road began to bend to the left for half a mile there was a short cut that Kennedy knew of. It led through the trees up a steep slope, but it cut a good twenty minutes off the walk home. She was secretly pleased that she knew it and Faith didn't.
Actually, there was nothing secret about her pleasure. "How long have you been here now and you still don't know your way around?"
"I know my way around. I just ain't had time to be trekking up mountains. Some of us have a job, ya know?" Faith grumbled.
It was her turn to carry the beers, and she was making the job lighter by drinking them steadily as they walked. Still she was making the wet, muddy slope look easy. Oz wasn't, and to prove it he slipped down a several feet again on his knees. Kennedy laughed at him as she used tree trunks and occasionally the damp weeds to stop herself from doing the same.
She was still laughing and about to throw another snarky comment Faith's way when a sudden crashing of undergrowth all around them froze the chuckle in her throat. It was too dark to see what was making the noise but almost at once Faith gave a yell and tumbled down the slope past her.
Before Kennedy could turn to see if she was okay, a bunch of the lizardy Meluthian Hedrays emerged from the darkness to surround them.
"Oh, shit!"
The case of beer was the first casualty, smashing to the ground as Faith lost her hold on it in her fall, but Kennedy had the sinking feeling that it wouldn't be the last.
[End of Act Three]
[Thanks for reading. All comments gratefully received]