Suggested Listening:

"Graveyard" by Blue Rodeo

"The Devil's Right Hand" by Webb Wilder & the Beatnecks

"Long White Cadillac" by Dwight Yoakam

"You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC

"I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick (Live at Budokan version)

"I Want You to Want Me" by Letters To Cleo

What I Did On My Spring Break

By

Michael Walker

"You're doing what?" Willow Rosenberg sounded shocked.

"I am going to Locust Grove, Oklahoma." Buffy Summers pulled up a handful of grass and let it drift away in the breeze. "There is a family reunion, and my mom has decided that we will be there. Those are my spring break plans."

"Your mom's from Oklahoma?"

Buffy looked at her best friend, eyes wide. "Oh, no. Mom's Cali born and bred, but her mom, my grandma, came here during the Dust Bowl."

Willow frowned. "I'm lost. Why does your mom want to go back?"

"Because her grandma, my great-grandma, who I have never met and my mom hasn't seen in twenty-five years, is still alive, and my mom says I need to meet her before she dies."

"But what about the whole Seal thing? Has your mom forgotten you're the Slayer?"

"Amazingly, I pointed that out." Buffy lowered her chin. "It did not make a difference. She said, and I quote, 'The world is always about to end in Sunnydale. It hasn't yet, but if it does this time, I think you should see your great-grandmother before that happens'."

The Slayer pushed through the library doors. "Hey, Giles."

Her Watcher looked up. "Yes?"

She leaned her elbows on the counter. "It's time for one of our talks."

Giles frowned. "'Our talks'?"

"You know, where I say 'I've got a thing', and you say 'I can't believe you're going to do a thing', then I say 'But I gotta do the thing anyway'."

"Oh, that talk." Giles sighed. "What is it now?"

Buffy straightened up from the counter. "I will be gone next week. My mom is taking me on a trip for spring break."

"Oh," Giles said. He thought for a moment. "What sort of trip?"

"We're going to Oklahoma to commune with family roots." The Slayer tossed her head dramatically.

"Well," the librarian said, "try to enjoy the time with your family."

"Wait a minute." Buffy's eyes narrowed. "Are you some sort of shape-shifting… shape-shifter guy? What have you done with Giles?"

The Watcher looked down at the counter and aimlessly moved papers from one stack to another. "With everything that's happened recently, I… haven't been at the top of my game… in fact, I've been rather rubbish." He placed his fingertips on one of the piles, looking at his hand as he spoke. "Truth be told, we're in something of a holding pattern. We don't know enough about the Seal, the Mayor's scheme, or when it goes into action to make any definitive plans." He looked up and his eyes met Buffy's. "You should enjoy your trip. You said it was to see family?"

"Yeah," the Slayer said slowly, concern growing on her face as she watched him. "My great-grandma, it's some sort of reunion."

Giles nodded, but his eyes were far away. "She must be very elderly."

"Yeah," Buffy said as if this were the most apparent fact in the world. "I mean, she's my mom's grandma."

A small smile tweaked Giles's mouth. "Then go and enjoy your time. You cannot guarantee that you get another opportunity."

A frown line appeared between the Slayer's eyebrows. "If you need me, I can…" She gestured over her shoulder.

Giles gave a small, dry chuckle. "Didn't you say that this is where your response is, and I quote, 'I gotta do the thing anyway'. Are you going off-book?"

Buffy looked at him, open-mouthed. "Okay, I'm gonna tell my mom that I told you, but I'm a little wigged by this–" she used both hands to make a back-and-forth motion between them "-and I'm keeping my eye on you for the rest of the week."

"Go." Giles made a shooing gesture and went into his office.

"So, you're going to visit the Summers… Summers's… of Oklahoma." Xander said. He sprawled across a chair in the student lounge. Buffy and Oz sat on opposite ends of the sofa across from him.

"No," Buffy replied. "My dad is a Summers, my mom was a Kern."

There was a moment of pregnant silence, then Xander burst into laughter. "Oh, man," he gasped, "you could have been Buffy Kern. Were any members of your mom's family in the army? Any Colonel Kerns?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "This is so not a good look on you."

"Where is this town?" Oz asked.

"East of Tulsa," Buffy said.

"Where is Tulsa?" Xander said.

Buffy gave him an annoyed look. "You can't locate a city with four hundred thousand people?"

"Really? It's that big? Hey…" Xander looked cagey. "When did you look that up?"

Buffy shrugged. "Maybe recently."

Xander nodded. "I thought so."

"Where's Will?" Buffy swiveled her head to look at Oz.

"She's, uh, busy," he said, dipping his head toward his textbook.

"Busy with what?" Buffy asked.

"Uh, Buffster." Xander shook his head and made a 'cut it' gesture across his throat.

"I… I gotta go," Oz said. He gathered his backpack and walked away.

Buffy turned to Xander, confused. "Did I miss something? Was there a sound so high-pitched I couldn't hear it?"

"Nah." Xander dug into the pockets of his pants and came up with a rather crushed Twix. "There's some tension in Nerdvana."

"Wait, what?" Buffy looked around, confused. "Willow and Oz, what?"

Xander spoke around a mouthful of candy. "Dingoes voted to go on the road after graduation."

"Yeah, I know."

Xander stopped mid-chew. "How…?"

Buffy made no-big-deal face. "It might have slipped out Saturday."

"When you were on your date!"

""Yes, Spock. On my date. Trey doesn't have the world's finest filter." Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"So, you're literally a spy in the house of love."

The Slayer gave him a sour look. "That is so wrong that it sets a new standard of wrongness." She winced. "So, how serious is this?" Xander shrugged as he popped the second half of the Twix into his mouth. Buffy shook her head. "It just means he won't be–"

"Won't be going to college." Xander swallowed. "And I don't think that was revealed to Willow in the most timely or appropriate fashion."

"Zoinks," Buffy said.

"Zoinks indeed," Xander echoed.

Willow tossed the notebook onto the table. The impact echoed loudly in the empty chem lab. "Here," she said, offering a pencil, "you take notes."

"What kind of notes?" Tyler picked up the notebook and took the pen.

"Anything you see or hear or notice or think when I'm… there. I keep getting to a certain point and then losing it. I don't know why, but maybe you can see something."

Tyler pouted. "I really don't like taking notes."

"There's the door." Willow pointed. "Notes or nothing."

"Okay," he fumed, flipping open the notebook. "You've already got a lot written down in here."

Willow sighed. "Yes, but those are impressions and observations before and after a session. What I can't do is observe myself while I'm there." She took out a compact makeup mirror and flipped it open. "Ready?"

"Uh, yeah." He held the pencil poised over the page.

Willow looked into the mirror, into her own eyes, unfocused, felt the slip…

And she was there, in the chem lab, but not in the chem lab. She raced through formulae and equations as she tried to look around. There was the table, but it wasn't the table, it was… the idea of the table? Patterns fluctuated through the surface of solid objects; a prismatic quality permeated everything she could… see? Willow turned slowly; she had learned that if she moved too fast she would fall out of the Never Never. As she pivoted, she saw Tyler.

She didn't exactly see him, but she knew it was him. Willow realized that this was the first time she had ever seen another living being from the perspective of the Never Never. Like the furnishings, he looked odd, but in a different way. There was a fractal, shifting aspect… was it the circulatory system? DNA? Fascinated, she reached out to touch his head–

A scream like Oz's guitar in feedback ripped through her. She jerked, and her head bounced off the table as she fell back into reality. She blinked and shook her head, then looked at Tyler, who held his head in both hands as he grimaced.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I don't know," he snapped. "One minute you were all swirly-eyed, then it was like a firecracker went off in my head, then you thumped into the table."

Willow gave her head another shake. "Did you scream? When it happened?"

He lowered his hands and glared at her, or tried to. "I yelled. I don't scream."

"Huh," Willow said. "Interesting."

Oz pulled the van into Xander's driveway. Before he could turn off the key, the front door opened and Xander came out, a sheaf of papers in his hand. He hopped in the passenger seat and slammed the door.

"Okay," he said. "Ready to roll."

"All right," Oz said. "What's the…" He pointed at the papers.

"Oh, some ideas," Xander said, folding the stack roughly in half and stuffing it into his pocket. They were back on Tauamount before either spoke again.

"So," Xander said, "you really scooted today when Buffy asked about Willow."

"Yeah. I had somewhere to be."

Xander digested that and waited. No more information seemed to be forthcoming, so he forged ahead. "Anywhere in particular?"

Oz paid great attention to his left turn. "Somewhere else."

Xander nodded and took a deep breath. "Somewhere in particular?"

Oz bit his lip. "Xander–"

"Look, I'm not pretending to be dense guy here, I'm one hundred percent concrete, or lead, or… something dense. Willow is my best friend since forever, and you're my bandmate–"

"You're not in the band."

"-but I'm going to keep saying it until somebody lets it slip by, and then I'm planting the flag. Point is, you're my friend, too. Separately, you guys are my friends. Together, the two of you appear to be genetically engineered to be a happy couple, so, I gotta know what's going on? Because, if you guys… well, let's just say that Xander Harris can just forget about happiness."

Oz drove; Xander fidgeted. Finally, Oz spoke. "I made a choice, and I didn't tell Willow. I hesitated, and the hesitating made me think, and the thinking made me consider, and by then, I was hiding."

"Well, that's certainly a string of verbs, but now I'm confused, and when I'm confused, I get frightened. Don't frighten me, Oz."

Oz stared straight at the road as he spoke. "I can't help you. We're in two paths in a yellow wood territory."

"Well, great," Xander grumped. "Now, I'm frightened and I feel stupid. Well done."

Joyce leaned into the dining room.. "All packed?"

"Everything except makeup. I'll pack that tomorrow morning." Buffy picked up the phone and punched in the familiar number. She waved at her mother, and Joyce, taking the hint, disappeared into the living room. The phone rang four times before it was answered.

"Hello, Mrs. Rosenberg, this is Buffy. Is Willow there?" The Slayer tucked a strand of hair behind her ear she waited.

"Buffy?'

"Hey, Will." The Slayer licked her lips. "I'm flying out tomorrow morning, but, uh, I wanted to talk to you before I left."

"That's sweet."

"You sound chipper."

"Is there any reason I shouldn't?"

Buffy hesitated. "I just… didn't want to fly halfway across the country from my best friend without making sure she's okay."

"What are you asking about?"

"Uh, I noticed that this afternoon, when Xander and I were in the common area… with Oz... you weren't."

"Uh-huh." Willow's voice took on that breathy quality that Buffy recognized as nerves. "Well, right now, Oz and I are, kind of, not being in the same place at the same time."

The Slayer nodded. "Okay, um, how dedicated are you to that proposition?"

"Buffy… Oz decided to go on the road with Dingoes after graduation."

"Uh-huh." Buffy decided this was not the best time to reveal her prior knowledge.

"They're going out for a year, and, I know that's not that long, but… we talked about going to school together. We were going to do a stupid letter mailing ceremony. We were…" Willow's voice trailed away.

"And that caused the sitch?"

"I know it sounds juvenile and stupid, but it's… it's not really the going on the road that bugs me… it's… The band had to be thinking about this for a while, but Oz never mentioned it. Then he made the decision, and didn't tell me about it… Was he ever going to tell me?"

"Will, Oz is pretty stand-up. He was going to tell you, I know he was."

"Then why didn't he?"

Buffy's lips pressed together. "I don't know. Oz is the only one that knows."

"Anyway, we're just… kind of avoiding each other right now."

"By mutual agreement?"

"I think more just by common knowledge." Willow's voice brightened. "But I'm gonna be all right."

"Okay." Buffy licked her lips. "Listen, I"m gonna give you the number of the motel we're staying at, and, if you need to, for any reason, you call me, promise?"

"I will." A giggle crept into Willow's voice. "And you call me if it there's too much weirdness on the Great Plains."

Buffy laughed. "Well, then I may be calling you first."