"Buffy? Buffy?"

Her mother was… underwater… and on the phone? The Slayer struggled, felt a moment of panicked entrapment, then realized that she was tangled in bedsheets with the pillow over her head. She knocked away the pillow and tried to focus on her mother, who was not underwater, but standing beside the bed. "Hnnnghhnn?" she grunted.

Joyce's forehead furrowed. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, let me…. Aaagh."

"What's wrong?"

Buffy held up a hand. "Nothing. Just a little sore." She levered herself to a sitting position. "Okay, the world is no longer blurry. She looked at her mother. "What's up?"

"I just got a phone call from LaVonna. She said something about going to a funeral with Kerry? Is that… right?"

"Uh, uh, yeah. Bronson's… Kerry's friend." Buffy rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Gimme minute." She staggered into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and recoiled: her hair looked like a haystack and her eyes were puffy. She groaned, remembering that she had fallen asleep before her hair had dried last night. "Mom?" she called.

"Yes?" Joyce said.

"Did they say what time the funeral is?"

"Ten-thirty. It's eight-forty-five now."

"Okay," Buffy said, her voice raspy, "that might be enough time. Could you help me find something that's okay to wear to a funeral?"

A long shower and a quick breakfast from the motel lobby later, she was back in front of the bathroom mirror working on hair and makeup. Her mother's voice came from the room.

"Buffy, I think your black pants will work. Do you have any kind of dark shirt?"

"I think I've got a black tank, but I'm pretty sure it's not mourning appropriate."

"Well, it'll have to do. Let me see… Can you come out here for a minute?"

Buffy cinched her robe around her waist and stepped out. Her black pants and tank were laid out on the bed. Her mother held up a deep crimson blazer. "I… think this might work… it's about the best we can do."

"Mom, you're like, four inches taller than me. That jacket'll swallow me."

"Well, we'll make it work." Joyce laid it on the bed. "Finish getting dressed, then we'll figure out something."

The Slayer went back into the bathroom and put on her pants and tank. "Okay," she said, "let's see how clownish I look." She slipped on the blazer; the hem hung almost to her knees, the shoulder seams were a good three inches down her arm, and the sleeves covered her hands. "The answer is, extremely clownish."

"Here," Joyce said, "let's…" She went into the bathroom and came out with two hand towels. "Here, put these up here… we'll build up the shoulder. Okay, that's…." She stepped back. "Better, much better." She stepped in and rolled up the sleeves.

"Okay," Buffy said, "if the towels stay in place, that's not too bad, but the hem is way too long."

Joyce waved a hand. "Tell them it's the style in California. The Edwardian look is back."

"That'll work," Buffy conceded.

"Are you riding with Kerry's parents?" Joyce asked.

"No, we– Crap!" The Slayer looked at the dresser, then turned her attention to the bedside table. "Whew." She held up a slip of paper. "They're not going to the funeral. Darren said he'd give us a ride, but I've got to call him." She picked up the phone.

"Darren? Is he the young man who picked you up at the park yesterday?"

"Uh, yeah." She punched in the number. "Darren? Oh, uh, I was calling for Darren… me? My, uh, my name is Buffy Su– Uh, hi." She sat on the edge of her bed. "Can you still give us a ride to the funeral? Um, thanks… You should probably pick me up first. Thanks again. Twenty minutes, yeah." She hung up the phone.

"He drives a pickup, doesn't he?" Joyce said.

"Yeah, um, I–"

"Here." Joyce reached into her purse and held out the car keys. "Take the car."

Buffy warily eyed the offered keys. "Why?"

"Well, there will be three of you, so there would be more room in the car. Plus, it's a funeral…" Joyce shook her head.

"Mom, based on what I've seen the last three days, there will be trucks. I am so confident of that."

"Still." Joyce extended her arm and jangled the keys. "I… I just think it might be better if LaVonna sees you drive up in a car."

Buffy's mouth closed tight as she took the keys. "Thanks, Mom." Her voice took on a mocking tone. "I'll make sure Darren takes care of it."

Joyce shrugged and waved a hand. "Ah, it's a rental."

Buffy stepped off the elevator. Darren stood in the lobby. His hair was pulled back and he wore a black suit, white shirt, and black tie. He had shined his boots.

"Hey," he said, "you look–"

"I look like costume-party Alexis Carrington." The Slayer held out the car keys. "Here. My mom said we can take the Taurus."

He half-turned and jerked a thumb toward the parking lot. "My truck's right–"

Buffy pushed the keys toward him. "My mom's being nice, and she did make a good point… Kerry's mom might have less of a fit if we roll up in a nice sedan."

Darren shrugged. "Well, I'm not going to refuse to burn someone else's gas… and that's probably a good idea." He took the keys. "Let's go, I guess."

They pulled into the driveway of the Dixon house. "No offense," Buffy said, "but it might be better if I went to the door."

"No need," Darren said. "Look."

Kerry was already halfway down the sidewalk. "She must've opened the door the minute we turned in," Darren said. He scrambled out of the driver's seat and opened the rear passenger door. Kerry slid in, tucking the skirt of her dress under her legs. It was a sleeveless black dress with white piping around the armholes.

"You look nice," Buffy said.

"Thanks," Kerry mumbled. "You, uh, you do–"

"It's the style in California these days. Edwardian," the Slayer said.

"Oh." Kerry nodded. "Sure. It's nice."

The service was at the funeral home. Buffy couldn't suppress a sardonic grin when she saw the number of pickups on the open lawn that served as the parking area. They climbed out of the Taurus into the warm spring sun and the Slayer fought the urge to adjust one of the towels under her jacket; it felt like it was hanging on by a thread. She looked toward the funeral home and saw an older version of the couple in the picture on the mantelpiece in Darren's house standing on the steps.

He noticed them, too. "I'll walk you guys in, but then I gotta go. I'm supposed to sit with the family." Buffy nodded, and the trio began to walk toward the building with Kerry in the middle. Darren's parents watched them for a while, but went inside before the three reached the door; Buffy breathed an internal sigh of relief. As they crossed the threshold, the Slayer couldn't resist a quick glance to her left; one door down the hallway seemed to be sporting a new knob. They crossed the small foyer and entered the chapel.

"Okay," Darren pointed toward the foyer, "going to meet the rest of the family."

Buffy nodded. "We'll just be here at the back… trying hard to be super inconspicuous." The last pew on the left was open, and she guided a sniffling Kerry to the far end. As they sat, Buffy felt that damn towel move; she quickly shoved a hand up inside her jacket and reseated it, hoping that no one thought she was having a seizure.

Unlike the last funeral the Slayer had attended (she shivered), the crowd was small, not even filling up the small chapel. The mourners seemed to be mostly older people or high-school kids. A little over half appeared to be Native American. A simple closed wooden casket was at the front. There were a few flower arrangements, but most of the space was taken up by photographs of Bronson: on his dirt bike, with a number on his chest and a cowboy hat in hand, holding a shotgun in one hand and a dead turkey in the other. Buffy heard movement to the right and turned to see a procession entering the room. It was led by a short, stocky woman with iron-gray hair in two long braids. A couple who must have been Bronson's parents followed, then a string of relatives. Darren walked with his parents about halfway back, his eyes on the ground. They went up the aisle and filled the rows reserved for family, then the gray-haired lady approached the podium.

"Hello, my brothers and sisters," she said. "Thank you for joining the family today." She spoke for a short time, then several different people got up and shared stories about Bronson. The general consensus was that he was a fine young man and what had happened was a tragedy. A young man who appeared to be in high school accompanied himself on guitar while he sang a song about resting on a mountain. The gray-haired woman read… something, they might have been Bible verses, but they were in Cherokee, so… She closed the book, everyone stood and was silent for a solemn moment, then she spoke a short phrase in Cherokee and the crowd began to file out. Buffy breathed a silent thanks that she didn't have to go past the coffin, then she noticed that the family was remaining in the room and felt bad and selfish.

She walked out into the sun with Kerry and turned her face to the sky. The warmth felt good after spending time in the presence of the metaphysical chill of death. She dipped her head and looked at her cousin. "You okay?"

Kerry half-shrugged, half-nodded, rubbing at her red-rimmed eyes. Buffy reached out, hesitated, then awkwardly extended a one-handed hug and felt the towel/shoulder pad shift for her trouble. She shrugged one arm, trying to work it back into place.

"Hey." Darren walked up behind her, startling her a bit. His parents were behind him.

"Kerry," said his mother, "thank you for coming. It means a lot." Kerry nodded and tried to keep her face from crumbling.

"Hello, I'm Wes Shotke." Darren's father extended a hand to Buffy. She grasped it; he had a really firm grip.

"And I'm Christine," his mom said. "You are…?" Darren stood behind his parents, grimacing, his hands in his pants pockets.

"Buffy. Summers. The Kern family–"

"Oh," Christine said, smiling broadly, "the one from California."

"Yeah," Buffy said as Wes released her hand. "Yeah, that's, that's me."

"Wes, Christine." Randall Mankiller, clad in a western-cut tan suede sport coat, shook hands with Darren's parents. "Good to see you, sorry it's an occasion like this." There was general agreement among the adults about this statement. Buffy fidgeted through a couple of minutes of small talk before Darren's parents left. As they walked away, Mankiller raised a hand, then turned back.

"I'd like a word with you two," he said, the first two fingers of his right hand in a 'V' parallel to the ground.

"What about me?" Kerry asked. Her face had gone pale.

"It might be best if you went and said 'hi' to some of your classmates," Mankiller said, then smiled warmly. "Don't worry, nobody's goin' to jail… yet." He slapped Darren lightly on the upper arm. Kerry nodded and scooted off toward a knot of students. Mankiller watched her go, then focused his attention on Buffy and Darren.

"I have a… strange collection of facts in front of me," he said. "Last night, somebody reported a pickup truck drivin' across their property toward the clearcut that runs parallel to 82. They called it in because they said the same pickup had driven across the same stretch earlier in the afternoon." He looked from Buffy to Darren, who raised his hands, palms-up. "Now, that in itself is no big deal, but two homeowners on opposite sides of that cut reported hearin' gunshots in the night."

"Are they sure about that?" Buffy asked.

Mankiller studied her. "You're from–"

"Yes, California," the Slayer said.

Mankiller snapped his fingers. "Buffy, right? Name like that sticks in the ol' gourd." He tapped his head. "Anyway, this is Oklahoma, so people know the difference between gunshots and firecrackers or a backfire. Anyway, we put two and two together and it turns out that's in the general vicinity of where this young man's–" Mankiller gestured toward the funeral home "-body was found, so, Joe Kanoska and I decided to take a look." He put his hands on his hips and stared at them. Buffy kept her face as bland as possible. Mankiller nodded. "I'm not sure what we thought would be out there, but we were pretty surprised when it was the body of Officer Ted Price." He shook his head. "Damnedest thing, there were feathers on the ground all around him. That got our attention, so we poked around, and we found a backpack at the top of a live oak tree with two bullet holes and the most godawful sludge in. The holes let some of the goop leak out, which helped us find it because, Lord, did it stink."

Mankiller rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "That was strange enough to get everybody involved. We poked around out there most of the night, and we think we might have found several sets of remains, and some old kettle that doesn't look like anything I've ever seen." He glanced at Darren, then looked at Buffy and held eye contact. "Ted being law enforcement and all, we expedited everything, got the ME out of bed, because there wasn't a mark on the body. ME did the inquest about seven-thirty this mornin' and he's about to check himself into the state hospital at Vinita, because it seems the closest we can come to a cause of death for Officer Price is the fact that his internal organs were missin'."

"Whoa, so Hannibal Lecter's loose in Oklahoma?" Buffy said. From the corner of her eye she saw Darren standing like a chunk of wood. Good. Stay just like that.

"You must not've been payin' attention," Mankiller said. "There are no marks on the body. It's like his organs Houdini'ed outta there."

"That's a great story," Buffy said. "But, oversharing much? I mean, not to tell you how to do your business, but isn't this amount of exposition pretty unprofessional?"

Mankiller cracked a half-smile. "It might be, but… are you gonna wheel into the police station and share this knowledge?"

The Slayer nodded, a wry smile on her face. "Touche. So… is there a subtext I'm missing?"

"Nah, not really. Like I said, it's just a bunch of weird, random facts, although–" he turned to Darren "- the description of the pickup truck was pretty close to yours." He waved a dismissive hand. "But there's probably, what, a dozen trucks within half a mile we could say that about. I'm just whistlin' in the wind." He looked back at Buffy. "How long are you going to be visitin' us?"

"We fly out of Tulsa tomorrow afternoon."

"Well, enjoy whatever your family's doin' this evenin'." He took two steps away, then came back. "Did you know Ted spent four years down at Big Mac?"

"Is that a famous local burger joint?"

Mankiller laughed. "Nice. Nah, it's the prison, down in McAlister." He put his hands on his hips. "It's in the middle of the Choctaw Nation." He nodded and walked toward the building.

"Oooooooh," Darren breathed. "I thought I was gonna pee my pants when he mentioned my truck."

Buffy reached up and adjusted the towel on her shoulder. "Yeah, but you didn't. You done good, Boo-Boo." She sighed. "Let's get Kerry home before this outfit falls completely apart."

Willow cocked her head to one side. "Ready?"

Tyler squirmed in his chair. "Not really."

"Don't be a baby. All you have to do is put your hand on my hand, if it even works." She raised both hands to her headband and settled it more firmly. "Okay, checklist. First, see if I can get in without using the mirror. Second, stay in for five minutes. Third, see if I can manipulate objects in this…" she made a stirring motion with an index finger "...while I'm in…" She pointed up.

Tyler looked around the bookstore. "What are you going to try and 'manipulate'?"

Willow shrugged. "I don't know. Probably whatever's available." She looked down at her notebook. "Fourth, see if gradually severing the tether results in a smoother withdrawal." She winced. "Probably should find a better word for that." She closed the notebook. "Ready? Five minutes, remember?"

Tyler swallowed. "Okay…"

They were seated in the cafe section of the store. Willow moved the napkin dispenser so that it faced her at a slight angle. The chrome surface warped her reflection, but she focused on the eyes…

And she was in. She wobbled for a minute, then stabilized. Tyler had her tethered. She scanned the bookstore; one of the quirks she had discovered about the Never Never was that she didn't actually have to move. Her perception was like a camera on a tripod; it could pivot three-hundred-sixty degrees, and zoom in or out (although that was tricky; do it too fast and all sorts of hijinks ensued). The palette was familiar by now: a fractal, shifting landscape marked by differentiated patterns and colors for organic matter, objects, and forces. It overloaded the senses and yet was perfectly understandable.

She brought her focus to bear on the doors. The locks might be an easy test. She 'zoomed', although she realized that was an inadequate term. The doors didn't just get closer but grew larger; the pattern resolved into a more granular form. She looked into the keyhole (she wasn't going to coin new terms for everything), which was now as big as her head. She could see the tumblers of the lock, and could see them as the components of a puzzle, like one of those slide puzzles her Nana always used to give her at Hanukkah. She looked at the shifting, shimmering particles and began to rearrange them. It took a fair amount of effort for her to extend her 'hand' and 'push' things into place, but first one tumbler, then the second and the third moved into alignment. Willow felt a giddy thrill, then realized that she had locked everyone inside. The test needed to be reversed. It was actually harder to return the tumblers to the original position, but that was probably because her will was fading. The last glowing pixels refused to budge. Her will was ebbing, so Willow gathered herself and made one final push, as hard as she could. The tumbler rotated to the 'open' position. She drew back and realized she was in the middle of a fireworks display: ribbons of color and sparks flew around the Never Never version of the store…

She shivered, but she was upright at the table. She rested her forehead on the heel of one hand.

"Are you okay?" Tyler said.

"Just kinda wiped," she murmured. "Was it five minutes?"

"A little longer. Listen, we should scoot."

Willow looked up at his agitated face and heard the beeping,whirring sounds. She turned her head slowly (she was still a little dizzy) and saw that the cash registers were running like hamster wheels. Long curls of white paper draped over the backs of the machines.

"Did I do that?" she asked.

"Unless you believe in massive coincidence, I think so." Tyler bit his lip. "Can you fix it?"

Willow shook her head. "I'm not even sure how I did it, and I'm beat on top of that." Her shaking hands gathered her notebook and pen, then shoveled the implements into her backpack. "You're right, we should go."

Buffy shifted, trying to get comfortable in the lawn chair. She wore a light blue T-shirt with the logo for 'Eskimo Joe's' in white. It was new, purchased that afternoon when she realized that her various misadventures had left her short on clothing. She found a better position and watched the bonfire crackle and pop. The final night's get-together was on a farm southeast of town; it belonged to a great-uncle once removed or some such. The field lay between two very gentle hills and the evening breeze carried the scent of wood smoke through the air. Dinner had been a 'weenie roast', and the Slayer had participated in the novel and somewhat surreal, to her, ritual of spearing a hot dog on a long stick and cooking it over the open fire. Now, the youngest children were clustered around the fire, roasting marshmallows. The air was filled with the sound of crickets and tree frogs.

She sensed movement and looked up to see Kerry hauling her own lawn chair. The Slayer smiled as her cousin took a seat beside her and tested the stability of the seating.

"Nice shirt," Kerry said. "It's funny."

"Really?" Buffy said. "There weren't many options, so I grabbed this one. People keep giving me the thumbs up. Is it a real place?"

"Eskimo Joe's? Oh yeah, it's over in Stillwater. One of Lacey's friends goes to OSU, eats there a lot. Been there for, I don't know, twenty years?" Kerry pointed at the shirt. "I thought maybe you picked it out because the dog's name is Buffy."

"What? No way." Buffy pulled out the front of the shirt and looked at it. "That's some serious self-mockery." She looked at her cousin. "Do you see your sister much?"

Kerry shrugged and watched the young kids run around the fire. "Most holidays, birthdays. Her and momma ain't fightin', it's just… strained." She shook her head. "Maybe it'll get better when Krista gets older."

"Krista… that's your…?"

"Niece. Yeah."

"Whoa," Buffy said, "that just gave me the wig. Thinking of being an aunt, I mean." They sat in silence as the daylight began to fade, then Kerry half-turned in her chair.

"You said you were goin' to do something about… you know. Then Mankiller talked to you and Darren after the funeral. What did he… Did you…?"

Buffy sighed. ""Kerry, I… I can't… Darren and me… we found out some stuff and we… gave it to Mankiller." She looked at her cousin's face, a soft pale oval in the dusk. "The killer… they know who he was."

Kerry licked her lips. "So, they'll arrest him?"

The Slayer shook her head. "I don't know… but Mankiller said something about… other bodies, so it… might be a while." She was grateful for the darkness; it hid the way her face burned at the knowledge of her own deceit. "But they know… and he's… he'll be punished."

Kerry was quiet for a long time. Buffy ached to say something, anything, but what? "Hey, the guy you liked was killed by a giant owl man and Darren and I killed it by shooting it in its heart, which it kept in a backpack in a tree"? At last, she heard Kerry sniffle, then swallow, a gulping noise that Buffy recognized as the sound of held-back tears.

"Thank you," Kerry whispered. "I don't know what you did… and the way you talk, I don't want to know or need to know… but you did something. Thank you."

Buffy got out of her chair and knelt by her cousin, wrapping her arms around the younger girl's shoulders. At her touch, a dam broke and Kerry began crying, softly. The Slayer stayed there until her shoulders grew tight and the knees of her pants were damp from the ground, but she remained until her cousin stopped weeping. Kerry finally pulled back and took a long, shuddering breath.

"I must look so stupid," she said.

"No," Buffy said, "you look like you care." She got to her feet, bending her stiff knees as her mother approached, backlit by the fire.

"Honey," Joyce said, "we're going to be leaving soon, and Nana asked to see you."

"She asked to see me?"

"Yes. She said to me, very clearly, 'Make sure that girl of yours comes to say goodbye'."

The Slayer brushed grass from her knees. "Okay, I will… Are you good?"

Kerry nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

As Buffy walked away, she heard her mother say, "Do you mind if I sit with you?" She shook her head and smiled.

Nana Rita was on the far side of the fire; the flames reflected in her glasses hid her eyes, but as Buffy drew close the old lady slapped the arm of the middle-aged man sitting next to her. "Get up, Leonard. Give your seat to the young lady. I'm an old woman and can't crane my neck to look up at her." The man heaved his bulk out of the chair and wandered away. Buffy muffled a laugh and lowered herself into the lawn chair.

Nana Rita dispensed with any preamble. "Your mother says you're flyin' back to California tomorrow."

Buffy nodded. "That's the rumor."

"Well, I didn't see much of you this time, which is a shame, since this is the only time I'll get to see you."

Buffy blinked. "I don't think–"

"Oh, let's don't pretend, sweetie. I don't have that many turns left on this ol' world, but that's all right." Nana Rita reached out and patted her great-granddaughter's arm, and Buffy felt the warmth and the residue of the old woman's once-considerable strength. "Not everybody gets to be old. I've outlived everyone I knew… all my brothers and sisters, my parents, all my cousins, the people I went to school with… all gone and I'm the last one left. You'd think that'd give me some sorta wisdom, but mostly, I just feel old." She laughed. Buffy nodded slowly, unsure what response was expected.

Nana Rita stared into the fire for a moment, then said, "But when I saw you, when your momma introduced us, I saw Sarah. She's gone now, and it's hard to bury your children, even harder when you don't get to bury them, when they're someplace else, but then I see your mother, and I see you, and Sarah's not really gone." She waved a hand that encompassed the entire gathering. "So many of these people remind me of someone else, someone who's gone, but as long as those people remain, so do the ones who've gone." She sighed. "Sometimes it's hard to learn how important other people are, hard to understand that most everything we think is important isn't, it'll all fade and all that's left is the people and your memories of 'em."

"Uh-huh," Buffy said, looking around for some sort of assistance.

"That's why you can't let things come between you and the people you love." Nana Rita stared at Buffy. "People make mistakes and they fail you, you fail them, too… but you can't give up on 'em, because they're all you've got." The reflection of the flames danced in her glasses. "I saw you leavin' at the cemetery, and I saw you leave the park. You met that Shotke boy yesterday, I guess that's probably what happened at the cemetery, too."

"Um, Nana Rita, I, I wasn't just sneaking away–"

"To meet a boy? Of course not. I remember how a girl looks when she's sneakin' away to meet a fella. You were goin' to do somethin'. Was it important?"

Buffy stammered, "I, I don't–"

"Lotta people think that Shotke boy's the devil, but I knew his, well, they all call her their grandma, that's their people's way, but she's probably the only person around older'n me. She was old when I married Lester. He's a lot like her… he always says 'hello' when he sees me." She sighed and settled back in her chair. The Slayer sat open-mouthed, unsure of what came next.

"No, you looked like you had somethin' to do, and that's when I saw Sarah again. She'd sneak away if it mattered, didn't care what people thought." She reached out again and Buffy, after a moment's hesitation, took her great-grandmother's hand. "If what you're doin' matters, if it's for people, don't let anybody make you feel bad about it. Now, would you sit here and hold an old lady's hand until your momma comes?"

"Sure," Buffy whispered as she wiped at her eyes with her free hand.

The last drum hit just hung in the air, reverberating through the night. The few scattered claps were overwhelmed by the amount of dead air surrounding them. Oz took a deep breath and blew it out. He glanced to his right at Doug and saw sweat trickling down his jawline.

"Okay, uh… this next one… this next one is one of our favorites… We hope you like it too." Devon bobbed his head three times and everyone hit the intro. Oz looked out into the inert darkness and tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.

Dr. Herve Calderon hummed as he walked across the parking lot. The security lights glimmered off his car, a three-year-old BMW. As he drew near to the vehicle, he glanced over his shoulder and was immediately irritated at himself. It doesn't matter how strong the feeling is, no one is watching you. He shook his head as he got in. As he pulled out of the parking lot, a dark figure slipped into the night. A moment later, another figure glided away in the opposite direction.

"Whoa, that was brutal." Doug looked pale and shaken. The members of Dingoes Ate My Baby were clustered under an open pavilion; the lawn rolled away to a concrete bowl with various undulations and a flat, raised area in one corner.

"Brutal is just the start." Geoff shook his head.

"Guys." Oz held up his hands. "We had two good gigs. This one was rough. That's all."

Trey wiped his face with a towel. "Yeah, I mean, I've played in bands that never had a good gig, sometimes you just have to erase the tape and go on."

"Erase the tape?" Doug said.

"Yeah." Trey took his Strat off the rack and put it in the case. "Like a VCR, show's no good, erase the tape."

"Still," Doug said.

Devon walked into the pavilion. "Dudes, that was not cool."

"That's what we said," Geoff chimed in.

"Man, I do not want to go through that again." Doug rubbed his face.

"Gentlemen, why the long faces?" Xander entered the pavilion.

"Did you see the show? We sucked," Doug said.

"Au contraire, my friend." Xander said. "You guys were fine."

Doug made a face like he tasted something terrible. "The crowd didn't think so."

"Well, that's because they were a terrible crowd." Xander gestured toward the parking lot. "Look, they're a bunch of middle-school twerps. Didja notice that every one of them is being picked up, not driving themselves?" He shook his head. "One kid kept complaining that you were taking up his favorite rail."

"Live and learn, I guess," Devon said.

"Oh," Xander said, handing a manila envelope to Devon, "you can take this."

"What is it?" the singer asked.

"Merch proceeds," Xander said. "Sweet,sweet merch proceeds."

"Wait, you sold T-shirts?" Geoff blurted.

"No, that bunch of rugrats aren't shirt buyers." Xander glanced over his shoulder. "But I may have given a free sticker to one of them to put on his deck. It looks pretty good on a board, actually. Anyway, after that, it was just a matter of letting the word of mouth do its work."

"So you gave the stickers away?" Devon asked.

"No, I discounted them to two-fifty, gave one to the first kid, then paid him a quarter for every sticker I sold so he would keep his mouth shut."

"How did that work?" Oz said.

Xander reached into his merch box and pulled out four stickers. "I sold forty of them. Minus my little roper's cut, that's ninety dollars." He winked. "Does that ease the pain a little?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm ready to go back to Sunnydale." Buffy slipped on her sunglasses as they walked out of the lobby of the Best Western.

"Well, I think you may have one more good-bye," Joyce said, nodding toward the parking lot. A beat-up pickup truck was parked across the lot from the Taurus. A young man with copper skin and long black hair leaned against the truck's fender. As Buffy nodded to her mother and crossed the concrete, he pushed away from the truck.

"You headed home?" Darren stood easy, hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Buffy nodded. "Yup." She pulled a strand of hair away from her face. "Oh, just in case it ever comes up, I gave Kerry a whole alternate history about what happened."

"Really?" He shrugged. He wore a T-shirt with Cheap Trick printed in descending rows. "What's our story?"

She gestured at the shirt. "Trying to bring back Budokan?"

"Hey, classic rock never goes out of style."

She smiled. "You keep telling yourself that. Anyway, if Kerry asks, you and I are an intrepid teen detective team who gave vital information to the authorities, Mankiller specifically, that led to the apprehension of a murderer."

He tilted his head back and looked at the sky. "That's actually much more believable than the truth."

"Often the case. Oh, and they won't be announcing the arrest of the killer, because of the other bodies."

His eyes widened. "So, she doesn't know…?"

Buffy shook her head. "Couldn't think of a single way to fudge that."

There was a moment of silence, then Darren grinned. "So, you headed back home to anybody?"

"Wha-?" Buffy stammered. "No… I mean, not really, I mean there's a guy, but we aren't… or, we haven't…" She shook her head. "The words, they are not my friends."

"So, if I showed up in Sunnyvale, would this guy be mad, or what?"

Buffy's eyes widened. "If you showed up in Sunnydale?"

Darren shrugged. "I got an aunt out in LA. My mom's sister. We visit her sometimes. I could probably swing north, if I had a reason."

Buffy felt a huge smile growing on her face. "Are you flirting with me?"

"I don't flirt." He crossed his arms. "I work my magic."

"Yeah, well, I think we've seen the limits of magic."

He looked directly into her eyes. "So, no visit?"

Buffy looked back at him. "If you came all the way to LA, and if you went so far out of your way as to come to Sunnydale, I suppose we might, I don't know, get a burger or something. It would only be polite."

Darren winked. "I'll hold you to that."

The End

This is the end of What I Did On My Spring Break. If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review. It means a lot. The Real McCoy will begin soon.