Author's Note: Two people, one scene.

Disclaimer: Veronica Mars, Buffy, the plot: Joss Whedon, Rob Thomas, me.

X X X X X

I was waiting for Buffy the next morning at the Espresso Pump. So far, all we had on the schedule was coffee.

It was good coffee, though. And the pastry was equally good.

Buffy had two. That famed Slayer metabolism, for all that Buffy protested that she preferred a low-fat yogurt when she was all done slaying for the night. I doubt that Xander went on all those donut runs just to feed him and Willow.

So," I said after we took a couple of bites. "Are you ready to take over the world?"

"Take over the world?" Buffy said.

"Sure! Look at us. Who'd expect it?"

"Well, you're right there," she said. "I guess we could your detective skills and my . . . "

"Ability to piss off Snyder?" I said.

She laughed. "To be fair, I think everyone in the school has that talent."

"True. But thee and me and Sheila seem to be especially good at it."

"Me and Sheila I understand," she said. "You, though? You get good enough grades that Willow gets nervous. What did you do to tick him off?"

"I exist, and I refuse to be afraid of him," I said. "Trust me, if he'd been around back when I was running with Lilly Kane and Dad was the sheriff, he would have sucked up to me like sucking up was going out of style. You'll notice he doesn't give Duncan or Logan Echolls any problems at all, and Cordelia very few. Of course, by the time he started piling on, I was so used to it from everyone else that I hardly noticed. It made me appreciate Cordelia all the more."

Buffy blinked. "I can't imagine she didn't take a few shots at you."

"Oh, she did. But she'd been giving me a hard time all along. One thing about Cordelia: She always lets you know where you stand with her. It's an odd kind of appreciation, admittedly. But she's earned it." I took a sip of my coffee, then continued: "Honestly, I think you and my father are the two things keeping him from bringing all his weight to bear on me."

"Glad to be of service," she said wryly.

"You know what I mean," I said.

"I do." After polishing off her first chocolate croissant, she said, "As for what I did –"

"You came here with a reputation, and there's no one sticking up for you except for a couple of other semi-outcast students, a librarian he hates anyway, and your mother, who isn't highly enough placed for him to care about her opinion."

Raising her eyebrows, she said, "Not bad." After a second, "Semi-outcasts?"

"Yup. You have Xander and Willow."

"So what does that make you?"

I sighed. "I guess by now I'm a semi-outcast, now that Sheila Kelly's made me her new best friend."

"That's one I wouldn't have seen coming."

"I didn't either. But I'm not complaining. I'm perfectly capable of getting along without caring what 99.9 of the people on the planet think about me. That doesn't mean I'm going to turn down friendship when it's offered." Though I still might use the people. It was a hard lesson, and one I was still trying to learn: My friends do not exist for the good they can do me.

"I wish I had that attitude," Buffy said. "I can get along fine without a lot of other people – I'm learning that – but some part of me still wishes things were like what they were like back in Hemery, where I was popular and clueless."

"With what I went through to get it, no, you don't," I said. "And you seem to be doing fairly well so far." Then I decided to test things. "So, you burned down a gym?"

She looked at me, decided I was being just curious, and said, "I don't suppose you'll believe my smoking mice story?"

"Nope. I have it on good authority that mice only use chewing tobacco. It's hard for their little paws to work the lighters." Buffy snorted. Stopping, I thought: Did I really want to make her invent a plausible excuse. No. "You don't have to tell me. I was just curious."

She said, "Well, it is one of the big things hanging over my head. That and my occasional odd behavior here."

"If by 'odd behavior' you mean 'Saving a lot of people's asses when that gang invaded the school,' then I say hooray for odd behavior."

"You should talk," Buffy said, staring at the bottom of her cup. "Pooh."

"Well, it's not like the world's run out of coffee."

Buffy looked at me as though I'd just stomped on a kitten. "Don't ever say that," she said.
That's one of my worst nightmares. A Buffy without caffeine is no Buffy the world wants to meet. I imagine Tokyo going up in flames, airplanes falling from the sky, and Raymond Burr running around like a madman and interacting with badly dubbed Japanese guys."

"There's always soda and tea," I said.

"Okay, I'll give you soda," she said. "But tea? What am I, British?"

I refrained from mentioning Giles, and said, "I should talk about what?"

"Huhwha?"

"I mentioned how you've been given credit for saving people when that gang on crystal meth invaded the school, and you said 'I should talk.'" I wanted to know how much she knew about my escapades with Sheila and the Echolls family.

"I saw Aaron Echolls take credit for saving you on TV," she said. "I also heard Logan's version of the same events. And let's just say that I'm a lot more inclined to believe Logan. Asshole that he can be --"

"I prefer 'obligatory psychotic jackass," I said.

"Fine," Buffy said. "Psychotic jackass that he can be, he seemed to be telling the truth. And somehow I don't see him going out of his way to say nice things about you."

"Not usually, no," I said. "We get along now a bit better than we've been getting along, but it'd be stretching things to call him a friend. So, what did he say?"

"How you led one of the -- gang members --" a hesitation so slight I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking for it -- "on a chase through the back of the school, got the door blocked while Aaron stood around with his thumb up his butt, and then directed traffic when the gang member somehow broke in anyway."

"So I ran, hid, and fought when I had to," I said.

"Still better than most people do," she said. "So was what Logan said more or less accurate?"

My agreement with Aaron didn't cover confirming when someone else stumbled on the truth independently. (Thank goodness, it also didn't cover Logan talking about it. Either Aaron Echolls figured he had his son cowed, or figured no one important would listen to him. The latter was, alas, likely true whether that was his motive or not, unless Logan went the atomic bomb route and told everything to the mainstream press; but at this stage in his development he wasn't ready to do that yet.)

"It was a choice between that and letting the guy come in and beat us up," I said. "That's not really a choice."

"True," Buffy admitted. "Still, most people would have been quivering in fear. You didn't." After a second, "So, what happened to the gang guy?"

"I'm not sure," I said. "He was unconscious the last I saw. I told Deputy Lamb about him on my way out. Why?"

"Just making conversation," she said. She wasn't; she was still trying to probe me, to see if I knew anything. And she was being a damn sight more subtle about it than she had been right after Halloween.

Well, if she was going to probe me, I was going to probe her. "How about you? Driving off the entire rest of the gang by yourself? Crawling through the vents like you were John McLain? See this face? It's my horribly impressed face."

"Like with you," Buffy said. "It's not like I had a choice."

"I hid in a room. You fought back."

"Someone had to," she said. "I couldn't just let the gang members ea – I mean, attack everyone with impunity. And I know you're not going to suggest I should have waited for the police."

"The police in this town? You'd get more protection from the Cub Scouts. Now, anyway."

"True," she said, and went to get more coffee. When she got back, she handed me a paper cup.

"Thanks," I said.

"You're welcome. So, ready to blow this pastry stand?"

I stood up. "Where to?"

"Walk and talk," she said.

As we left the coffee shop, she said, "There's one thing I'm still not clear on."

'Only one?" I said. "Impressive. That puts you up on most of the rest of us."

"Ha ha," she said. "No. I just want to know what you know about that Supersoaker Sheila had when the gang invaded. And how you saved her from that mugger."

"Beats me," I said. So. She'd given up on hinting and was getting around to asking flat out. "As far as the mugger goes, I was in the right place at the right time and had the right tool for the job."

We stopped. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid," she said.

"If there's one thing I know you're not, it's stupid," I said.

"You can't expect me to believe that that's all loaded up with pepper spray."

"Do you think I'm lying?" I said.

She said, "Let's just say I find the story a bit on the unbelievable side."

"Turn here," I said.

"Why?"

"I have something to show you," I said. Then, after we walked in silence for about two minutes, I said, "So much for outcast bonding."

"No," she said. "I was telling the God's honest truth when I said that. We have a lot in common and I really would like to be able to trust you more." I mentioned Billy Fordham; she winced and said, "No. This has nothing to do with that. I believe you when you said it was a job. And you can't betray me if there's no real connection to betray. We've always gotten along, but we've never really been friends."

"I appreciate your being willing to talk to me like I hadn't just been sprayed by a skunk," I said.

"That outcast solidarity thing again," she said. "Where are we going?"

"My father's office," I said.

A few minutes later we were there. "This shouldn't take but a minute," I said, and opened the supply closet with a key Dad didn't think I had. (You didn't think he just let me take all that surveillance equipment, did you?)

On second thought, scratch that. He probably does. He seems to know almost everything else I do. He's just waiting to bring it up when I step over the line.

This was something I had set up for a while. I pulled out a bottle of hot sauce. Not Tabasco; something that makes Tabasco look like mayonnaise. It wasn't pure capsaicin; I don't think that was on the market yet. But it was one of those sauces where one drop in a pot of soup will make it too hot for most people.

Then I handed the bottle to Buffy.

She frowned. "You brought me here to serve me nachos?"

"No. Here's what I want you to do. Open the lid carefully." She did so. "Now. Put one drop of that on your finger."

She did. Three seconds later she began to swear. "What the hell?"

"That's how hot that stuff is," I said. "Bathroom's over there. Quick, go rinse it off." While she was in the bathroom, I went to the first aid kit and got out some burn cream. When Buffy got back out, I handed it to her. "It should go away in a day or two."

"You just burned me," she said.

"Have you ever heard the story about the old prospector and the mule? Well, the prospector had fallen on hard times and needed to sell the mule. After some haggling, someone finally agreed to buy the mule because the prospector said the mule would do anything it was told. A week later, the angry customer found the now ex-prospector and demanded his money back. "That dern fool mule just sits there." The prospector laughed and said, "Hold on. You ain't learned how to deal with him yet." So the customer and prospector find the mule and the customer takes the reins and starts trying to lead the mule -- which doesn't go anywhere. Prospector says, "Let me show you how it's done." Then he picks up a nearby plank and whacks the mule four or five times as hard as he could. While the customer watched, shocked, the old prospector picked up the reins and pulled, and the mule trailed after him. "What did you do that for?" the customer asked. The prospector said, "First, you have to get its attention."

I looked at Buffy to see if she got it. After a second or two, she said, "Couldn't you have just said, 'You're stubborn'?"

"Sure. But it's not nearly as much fun."

"So you take this uberhot sauce and what? Mix it in with some water?"

"Yup. Works better than pepper spray. Same reason I use a water pistol -- distance and accuracy."

She seemed to have forgiven me for the mild burn on her finger. "Which leaves only one thing. How did you know what was coming? How did you know Sp -- how did you know enough to be ready for an attack?"

"I'm a detective," I said.

But Buffy was shaking her head. "No. Not going to wash this time, Veronica. If you knew something was coming, why didn't you warn everyone?"

"Honestly?"

"If you don't mind."

"I didn't know something was coming. But Sheila was nervous." I'd need to call Sheila and apologize for this.

She blinked. "Try another one. Sheila Kelly's not afraid of anything."

"She'd just nearly been attacked," I said. "I happened to be walking by and used my water pistol to drive her attacker away. When she sobered up, she thanked me. I don't suppose you've noticed her reformation."

"I know she's been participating in class," Buffy said. "More than I have, actually."

"Are you sure you want to set that low a standard?"

Looking at me carefully, Buffy apparently figured out I was teasing her, and ignored the gibe. "Still. That doesn't explain it -- "

"Sure it does," I said. "Sheila's been the baddest badass on the block for three years now. Teachers are afraid of her. And she ran across someone who didn't give a crap -- who upended her worldview in a matter of seconds. Who knows what could have happened if I hadn't wandered by at just the right moment?"

"So she brought the gun just in case."

"And, lo and behold, the worst-case scenario actually panned out for once."

"Hmmm." She thought for a second, and then said, "Okay, I believe you. One drop of that stuff hurt like hell."

"Sit," I invited. She sat down in one of the lobby chairs and I took the sofa. "Here's something you can trust. Whether or not we've been friends, I would like to be friends. There are damn few enough people in the world who do more than tolerate me as it is. I will not betray your trust. I will never do anything to intentionally hurt you." Notice I did not say I'd never lie to her. On that matter, I had no choice.

"Intentionally?"

"Well," I said. "You gotta allow for contingencies. So. Do you believe me?"

Slowly, she nodded her head. "I think I do."

"Good. Then I have a question for you, based on this new level of trust we've established."

"What's that?"

"What did you think was in the water guns?"