Author's Note: Sorry for the long delay. I really haven't been feeling very well recently. But my health's more or less back to normal now and I should be writing now for a while.

Disclaimer: Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, Veronica Mars to Rob Thomas.

X X X X X

The day returned to normal, normal of course being defined as "normal for Sunnydale," not "normal for the rest of the world."

I wasn't going to intervene in Patrice's little demonstration of out-of-control gunplay when Buffy went to her law enforcement seminar. As near as I could tell, I hadn't done anything that would change that, and it was kind of important for the Willow/Oz relationship.

I'd already messed one up. And whether I thought everything that came after was important or good, I still wanted to see Xander and Cordelia get together.

It wasn't going to happen today, though. For a few hours, I hoped, I'd get to stop thinking about how to manipulate people for fun and profit.

But this is me, remember. A few hours? Try thirty seconds.

I ran into Sheila after I left the library. "Heya, manhunter," she said. "Got something you might want to pass on."

"What?"

"Got a vampire in my building. Saw him beating up some guy last night."

I frowned. "Describe the vampire."

"Dark hair. Kinda good-looking, if you like the Johnny Cash look. Not my type."

"Did you get a look at the man he was beating up?"

"Yeah. Scarred face. Only seemed to have one good eye." Ah. So that's where Angel stashed the guy. I guess killing a human outright in cold blood was still beyond their purview, so Angel's keeping him confined while they hash out what to do with him. Glad that's not my decision.

Actually – it's not a decision I'd have a hard time with. I'd say kill him and be done with it. I'm not a violent person, and I have issues with the death penalty (except for Aaron Echolls), but this guy had tried to kill Buffy already and would sure as hell give it a second try if he got the chance.

"So how'd you know the dark-haired guy was a vampire?"

She looked at me like I was stupid. "Saw his face. No one's that deformed."

We stopped. "I have to tell you something," I said.

"Anything, manhunter. You know that."

"You need to understand why I'm not going to report that particular vampire to the slayer."

"Why?"

"She already knows about him. He's one of the good guys."

She frowned. "I thought you said vampires were evil by definition."

"Everyone except him, apparently," I said. "He has a soul. Cursed with it by some gypsies – I'm not completely sure of the circumstances, but I've run into him a couple times and he seems completely trustworthy. But he's the only – and let me stress that word, only – exception."

"So why was he beating the guy up?"

I knew why, but of course I couldn't tell Sheila. I'd extended myself by telling her about Angel's curse, but I didn't want her to either worry about a vampire in the building, or worse, try to kill him. (I didn't know how far she'd gotten in practicing her witchcraft, and while she wasn't likely to telekinetically shove a stake through Angel's heart, she was perfectly capable of throwing one.

So all I could say was, "From what I know he doesn't beat people up just for the hell of it. He's on a redemption kick. Probably the one-eyed guy was some kind of villain. Maybe a demon, maybe another vampire. You'd have to ask him."

And Sheila gave the answer I hoped she would. "'snot going to happen. If you say he won't try to eat me, I trust you, but he better not look at me funny. Or my mom."

"If he does," I said. "Don't fight. Run. When he was one of the bad guys, apparently he was really one of the bad guys. Not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. Or a well-lit alley. Or the main road. Or at all." Then, changing the subject, I said, "How's the witchery coming?"

"Pretty good. Rae says I've already gotten above where she can teach me. She's trying to find someone she can trust to take me further. A lot of witches with power apparently kind of lose control. Ain't going to happen with me, manhunter. Losing control almost got me killed. Not going to happen again." Then she grinned. "'sides, it's more fun when you keep hold of yourself. What's the point in knocking things down if you can't slow down enough to appreciate it?"

"That's always been my motto," I said.

"You knock things down?"

"When I have to."

"Yeah. But I bet my way's more fun."

X X X X X

Once I got out of homeroom, Logan and I ran into each other. "So," he said. "Got any plans to enter the corporate world?"

I looked at him oddly. "Fun as it might be to give the Kane parents collective apoplexy, I think I'm going to have to decline the company's offer. I already know what I plan to do for a living and it has nothing to do with counting beans."

"Beancounters get no love."

"Only if the beans they're counting are coffee beans." He snorted, and I said, "So, how about you?"

"How about me?"

"You said you had plans to observe a career yesterday. So. What did the illustrious Logan Echolls decide was worth his time?"

"By pure random chance, I got landscape designer."

"Ah. So you'll be doing the gardening."

"Tempting, if only to see the look on my father's face. 'Hi, Dad. I've decided I'm going to be planting roses for a living. And possibly mowing lawns. When I do the Kanes' garden, I'll be sure to pass them my regards.' No, alas. I lack the patience for it. And I have a low tolerance for fertilizer."

"Then why do you spew so much of it?"

He said, "I knew the second that came out of my mouth that it was an irresistible straight line."

"Always happy to live down to the expectations of others," I said. "I gotta be me."

"And the world is grateful that you took on the job. You spared someone else the responsibility."

I frowned. "You know, I can't tell if that was a compliment or insult."

He mock-saluted. "Which is exactly the way I intended it. If you get bored during today's career presentations, look me up. You may be many things, Mars, but boring isn't one of them."

Boring? I sometimes feel like I'm living the old curse, "May you live in interesting times." I could do with some boring.

Still. A question I ask myself sometimes is, would I want to go back to being the Veronica I was before all of this happened – before Celeste Kane told Duncan I was his sister, before Lilly was killed, and way before I got shanghaied to Sunnydale. And the answer is, no – provided Lilly was still alive to enjoy it with me. I'd give up who I was in a second to bring her back, warts and all.

I'd have to be careful about expressing that, though. Here it could get me an unsolicited visit from a vengeance demon. Not that I knew one way or the other whether a vengeance demon would be able to override the Adversary. I was thinking probably not, but I wasn't about to risk it.

Should prove fun during the Wish, assuming I, and things, ever got that far.

By the time the job fair actually started, I was heading away from it. If nothing else, I figured, I could hide out in my "office," or go to the school paper's office and do some work there. Photographer for the most part, but Sunnydale's journalism department wasn't quite as hierarchical as Neptune's. Everyone had their assignments, but everyone also pitched in where necessary – especially when it came to proofreading articles.

Spellcheck was nice. It was not proofreading. Fortunately, Duncan agreed with me on this. Every article was spellchecked and then proofread/copyedited twice before it saw the light of day. This prevented embarrassing mistakes, such as the one we nearly sent out with a picture of the captain of the football team labeled "dummy head."

It's a journalism term. I doubt the captain would have appreciated that.

(I also doubt he would have tried to beat up Duncan Kane. The rest of us didn't have quite so many protections. I'd say he wouldn't have beaten me up either, but given where we were living I wasn't about to make book on it.)

As I said. Headed away. Unfortunately, the best laid plans and all that. I ran into Principal Snyder as I rounded a corner. "And where do you think you're going, Miss Mars?" he asked.

"Heaven, if I pray and eat all my vegetables," I said.

"Doubtful," he snorted, leaving open the question on whether he was insulting me or the concept of heaven. "Anyway, you have a career fair to get to."

"And nothing to do," I said. "My recruitment pitch was yesterday. Today, I have nothing to do."

"Hardly. Children with nothing to do are against school policy. You just head back to the career fair and pick a career. My advice to you would be short-order cook."

I forced a smile. "Thank you for your advice. I promise to value and cherish it."

"I doubt that seriously," he said. "Now get going."

Unable to think of any creative way to stall, I started walking. Damn. Unless I had a heart attack, I was going to the career fair. And Snyder wasn't making things any easier. (In fact, I believe "making things easier for the students" went against his religion. Assuming he had one. Hell, Gregory House had more of a spiritual side than Snyder did.)

He watched me walk all the way back down the hall, presumably on the theory that I would bolt if he didn't keep an eye on me the entire time. That he was right doesn't make it any less annoying.

Of course, he wasn't following me. And there was nothing saying that once I got to the student lounge I had to stay there.

In fact, if I saw anything remotely approaching a female cop with a gun fetish or a Willow and Oz meet cute, I was going to beat landspeed records getting out of there.

X X X X X

All things considered, I probably would have been better off faking a seizure, decking Snyder, or spontaneously developing the ability to teleport; anything to avoid that place then. I didn't have the chance to sprint out of the lounge; I didn't even have the chance to yell "watch it!"

I saw Willow and Oz having their discussion.

I saw Logan nodding to me across the lounge.

I heard a loud voice saying, "Buffy Summers," looked around, and saw Patrice just starting to pull out a firearm.

I yelled, "Gun!" Everyone started looking around wildly.

Hell, maybe I could stop even Oz from getting hit.

The gun went off as Buffy shoved Patrice's hands towards the ceiling. Everyone started running around, screaming and panicking.

I started grabbing people and shoving them towards the exit hallways. I couldn't see Logan for a second; then I saw him doing the same thing at the other end of the room. Psychotic jackass he may be, but he's always had a strong aversion to seeing innocent people hurt.

Willow and Oz, unfortunately, were too far away for me to be able to do anything to help them.

Second gunshot. "Move!" I yelled. "Move, move –"

Buffy kneed Patrice in the stomach. When, a few seconds later, I saw the fake cop pull out her second gun and point it at Buffy, I knew it was time to stop helping other people and start helping myself.

The lounge was a lot emptier as Buffy ran for cover. I moved into the hallway and (reluctantly) told people to go tell both Snyder and the police. No doubt Snyder would find some way of blaming this on Buffy, but even borderline incompetent and corrupt authority was better than no authority at this point.

Buffy yelled "Get down!" and started running.

Well, you know this scene, almost. Oz had already pulled Willow down to the floor after I screamed, so the bullet that would have hit him bounced off the far wall. Another shot rang out and I watched the rest of the scene play out the way it had in the show; my presence had apparently been somewhat helpful.

Never mind that I hadn't wanted to be here in the first place. More and more I was getting nostalgic for the moderately authoritarian but reasonably competent Van Clemmons.

Buffy and Patrice played cat-and-mouse for a few seconds, then scuffled again. At this point Kendra ran past me and kicked the fake cop's third gun out of her hands, whereupon she grabbed Jonathan and started backing away from the two Slayers.

Right towards me.

She didn't seem to even notice that I was there.

Okay, borrowing the terminology from Speed, pop quiz, Veronica. An assassin with a hostage is coming towards you. You have the chance to maybe slow her down, but she has a knife to the hostage's throat.

What do you do?

What do you do?