Author's Note: Interim chapter. Hell, Veronica needs a break, though, wouldn't you say?
Disclaimer: Buffy characters belong to Joss, Veronica Mars to Rob, and the plotline to me.
X X X X X
I hadn't had the presence of mind to lie to Buffy about much that had happened that night. Of course, considering that I was in the middle of a full-scale panic attack, I'm damned lucky I didn't confess everything, bringing my "wager" with the Adversary to a messy end then and there.
Of course, since I wasn't really making a lot of sense at that point, I suspect I could have told Buffy everything and she wouldn't have understood me. Of course, neither would experts on Finnegan's Wake, from what I'm told. I don't really have too clear a memory of much until I was home.
Buffy just sat there with me, waiting for my Dad to show up. She told me later she was keeping an eye up and down the street in case Drusilla decided to make a return appearance. I would have told her not to bother, had I been able to think about it, but at that point I was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to really concentrate on anything else.
"She says I can't be predicted," I finally said. "She says she has no idea what I'm going to do and that fascinates and terrifies her and . . . "
I babbled like this for two minutes until Buffy finally said, "You do realize I have almost no idea what you're talking about, right?"
"Was I talking?" I said.
"At great length, great volume and with great speed," she said wryly.
I seemed to be finally catching my breath. And right then is when Dad pulled up. Which gave me about fifteen seconds of semi-rationality to get out what I needed to say.
"Tomorrow morning. Ms. Calendar's a pagan, right. Have her predict me."
"Huh?"
"Do it," I said.
And that's when Dad ran up. Buffy gave him a summary of what had happened as far as she could tell, of course leaving out any reference to deranged vampires with Stevie Nicks fetishes.
Dad was clearly disturbed by what had happened, but, like I said earlier, seeing how shaken I was by the night's events restrained him from giving me the third degree. He fed me and hugged me and sent me to bed.
That's what daddies do.
X X X X X
Unfortunately, while Daddies take care of people and know when to give their seriously-stressed-out daughters some time off, evil supernatural beings have no such compunctions.
I'd say "damn them," but I'm fairly sure that's already taken care of. If they didn't simply laugh.
At least the Adversary was good to his word, though; once again, I was in for a Lilly-free evening. I found myself back in Dad's office, in the same position I'd been in when Drusilla and I were having our little chat, only this time the Adversary was there instead.
"Miss Mars," he began, "I --"
I didn't let him finish the sentence. "No," I said.
"No?" He seemed puzzled. I wondered how "seemed" it was. He knew everything about me but I never got the impression he was, precisely, omniscient.
"No," I repeated. "Not here. Not like this."
"Where would you prefer?" he asked urbanely.
"Right now, anything short of the lip of an active volcano would be good," I said.
It's been said to me that I need to keep my big mouth shut on more than one occasion. I'm not arguing the point, but I wasn't lying. It was too soon after for the Adversary's choice of seating arrangement to do anything other than piss me off.
Which possibly had been his point. In any event, the scene soon changed to the lip of -- wait for it -- an extinct volcano.
At least I hoped it was extinct. Or at least dormant with no chance of waking up anytime soon. "Funny," I said.
"I take you at your word, Miss Mars," he said.
"Well, assuming this isn't my overactive imagination deciding that I, no, a close encounter with quite possibly the scariest being in the Buffyverse wasn't enough, what the hell do you want?" Chalk it up to still not being complete over the panic attack. I probably would have snapped at Lilly at that point. Then, before he could answer, I figured it out. "This is about Drusilla's revelation."
"Yes," he said. "Good job."
"Amazing as it may seem to you, earning your approval? Not on my top ten list of things to do right now. Or ever."
I don't think I've ever seen you this – feisty – before," the Adversary said.
Feisty? He was going to regret that.
(In the dictionary, under idle threat? Look it up. You'll see what I just thought.)
"Yeah, well, I've never had to deal one-one-one with Drusilla before," I said. "And the last I checked, there was nothing in our 'agreement' about me not mouthing off to you. Nor was there anything about not mentioning the conclusions that Drusilla drew. Another little gift of yours, I assume."
He frowned slightly. "Actually, no. Not intentionally, anyway. I suppose it's a combination of you being magic-null and you actually being an 'alien' in this universe." Then, sighing, he said, "Nothing to be done about it now, I suppose."
"Can't you just wave your hand and get rid of it?"
"I could," he said, "But I would be breaking my word if I did it. I may be many things, Miss Mars, but I'm not a liar."
"That means you don't know what's going to happen, either."
The Adversary said, "I am not a deranged vampire – no matter how powerful her precognitive powers are. The rules that apply to them don't apply to me."
"That wasn't actually an answer," I said.
"No. It wasn't. The best way I can put this, Miss Mars, is that for me the future is written – but it is not necessarily written in stone. You can change things. You can surprise me."
"Have I surprised you yet?"
"Once," he said. "Which is more than most people manage. You should be flattered."
"I am. Enormously," I said, making no effort whatsoever to sound convincing. "See this face? My 'tremendously flattered' face. I've been told it bears a strong resemblance to my 'incredibly annoyed' face, but I've never actually made the comparison. Anyway, did you call me here just for kicks, or did you have a reason?"
"You seem to have picked up on the reason already," he said. "The vampire's revelations. As you surmise, they're not off limits, because what other people figure out about you is not within the terms of our wager."
"Well, that's something, at least," I said.
He smiled. "It's more than something. It's close to everything."
Didn't I know it.
X X X X X
Sleep, for the rest of the night, was hard to come by. I would be a cranky Veronica tomorrow. Not that that was too much different from "normal Veronica," but I preferred being able to operate without biting someone's head off for asking me directions.
That I would be a Sunnydaler who didn't mean it literally probably wouldn't be especially comforting to whoever got in my way.
Massive doses of caffeine, here I come.
X X X X X
Dad figured my "good night's sleep" – like I was going to tell him about my nightmares, Lilly-inspired or not – was enough to recuperate from the events of the previous evening. He wanted dates, he wanted names, he wanted descriptions.
"Didn't Buffy tell you that last night?"
"Buffy only told me that she chased off a crazy woman who jumped into the sewers, sweetie," Dad said. "She didn't tell me how she'd gotten there in the first place. Nor could she. Unless she's secretly psychic."
It's an indication that perhaps my mind wasn't quite as settled as I would have liked that my first thought was ,"Holy shit. Earshot." Still, I said, "Naah. She's got superhearing. I'm the psychic one."
"Oh really," he said, unamused. "What am I thinking right now?"
"That doesn't take a psychic," I said. "Look, Dad. You know me. I'm not the kind of person who folds under pressure."
"Nerves of steel, that's my girl," he said.
"Last night scared the hell out of me. And I'm not even entirely sure I can explain why." Not to you, anyway, much as I might want to. "I mean, it's not like I haven't dealt with scary people before." True; but I haven't dealt with them in this reality, yet. Dad's not going to count my close encounters with the Fitzgeralds, Aaron Echolls or Cassidy Casablancas that he can't possibly remember.
"How was she scary?"
I explained what had happened, finishing up with, "She was completely delusional," I said. "She kept calling me a Martian, for one thing. The scariest thing is that she was extremely polite and yet you could tell that that was all just a cover." I added, "What scared me the most is that it seemed to me that she was talking to me because she found me interesting. Not like she thought I was attractive; like she was a scientist and I was a particularly fascinating insect she'd just discovered, and she wasn't sure whether to dissect me or study me while I was alive." All true, except that Drusilla had decided to keep me alive. But it was sure as hell a large part of what made her scary.
"Did she say why she thought you were interesting?"
"Apart from me being a Martian, no. And that could have been just a joke about my last name."
He thought for a second, then asked, "How did she know it?" suddenly.
"She read it off the door?" I suggested.
"You could have been the receptionist for all she knew," Dad said. "If she'd picked you at random."
Crap. I knew where Dad was going and I had to derail it. One thing I did not need was Keith Mars attempting to track down Drusilla.
Because he'd be able to, you know. He's just that good. Never mind that Drusilla NLN died a century and a half ago; never mind that if she even has a last name at this point, no one's bothered to provide it; never mind that vampires, Wolfram & Hart clients aside, pretty much define "moved; left no forwarding address." To which you can add "Killed and ate the mailman."
Excuse me. Drained the mailman. Have to leave something for the vultures and rats, you know.
"You think she didn't?"
"Sweetie, the door was open when you got there; she clearly didn't meet you walking down the street and fixate on you, for some reason."
"But how could she know I'd be there?" I'd been wondering this myself. Knowing Drusilla, though, she simply somehow knew that I was occasionally at my father's office and simply decided to stick around on the off chance that I'd happen by. There were better methods, but there were worse. And, in any event, it had worked. "And, anyway, she clearly broke in. Who knows how long she had to look around?"
"The office didn't seem like it had been tossed." He'd taken a quick look inside when he got there. "Still, I get your point." Then he frowned. "Why do I think you don't want me to chase after this person?"
"Because I don't," I said. "This is the scariest person I've ever run across in my life. I'm hoping to never run into her again –" no lie, though I seriously doubted my hopes would become reality. Fairy tales can come true, true; but in Sunnydale? The kind of fairy tales the Brothers Grimm originally wrote. Not Disney's versions. "—and I'm kind of hoping the same thing for you. Look. I'll give you a detailed description; hell, I'll even march down to the Sheriff's Office and explain everything to Deputy Lamb, assuming you think that would be worth the effort --"
"Of course not," he said. "The insurance company might insist on it, though, so you might have to do it anyway. Don't worry. I'll pull a few strings and make sure someone else does the interview."
"You still have strings to pull?" I asked. "I thought they cut all of them."
He smiled a bit. "They tried," he said.
X X X X X
The weekend wasn't quite done messing with me even now, although at least what came next was a pleasant surprise. As I left to head to school, I found Buffy leaning on my car. "You weren't out here all night, were you?" I asked.
She started guiltily. "Not all night . . ."
"Buffy!" I said. I hadn't really been serious.
"Look, you had a crazy vampire apparently stalk you and push you into a panic attack. And honestly, I wouldn't have thought you were even capable of panic."
She don't know me vewy well, do she? Still, I appreciated the compliment. "I try not to. I think being trapped in my Dad's office by a deranged vampire who finds me 'interesting' more than justifies the reaction." A pause, then, "You were really here the entire night?"
"Of course not," she said. I simply stared at her evenly. "After all," she added, mumbling a bit, "I had to be home when Mom went to bed and there when it was time for me to wake up."
I shook my head. "Why?"
"You're my friend, Veronica," she said. "And I'm not making a short blonde joke either. I didn't know what Drusilla was up to, or what she was capable of, and I wasn't going to take the risk on her making a return appearance. You might be immune to her magic, but you're not immune to her tearing you into little bitty pieces."
"Which is something I was thinking about repeatedly throughout the encounter," I said, "As well as off and on all night."
I must have sounded angry, because Buffy held up her hands and said, "Whoa. Sorry. Not trying to make you relive it, I swear."
"I know. I think I'm going to anyway, for a while." A moment or two of amiable silence, and I said, "You know, the least I can do after that is treat you to a coffee." I yawned. "Besides, I'm going to need one myself."
"I'm not going to say no," she said, and moved to get into the LeBaron. "So, what are you thinking?"
"Do they sell it by the gallon?" I asked.
"Quit thinking small, Mars."