Disclaimer: Buffy's Joss', Veronica's Rob's, only the original characters and plot are mine.

X X X X X

After a stop at the coffee shop – where we did not get gallons and gallons, but did startle the counterwoman with how much caffeine we were shoveling in – we headed to school.

In addition to everything else, I still had the case of the stolen laptop to deal with. Fortunately, that would be fairly easy. Still, it was something else I had to do.

Life, they say, is just one damned thing after another. My life? Living proof.

Again, still, after the weekend I had, though, it would be good to get back to school, where I already knew 90 of what I was being taught and the worst threat – Bad Eggs aside – was Armin Shimerman in a cheap suit.

(Quark and Snyder. And a horny judge on Ally McBeal, if I remember correctly. Now there's an actor with some range. I'd say more than Aaron Echolls, but really, why insult the man?)

Between sips – okay, gulps – I did find time to ask Buffy whether she'd managed to arrange things with Ms. Calendar.

"I think so," she said. "Of course, given that all you said was, 'She's a pagan, right? Have her predict me,' I can't really say exactly what was arranged. But she'll be in the library before school."

I blinked. "Was I making that little sense?"

"That was you when you were making the most sense," she said.

"No wonder you stayed outside all night."

She said, "It may sound like I'm playing this lightly, Veronica, but I'm really not. You were in absolute panic and babble mode, and I don't think I've ever seen you anywhere close to that. Hell, you were cool beyond cool when you had a stake to Drusilla's throat."

"You think so?" I interrupted. "Boy, I'm ready for a career on the stage of you believed that."

She said, "You know what I mean."

"I do," I said.

"Anyway, if something about it weirded you out that much, even if you weren't too clear on what it was, I figured no way am I going to take the chance that maybe Dru might not be done with you." After a second, "You feeling rational now?"

"More or less," I said, "But I'd just as soon wait to clarify things until I have the chance to explain this to Giles and Ms. Calendar. And anyone else in Vampire Killers, Anonymous."

"The Scooby Gang," she muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"We call ourselves the Scooby Gang."

"Whose idea was that?"

"Whose do you think?"

"One Alexander Harris?"

"Aided and abetted by one Miss Willow Rosenberg," Buffy said.

"Unfortunately," I said, musing, "I don't know what that would make me. Scooby-Dum? I think you're already full up, assuming you count Cordelia."

She sighed. "I guess I have to. She has been helping us a lot recently."

"Says something about her that she is," I said.

"Yeah," Buffy said. "I know. Sometimes people surprise you."

Okay, so she hadn't spontaneously come up with that on the night of the prom. Hardly a surprise. I reused my own internal dialogue on a fairly regular basis. Real people don't have scriptwriters.

I said, "I wonder if you should have been surprised. Think about it. What does Cordelia pride herself on being?"

"Good-looking, rich, and better than everyone else?"

"Besides that," I said.

After a second, Buffy said, "Telling the truth."

"Give the Slayer a gold star," I said. "Cordelia's devoted enough to telling the truth that she's not going to deny the truth, either."

Buffy looked at me oddly. "Are you sure you're a detective and not a psychiatrist?"

"They both involve knowing people," I said. Though, truth be told? Reading people, not necessarily my best skill. Beaver Casablancas had me fooled for a year and a half. Yes, I know he fooled everyone else, too. Not exactly a big comfort. "You think I could hang up my shingle? Psychiatric help, five cents each, the doctor is in?"

"In Sunnydale, you'll be rich or dead by tomorrow."

"Or possibly both."

"Sure, now you think big."

X X X X X

We got to school about twenty-five minutes before the opening bell rang; Plenty of time to finish up the case of the missing laptop (complete with dramatic denouement, with Buffy serving as muscle to make sure no one involved decided to make a break for it), invite Sheila along to my meeting with Ms. Calendar (with the promise of explanations to come), and have a brief encounter of the marginally unpleasant kind.

"Mars. Summers. What are you two doing here at school so early?" He asked the question as though he assumed that, whatever answer we actually gave, what we really meant was something like "We're here to plant bombs and cause mischief and otherwise disrupt the orderly functioning of your school."

"We're just that eager to learn, Principal Snyder," Buffy said chipperly.

"Don't lie to me, Summers," he said. "I've seen your grades."

"Well, in her defense," I said, "She said she was eager to learn. She didn't actually say she was any good at it."

He looked at me and shook his head. "The two of you together."

When he hadn't said anything else after about ten seconds, I said, "That's right. The two of us together. Was there something you actually wanted to say about the two of us together, or are you just making random observations?"

"I'm watching you," he said, and walked away.

"I think they have laws against that in this state," I called after him. He turned and glared at me, then walked on.

We then raced around the corner as Buffy dissolved into a giggling fit. "How the hell do you do that?"

"Do what?" I asked as we made our way towards the library.

"Get away with mouthing off to Snyder like that?"

I shrugged. "He doesn't scare me. Also, my father knows exactly who and what he is -- another member of the same establishment that got him tossed from his job. Finally, my grades are high enough that I actually bring some distinction to the school."

"So I either need to buy a parent with a clue or work on my grades?" I nodded my head. "I'm doomed," she said as we entered the library.

Sheila, Giles and Ms. Calendar were sitting there. "Doomed?" Ms. Calendar said with mild alarm.

"Not that kind of doomed, Ms. Calendar," Buffy said. "Just trying to figure out why Veronica seems to have no fear of Principal Mussolini."

"Buffy," Giles said reprovingly. "You shouldn't say that." He quirked a smile. "It is quite insulting to Benito Mussolini."

"I'll apologize the next time I see him."

"That's going to be kind of hard," Ms. Calendar said. "He's been dead for over fifty years."

"That takes care of that, then," Buffy said.

Sheila nodded in my general direction, "Hey again, manhunter," she said. "What's going on?"

"Yes," Giles said. "Have you learned something about Epimetheus?"

"I wish," I said. "No, last night I had a close encounter of the decidedly unnerving kind. Seems Drusilla thinks I'm interesting." Then I explained last night as best as I could, with Buffy filling in the details from when I was non completely compos mentis.

Sheila was practically out of her seat. "Where is she?" she said. "'ll kill the bitch."

"Stand in line," Buffy said.

"Don't stand in lines," Sheila said. "I cut them."

Ms. Calendar, though, while properly alarmed by the parts of my story that were alarming (which was pretty much all of it), was distinctly more thoughtful.

"I think I see why you wanted me here," she said. "You'd like to see if what Drusilla said was true."

"Got it in one," I said. "I know you're not a practicing magic-user yourself, but I also know you know quite a bit about divination methods. If you can't predict my future, then, crazy as she is, she was telling the truth." Giles, meanwhile, had gone into the rare books cage and was paging through something rather frenetically.

"Would it help," she said, "If I said I could halfway confirm it already?"

"How?" I asked.

"She's already cast runes or tarot or rolled the bones or something, manhunter," Sheila said. "'m guessing it came up completely meaningless."

"Runecasting," Ms. Calendar confirmed. "First time I've ever seen a pattern contradict itself."

Giles looked up from his rummaging and said, "The pattern contradicted itself? How is that possible?"

"I have no idea," she said. "No one else had seen it either – the consensus was that, somehow, I'd cast it wrong. Now I'm not so sure."

"Why're you checking on manhunter's future?" Sheila asked suspiciously.

She said, "Habit. I cast runes and do tarot on various people I know just to keep my hand in. Nothing ominous, I assure you."

Sheila looked like she was ready to say something, but I cut her off, saying, "Consider me thoroughly assured." I wasn't quite as sanguine about her actions as I sounded – what could her motives have been? -- but now wasn't the time to get into it. (And, anyway, she'd seemed to think it was unsuspicious enough that she said it openly without any trace of embarrassment.)

"'m not," Sheila mumbled, but didn't complain any further.

"Is there anything I need to do to help you?" I asked. "You're not going to need a piece of my hair or anything, are you?"

"It's fortunetelling, not voodoo," Ms. Calendar said amiably. "It's better to do the tarot when the person whose future you're trying to foretell is sitting nearby, but otherwise I think I'm okay. Oh: If I'm going to try astrology, I'll need your date, time, and place of birth."

A simple question, right? One of the simplest. Only I'd never actually spent much time thinking about it. I took an educated guess that I'd simply been shifted back six years (because seven would have made me overage for the junior class) and said "Here in Sunnydale, at the hospital. 10 AM . . . August 9, 1981." If I was wrong, if the Adversary had screwed with me there, I was a dead woman.

"10 AM exactly?"

"10:03. Is it important?"

"The more precise I can be, the better the reading. Rupert, what the goddess are you doing?"

"Checking to see if I can find any information about someone who's alleged to have Miss Mars' condition," he said.

"Condition?" I said. "I don't have the plague, Mr. Giles." I don't think I'd earned calling him "Giles," yet. Not out loud. It was kind of hard for my internal narrative not to, what with years of hearing him referred to that way; but I was simply a casual acquaintance who shared a secret. Not even Scooby-Dum, yet.

(And the first person who even thinks Scrappy-Doo gets tasered where the sun doesn't shine. And I don't mean Nome in midwinter.)

He looked sheepish at that. "Right. Apologies. In any event, I have been unable to locate anything as of yet. I shall keep searching, however."

"No rush," I said.

"Anyway, Giles, I doubt there'd be any prophecies."

He smiled. "Quite right. Difficult to predict the – what was the word you used, Miss Mars?"

"Nonpredictable."

"Thank you," he said. "Still. There may be something in here on it."

"Let's not go putting the cart before the horse, Rupert," Ms. Calendar said. "Let's confirm it, first." She looked up. "Which is something we're going to have to do later, unless you want Buffy, Veronica and Sheila to be late to class."

"'course not," Sheila said. "Can't miss out on hearing my math teacher drone on about algebra."

"There is nothing wrong with algebra," Giles said as the three of us got up.

"Never said there was," Sheila said. "Just something wrong with the way she teaches it."

Buffy said, "Good idea. I'll use that the next time I bring home a C on a math test."

"Or you could actually try studying," Ms. Calendar said lightly as she followed us out.

"Kind of hard to maintain decent study habits when prime studying time is taken up by slayage," Buffy said.

"Veronica manages," Ms. Calendar said.

As we parted ways, Buffy glared at me. "I knew you were a bad example."

"I live to disappoint."

X X X X X

Sheila wasn't so easily put off; after Buffy and Ms. Calendar left, she pulled me into my "office" and said, "I will kill her if you want me to. Wish I'd done it when I had the chance."

Trying to keep things light, I said, "What's Buffy ever done to you?"

She scowled at me. "Not funny, manhunter."

I smiled slightly. "I know. And thanks, but no. Reiterated with a 'hell, no.' I prefer you alive. Go up against Drusilla without a lot of experience or a lot of friends and you've got every chance of winding up something else Buffy has to stake."

"I prefer you alive, too, manhunter," she said. Then she hit me on the arm, hard enough that it hurt.

"Ow," I said deliberately. "What was that for?"

"Reminder not to do that again."

"What, get trapped by a lunatic vampire? I'll do my best."

"You better."

X X X X X

Logan, who was betwixt and between when it came to knowledge of the supernatural, still got the Dad version of events rather than the Buffy version. The boy had the overprotective gene in spades and the last thing I needed right now was everyone and everybody running around trying to protect poor, helpless Veronica.

I know there are times I've needed protection. And thank goodness, Dad and Logan have been there at the time. I have no objection to being protected. But being smothered is something else entirely. Keep me safe. Just give me some room between me and the fortifications you're planning to build around me, okay?

"If I see this person --" Logan said.

"Cal the police," I said. "Call the FBI. Call Baywatch. But don't go after them yourself."

"Why, Mars," Logan said. "Are you actually concerned about me?"

"I don't want you dead," I said.

"That's an improvement."

I sighed. "I never wanted you dead." After a beat, not wanting this conversation to get too too terribly serious, I said, "Maybe maimed."

"Maimed? I expect something more imaginative from you."

"Once again, I live to disappoint."

X X X X X

Ms. Calendar caught up with me and asked if I minded if she gave me the results of her attempts to predict me tomorrow. What was I going to say? Hell no, I want my future and I want it now? Besides, me, not much of an expert at these things.

Dad also called while I was at lunch -- and telling Xander, Willow, and a reluctant Cordelia of my travails with Drusilla -- to explain that, no, no police report was necessary since the amount was under 1000 to repair the office door. Good. Hadn't wanted to talk to Deputy Lamb anyway. Never wanted to talk to Lamb, if possible. If he and I were trapped at the bottom of Challenger Deep I'd ask one of the deepwater shrimp what they thought of the latest Seinfeld. And would almost certainly be guaranteed a better conversation.

Good. That left me free, finally, to follow up on something related to my own history, and not that of the Buffyverse. I told Dad I had something to do after school that night -- yes, someone would be with me -- and got back to being the best raconteur I could.

X X X X X

In the period between classes, I called Holly Takamura -- remember her? The bit actress whom Aaron Echolls had allegedly had an affair with, ending in a vicious temper tantrum when it turned out she'd been taping their tryst -- and, pretending to be Madison Sinclair of the National Enquirer, implied that I would be interested in going over the details of her encounter yet again. Being between gigs, she had no problem with it. I suggested we meet somewhere outside of town "just to be safe." She said that a coffee shop in Santa Carolita would be fine.

Santa Carolita? I wracked my brain for a minute and finally recalled it as a mid-sized town halfway between LA and Sunnydale. About an hour's drive. That should be fine.

Now for my company.

Two points if you guess who I took.

Here's a clue. There are three people in this town who know Aaron Echolls is a viable suspect. I'm one. Dad's not going.

A road trip with Xander Harris.

I can hardly wait.