Mountain 5

Part 1 : Chapter 11 YMF

Part 2 : Chapter 25 YMF

Part 3 : Chapter 66 YMF

Part 4 : Chapter 6 YEMF

"Why do I smell smoke?" Cordelia asked as she woke up.

"I discovered a new way to make fire," Xander replied.

"Indoors?" Cordelia asked, coming awake.

"Using just a pen and paper," Xander agreed.

"Didn't you once set a book on fire by saying a few words in Latin?" she reminded him.

"A lot of my discoveries seem to involve fire," he agreed.

"I'm trying to think up a biting comment involving Buffy burning down the gym and your crush on her, but nothing is gelling at the moment."

"You just woke up, you can't expect quality quips before your morning coffee, or in this case, coco," he replied, heating up the kettle.

"Coco is just going to make me want to stay in bed," Cordelia noted with a yawn.

"How's the leg?" Xander asked.

"Feels good enough to…still require help getting to the bathroom and back," she said after she tested it.

"And compared to yesterday?"

"No comparison," she said with a sigh. "Yesterday I felt like I'd been in a car wreck, now it's more of a training sprain. Still, I'd like something stronger than Midol if you can find it, because this does not feel good."

"I'll make that a priority, along with something to read," he promised.

"Xander?" she asked while he made her a mug of coco.

"Yeah?"

"I…thank you, I know I'm not the easiest person to get along with and I'm still pissed at you, so I'll probably say a lot of horrible things while trying not to, because you fucked that red-headed…witch, but…I forgot where I was going with this. Please find me more alcohol so I can be thoughtful, rant, and cry while blaming it on the booze."

"Booze is probably safer than past due pain pills," Xander agreed. "Would you like some Midol?"

"Yes, but I can't take pills with hot liquids or I gag."

"I'm the same way," Xander told her. "Want me to get you a glass of water or a soda? I don't recall if they had diet Pepsi, though."

"I don't trust expired diet drinks anyway, just get me a regular soda with caffeine," she replied.

Xander handed her a mug of coco, and started getting dressed so he could go outside.

"So, how'd you end up setting a piece of paper on fire?" she asked as she sipped her coco and watched him dress, pretending not to look.

"I wanted to figure out how things were running without power," Xander explained. "So I grabbed an extra hot plate last night to take apart and this morning when I took it apart, all I found inside was a couple of stone disks, that line runes up when you turn them and when I wrote them down, the paper caught fire."

"Like a hand-written spell," Cordelia said.

"I actually know something about that. Giles tried to educate me on the difference between reality and Marvel comics, when it comes to the Norse pantheon. Odin sacrificed an eye to…the universe, I think, to gain wisdom and that's how he gained the knowledge of runes, which were considered magical and was taught to humanity, giving us a written language."

"And these are those runes?" Cordelia asked curiously.

"I think so," Xander answered. "There are some definite differences from the ones I'm used to, but it's possible the priests of Wotan kept them a secret using a… non-powered version for writing and taught it to the common man."

"And someone knew enough to use it to…what?" Cordelia asked, confused.

"To save on power bills?" Xander guessed. "They put plugs on things to hide it, but it's probably the reason we've still got light and heat."

"And if not for whatever happened, no-one would have ever known," Cordelia said.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to keep a journal detailing them, otherwise Giles would kill me when we return."

"Wouldn't it just catch fire?"

"Nah, my mistake was writing them all down on the same line…I'll have to use the runes I'm familiar with…I wonder if that's how they got lost."

"You mean the real runes weren't written down because they would activate, so the fake runes were used in their place, so when archeologists dug everything up, they only found the fake ones?" Cordelia asked, following his train of thought.

"Yeah," Xander agreed, as he laced up his shoes. "It makes sense. Be right back."

Cordelia sight as the door closed behind him. Here they were, sharing a motel room and instead of being spooned up together in bed, naked, like she'd imagined, they were at odds with one another, and worried about surviving. "Any condoms we could find would probably be too deteriorated anyway," she muttered after a couple of minutes trying to think of something else.

"What?" Xander asked, not having caught more than the last few words as he came back through the door.

"Just thinking about how different things hold up over time," Cordelia quickly said, accepting a can of cola from him.

Xander nodded and retrieved the Midol from the bathroom. "Happily, I can get one of the cars running."

"Cars?" Cordelia asked, grateful for the sudden change of topic.

"Our choices are stay here and settle down as we wait for rescue, which may take more time than we have food available, or wait a reasonable amount of time and then search for a place with more food and supplies. Besides, just in case there's an emergency where we have to travel, I'd rather have an option beside walk or run."

"The road is blocked," she reminded him.

"It's only a bit of dirt and mud," Xander assured her. "As long as that's the worst section of road, we'll be fine with a truck or SUV."

"What if the entire world is this way?" she asked.

"Then we have plenty of canned goods and soda to see us through until Willow and Giles figure out a way to get us home."

"She can't give head correctly and you expect her to get us home?" Cordelia demanded.

"She's got the power, Giles has the knowledge," Xander replied. "And I doubt whatever voodoo they cook up will be adversely affected by her dick sucking skills." Xander wasn't exactly Willow's biggest fan at the moment and he knew Cordelia needed to vent, so he was having a real hard time not laughing.

"You find this funny?" Cordelia accused him in shock.

Xander burst out laughing and took a minute to recover. "Just picture Giles and her arguing about the correct pronunciation of vowels in a magical language before he sends her off to practice her 'oral skills' so she doesn't screw it up."

Cordelia snickered. "OK, that is funny."

"Plan for the worst, hope for the best," Xander said.

"Be careful out there," Cordelia told him. "I still can't walk and I don't want to be stuck here all alone."

"I'll be careful, and not Xander careful, but Cordelia careful," he promised.

"And no fucking any red-heads," she added.

"And no fucking any red-heads," he agreed.

Typing by: Elrod Albino!