Interlude: Good, Bad, and Ugly, Part 1
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October 13 - 21 The Scoobies
Monday started the school week. The Scoobies had fun on Monday showing Ampata around the school. They even got to hear about the differences between American schooling and what Ampata got in Egypt. Towards the end of the school day, Jon sought out Xander.
"I'm picking up on that sick girl again, a little." Jon told him.
"She must have something fairly bad wrong, then - like maybe cancer or something, if she's still bad after two days, but not coughing or sniffling or anything like that." Xander said after a moment or two. He felt bad for her. Being sick at all sucked, but having something really bad and possibly terminal wrong with you was even worse.
Jon sighed, but nodded. "That's what I'm figuring." He too felt badly for the afflicted girl.
They had to patrol without Willow that night, as she couldn't figure out a way to reasonably excuse her absence without Ampata trying to tag along. That night marked the first time they found the sucked-dry bodies.
"Ok, this is new." Buffy said, standing over the body that Jon had tracked down, her expression somewhere between disgust and curiosity. "Giles?"
Giles shook his head. "I've never seen the like. Nor do I remember reading about a demon that would do this. We'll have to do some research to figure it out."
They never found another sucked dry body. This caused a lot of debate on the fourth night.
"Either whatever it is was just passing through, which I doubt." Buffy said, holding up a finger. "It's learned to hide its leavings better." Another finger. "Or something else is coming behind it and making use of its ... leftovers ... before we find them." Buffy raised a third finger and made a disgusted face.
Xander sighed as he closed another book. "And we're getting nowhere with research, so we can't exactly figure out which of those is the case."
They'd found half a dozen demons who could suck a human body dry. The problem was that they weren't viable alternatives. One was really big - as in two stories tall which would make it all but impossible to hide. The second had a strong, distinctive scent. The third emptied entire villages in a single night, which eliminated it as a suspect because they'd only found the one body. The fourth needed the sort of thin air only available at high altitudes, which meant it couldn't survive in Sunnydale. The other two were only ever seen to arrive in the wake of other demons when things got REALLY bad on Earth every now and again, and those other demons weren't around.
Granted, they hadn't searched all of Giles' books yet, but it wasn't looking good to match up the critter they were dealing with with something the Council knew about. While they were all aware that it wasn't possible for the Council to know about every demon in existence, it was annoying to have no information to work with. The possibility of committing a fatal error was a lot higher when they knew nothing about what they were facing.
Jon was a little more outwardly sanguine about the whole mess than the others, mostly because he was used to walking into a situation where he knew fuck-all and making it back out alive. He'd long ago learned to deal with it, whether he liked it or not. Or, well, Jack had, which was really the same damn thing. That said, he wasn't all that happy about an ongoing, unknown threat in town thanks to his Sentinel instincts.
The remainder of the week was surprisingly quiet despite the new, unknown threat. Thanks to their increased patrols and unsubtle hints to stay inside after dark, none of the foreign students got eaten. Better, there were very few demons and vampires out and about despite the 'new blood' running around. This too caused a good bit of debate, as it seemed counter intuitive to the younger Scoobies.
"It's gotta be Spike." Jon said after one particular debate. "Giles said he was different from most vamps, and Giles also said Court Masters control the action in their territory. Put the two together ... "
Willow nodded. "And Spike just might be smart enough to realize that targeting the foreign students would be a bad idea, because it would focus unwanted attention on Sunnydale that might not go away."
It made as much sense as any other explanation they came up with, and a good bit more sense than some of the other ideas they'd had. Whatever was going on, they were just grateful that they weren't having to work overtime to protect the foreign exchange students. Finally, Saturday rolled around again and the exchange students left for the next school on their tour.
Ampata promised to write and stay in touch with them, having enjoyed his stay, and the Scoobies promised likewise. Despite the promise, none of the Scoobies were sure if they'd actually be able to. It was entirely possible that they or he would eventually forget about writing each other. After all, despite the horrific conditions in town, no one seemed to know or care about Sunnydale in the wider world. The county and the state of California were both aware that Sunnydale existed. Neither governmental boy seem overly concerned about a lack of paperwork from the town. That fact implied there was some sort of mojo that kept people from being interested in Sunnydale on a certain level. If a person wanted to move there they were fine. Anything else, not so much.
Once the exchange students left, the gang met up in Buffy's basement to celebrate and relax a little bit. They were still concerned about what it was that had sucked someone dry, but after almost a week of research, nothing to show for it, and no new bodies, they'd reluctantly shelved the issue. Giles, who was keeping track of how many of what sort of baddie they dealt with a night - whether they killed it or not - made sure to write down about the sucked-dry bodies just in case more started showing up somewhere down the road.
They'd been sprawled about in the basement for about a half hour when Jon abruptly sat up and turned, frowning towards the general direction of the street. "Jim and Blair are coming." He said.
Xander did a double take. "Really? I wonder why? I hope nothing's wrong ... "
They all trooped upstairs. About five minutes later, Jim and Blair pulled up in a rental and got out. There were a lot of handshakes, and to Xander's secret pleasure and outward squirming dismay, a semi-awkward hug for him from Jim.
"Well, neither of you is hurt, so ... " Jon cocked his head, curiosity plain on his face.
"We wrapped up a case yesterday and Simon gave us the weekend off. We decided to come down and spend some time with Xander and you lot." Jim said.
Xander did another double take. He was thoroughly unused to even semi-parental figures wanting much of anything *positive* to do with him. Yell at him, hit him, denigrate him, sure. Be nice? Not so much. And while he'd been around Joyce and Giles, both of whom treated him well, he still wasn't *used* to it, not after a lifetime of ill treatment. And they weren't his actual parents. That Jim was going to the effort of traveling a VERY long way just for a weekend's worth of time with him blew Xander's mind. It had blown his mind back at the Parent-Teacher night too. He hadn't quite started thinking of Jim as his father, but if this kept up he definitely would, and sooner rather than later.
For his own part, Jim had been rather surprised that Simon had given them the weekend at first. But then he realized that Simon would be sympathetic to Jim's desire to get to know his son and spend time with him. Simon wouldn't really be able to play favorites, but he could afford to shove Jim out of the precinct for a weekend when they weren't working a case. Jim's record and the fact he had close to a year's worth of vacation time saved up thanks to NOT taking down time unless he was forced to do so worked in his favor there.
"So, the troll giving you any more problems?" Jim asked.
He'd been somewhat disappointed to miss out on giving Snyder shit for messing with Xander. Evidently the little shit had enough self-preservation to recognize that Jim was a physical threat. He just didn't have enough to have realized that Joyce was just as big a threat until it had been too late.
"Nope. He's mostly left us alone since then. A few grumpy comments, but nothing more than that." Xander said with a grin.
They spent the afternoon watching movies. Willow, Giles, and Joyce were all hard put to not laugh at Xander, Jon, Jim and Blair, as the four men had arranged themselves rather interestingly. Jim was turned so that he could keep an eye on the front door. Jon had placed himself so that he could keep an eye on the back door. They'd put Blair and Xander between them, so that anyone approaching the two Guides would have to pass by their Sentinels first.
What was funny about it was that none of the four seemed to be truly aware of what they'd done. In Jim and Blair's case, they'd gotten so used to Jim physically shielding Blair from danger (as much as he could) that it didn't really register on a conscious level for either of them. Jon and Xander were too new to it to really notice it yet.
What no one in the room realized, but would have found both hysterically funny and interesting as hell, was that Jim and Jon had automatically, instinctively placed themselves on the very outer edges of the room, putting Giles, Joyce, and Willow as well as their Guides where a threat would have to get past one of the two of them first.
Jim had debated with himself the entire flight up about whether or not he'd pull the kids into training while they were there. Eventually, reluctantly, he'd decided not to. For one, he didn't want Xander to start assuming that Jim's only interest in him was to train him to be an effective Guide and a credible threat to the Sunnydale nightlife rather than a liability. Once their relationship was on firmer ground it wouldn't be such a concern, but for now it was. For another, Jim didn't want to step on Jon's toes too much. He knew Jon had training, and could and would pass it on. Jon just might see Jim trying to train the others as an infringement on his territory. God knew Jim would see it that way, if some other Sentinel showed up (god forbid) and tried to pull that shit at the precinct.
That said, he couldn't protect the kids from Blair. He strongly suspected there would be at least one conference and a training session with Blair before they left. Blair would at least want to reassure himself as to the pair's progress. Jim could tell him they were fine, but Blair would need to see it for himself.
When dusk hit, Jim and Blair helped patrol. Jim honestly didn't know how Jon dealt with Sunnydale. There was so much weird shit pinging Jim's senses it drove him a little nuts. He honestly didn't think he'd be able to spend more than about a week here at a stretch because of it.
They slept on the couch that night - Joyce had invested in a sleeper couch in anticipation of having more guests than she did beds after taking Xander in and finding out about the Sunnydale nightlife and her daughter's ... job, for lack of a better word. More movie watching happened the next morning and afternoon, until Jim and Blair finally had to leave for their flight back to Cascade.
"We'll come back down when we can." Jim said. "But I don't know if we'll get a chance before Christmas ... it all depends on whatever cases we get. That said, you lot are invited up to Cascade for Christmas. I figure it'll be a bit quieter and easier to celebrate there." Jim told them.
Xander groaned. "You do realize you just jinxed it, right?" He asked with a grin.
Jim glowered, then sighed. "Damn it, you're probably right. Oh well. Nothing for it now." He shrugged while Blair snickered and shook his head.
"Don't hesitate to call if you run into a problem." Blair told them. "Sentinel or otherwise."
"We won't." Jon said.
Handshakes and another semi-awkward hug for Xander did the rounds, and then Jim and Blair took off in their rental.
Monday marked the re-start of school. It also marked the return of Angel, who had made himself very scarce due to Ampata's presence. No one had wanted to try to explain things if Ampata noticed that Angel wasn't exactly your bog-standard human. Angel's relief when he found out he'd missed Jim and Blair being in town was more than a little funny to Xander and Jon both. They did ask him if he'd ever heard of a demon that sucked people dry, but Angel was as clueless as they were. With that last (semi) reliable source of information tapped, the whole thing was dropped until such time as it came up again.
Tuesday morning, Snyder announced that certain high schoolers would be escorting the kidlets from the elementary school around on Halloween. The Scoobies were somewhat miffed to find themselves on the list, and were tempted to smack Snyder around a bit until Joyce pointed out that they'd have been patrolling that night anyway.
"Just wear a costume you can fight in if things get dicey." She recommended. "That costume shop opened up yesterday, so you've got plenty of time to pick something you like."
Jon made a face at having to play dress up. "I haven't done this since I was ten." He groused.
"When was that, the dinosaur age?" Xander snarked. It earned him a glower from Jon, and a snicker from Buffy and Willow.