p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Please find all disclaimers in the first chapter./span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Mackenzie sighs as the sunlight seeps into her room through the soft film of the sheers, but oddly enough cannot hear her own sigh. She clears her throat, assuming that its' sore from talking too much the previous day. She is interrupted from trying her voice out with the ringing of the cell phone. She knows that she said 'hello', but no sound comes from her lips. Oh my God! She thinks and quickly gets dressed. Realising that texting would be a better form of communication, she texts the group and they reply that they too are unable to verbally communicate and that will be assembling in one of the lecture halls. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Buffy Summers: Kenzie, please don't go to Giles'.br /spanMackenzie Lamont: Why?br /Buffy Summers: I can't say. Just do me a favour and don't go to Giles'. I think it's better if you go to Joe's bookstore and see if he has some kind of rare volume on sudden collective /Mackenzie Lamont: On it. We'll talk /Buffy Summers: Thanks a ton, and yes, we'll talk later./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"An eerie horror movie feeling creeps into her bones as she walks through the streets towards the bookstore. Opening the door, she looks around and finds her uncle behind the counter reading through what she can only assume to be Watcher journals. She taps the countertop, as the overhead bell hadn't brought him from his reading. He lifts his head and his eyes light up. Standing, he makes his way around the counter and wraps her in a huge bear hug. She returns the embrace and fins the little notebook she had brought along with her. br /'I'm looking for a rare book on sudden collective muteness'. She signs and smiles when he nods his head that he can understand American Sign. Thank God, she thinks as he scoots around the counter and retrieves a few books. br /'I think these would be more help'. He signs and she opens one to the page that he had tucked a yellow piece of paper into. The /'The Gentlemen?'br /'Methos has heard of their existence, but had never seen them before.' He signs quickly. 'Take those to Giles. They may help.' He adds with a warm /'I'll bring them back once we're finished with them.' She signs /'Good luck.' He reaches across the counter and places a comforting hand over hers and she looks into his eyes. In that moment, she essentially conveys to him that they will get to the bottom of it./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Buffy Summers: Kenzie, meet us as UC Sunnydale. The psych lecture /Mackenzie Lamont: Got some books that Joe thinks will help. I'm on my way. She replies as she quickly makes her way out of the shop and heads towards campus. Entering the large space, she finds Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Anya sitting in a cluster in the front while Giles stands in the position of lecturer. She quickly makes her way towards him and sets the books on the desk before he makes his way towards her. br /'Do you sign?' she signs and mouths for him. He shakes his head 'no' before placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. He goes to the table and opens the book to the marked page and quickly skims through the contents— clearly, this text has a little more information for them to add to what they already have and he sees the answer to their puzzle, but does not make the addition to his presentation./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Setting himself up to begin his presentation, Giles cracks his fingers— that appears to get their attention and he presses the play button on the small portable CD player he brought along for the presentation. He places the first transparency upon the projector and Buffy and Willow point out that its upside down, while Anya, who is eating popcorn motions for him to simply flip it. Giles quickly remedies the issue and begins his presentation. The first slide asks; who are the Gentlemen? He whisks the slide off and replaces it with the next. They are fairy tale monsters— it says and has a crude drawing of what they actually look like. The next slide asks; what do they want? Giles demonstrates by holding up his finger and understanding, Willow points to her chest. Xander, your average male mouths 'boobies?' while Giles just gives him one of his best 'really Xander?' stares. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Changing the transparency, showing hearts which Giles gestures towards and Xander finally gets. Anya merely raises her eyebrows and continues to merrily eat her popcorn. While changing the slides the rest of the presentation unfolds. The Gentlemen arrive at a town, steal all the voices of the inhabitants so that no one can scream than essentially removes their victim's heart. Willow and Buffy turned to each other and exchange severely disturbed glances. The next series of slides follow. They need seven, they have at least two. Wanting attention, Xander frantically snaps his fingers. 'How do we kill them?' he holds up his board. Buffy's response is taking her fist and pumping it towards herself. Xander's expression is of one of confusion and she grabs her stake from her messenger bag and repeats the gesture. Xander appears to get it and Giles looks relieved as Willow pretends that everything is 'normal'. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Popping the next slide onto the projector, it reads; in this tale no sword can kill them, a slide with a Gentleman with three swords sticking out of its body at odd angles. There goes my plan, Mackenzie thinks to herself. The next in the series had a picture of a princess with two Gentlemen lying dead at her feet and read, but the princess screamed once... and they all died. Willow holds up a CD and then holds her hands over her ears to dramatically illustrate dying— she smiles proudly thinking she has the solution. Giles holds up a finger to stop her and pauses the presentation for dramatic effect— only a real human voice. Giles points to his throat. Silently sighing, Willow throws her hands up with a pout. Buffy is frantically writing on her whiteboard. 'How do I get my voice back?' Giles doesn't share the information Mackenzie has brought forward, he has run out of slides. He intends to tell her later./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"The next slide is up; Buffy will patrol tonight. The picture is of a girl with a bow and arrow. Buffy's expression is priceless as she holds out her hands to illustrate that the girl in the picture is too fat. In response, Giles makes some quick gestures and then points to the rest and holds up one of the books Mackenzie has brought to indicate further research— as he wants to verify the validity of the sources she has brought to him before discussing further details with Buffy and the rest of the gang. Everyone simultaneously gets up and Buffy stares at the final transparency of two Gentlemen, almost as if studying the figures and committing them to memory. As they file out of the room, Giles grabs Buffy's attention and has her stay behind. He shows her the book Mackenzie had contributed that held what he thought the potential key to her getting her voice back. She nods her comprehension and reaches up to squeeze his shoulder in a gesture of comfort and to reinforce that she will be fine. He returns the gesture and she helps him collect his material before walking him to meet the others. 'Patrol', she mouths and is on her way. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Here, Gentlemen, she taunts them in her mind, where are you? She wonders if her line of thinking is correct and begins to allow her feet to lead her towards an older part of campus. She doesn't see Riley, her current boyfriend, and his Initiative, Professor Maggie Walsh's secret government covert operative, buddies— dressed head-to-toe in camouflage pants and black tight sweaters carrying what must be fully automatic weapons. But she does see two very odd looking, fresh out of the asylum beings swinging their arms madly while making their way to the clock tower. Curious characters, she thinks as she cautiously follows them into the old building unsure of what lies ahead. Buffy is unprepared to find the Initiative trying to kill these beings with guns, but then again that's always appeared to be their way, kill it first, keep one to question later. She watches as one of the things in white grabs a barrel and Riley kicks it and watches it fall. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Unnoticed another knocks Buffy from behind and she falls in front of one lying unmoving. Trying to do some quick math in her head, Buffy realises that it doesn't actually matter how many of them there are; she has to find the box, so she makes a dash for the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she assesses her surroundings quickly and immediately notices that there are only two empty jars. It is then that she is kicked down from behind and three lackeys grab hold of her as three Gentlemen, who appear to hover over the floor rather than walk, glide towards her— one holding out a scalpel, which gets a little too close for her comfort and a blast of electricity violently throws back the Gentleman. Riley quickly shoots a nearby lackey and now Buffy is only held by two. She quickly turns the tables with a flip, she hits one away. With Riley's weapon suddenly out of charge, she is tackled once again by the lackeys. Working together, Buffy and Riley manage to hold them off momentarily, until Buffy is stabbed by one of the Gentlemen with the scalpel and finds herself weakened a bit. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Buffy's gaze falls on the box she saw in her dream and the one Giles had shown her earlier, sitting on the table alongside the jars of hearts. Her mind flashes back to a little girl holding the box. Buffy frantically waves her hands to nab Riley's attention and he quickly smashes a blue vial that sits next to the box. Looking to her for approval, she rolls her eyes and mimes opening— understanding this, Riley mouths 'oh', and promptly smashes the box. An odd-looking mist slowly emerges from the box in swirls and the lackey holding Buffy suddenly throws her down. Two streams of mist pull themselves from the main and split once more, returning to Buffy and Riley. Not wanting to waste any more time, Buffy screams at the top of her lungs and the Gentlemen's heads explode with gooey parts of grey matter and chunks of skull landing on various places about the room. Buffy and Riley look at each other realising that their silent film ordeal has finally ended./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Giles and Olivia are happy when the two streams of mist enter his flat and find their way back to their rightful owners. He sits himself on the comfortable hunter green sofa and Olivia follows suit draping herself over him, her head resting on the sound of his steady heartbeat. Their moment of silence is broken as Giles voices the thoughts in his /"So would you say this was, uh, your best visit ever?" he inquires with a slight humour in his tone. Her eyes are fixed on the window while she formulates her response. br /"All the time you used to talk to me about witchcraft and darkness, and the like. I just thought you were being pretentious." She smiles and he can feel the change in her facial expression on his /"Oh, I was. I was also right."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;""So everything you told me was true." She lifts her head to gaze up at /"Well no, um, I wasn't actually one of the original members of Pink Floyd, but the monster stuff, yes." He replies matter-of-factly. She resets her head down and finds herself looking out the window /"Scary." She says almost under her /"Too scary?" he /"I don't know." Her reply is simple, yet at the same time very telling in the direction their relationship would strongnot/strong be going. Funnily enough though, he finds himself okay with that./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Meanwhile in a dorm room not too far away, Buffy sits on her bed deep in thought. She has had quite the experience with Riley and she is uncertain as to the direction of their relationship, or even if they really have a relationship. The conversation would be inevitable, she knew— but. A gentle knock interrupts her intense thoughts and Riley enters /"Hi." He says as he closes the door behind him. She would normally smile at the sight of him with their poster of Chocolate definitions pinned to their door providing a yummy backdrop for the yummy /"Hi." She replies /"Well, I guess we have to talk." He sits himself on Willow's bed as Buffy scoots herself to the edge of her bed, slowly letting her lean legs dangle until her toes than feet come to rest on the /"I guess we do." She replies simply as they sit silently, facing each other, mirroring the others posture of shoulders slumped and hands folded in their respective lap- Buffy twisting her fingers together nervously. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Mackenzie sits up in her living room and reads her notes in preparation for a test she has to write the following afternoon. Somehow she finds herself far too distracted to study, instead, she makes her way to the foyer. Putting on her shoes, she grabs a light jacket and her keys and heads out to her uncle Joe's flat. She gently knocks on the door and waits for him to answer. br /"Kenzie, hey." He says and moves aside granting her access. "I see the gang was successful." His smile is comforting. She removes her shoes and jacket and smiles /"Thankfully. Put another check in the good guy's column. The books you so graciously lent me helped us tremendously. I'll pick them up from Giles tomorrow after classes." She follows him into the living room. His flat is set up in a similar manner to Giles' in that there is a small gully kitchen, a fair sized living room, a narrow staircase leading up to the bedroom and full /"You want to talk about it?" he goes into the kitchen and she sits at the breakfast bar. br /"Funnily enough, no." she makes a funny face realising how odd that just sounded, even to herself, "I just found that I didn't want to be alone." She accepts his offer of desert— a piece of freshly baked apple crisp, a speciality that he usually makes around the holidays./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"They end up with coffee, an enormously idiotic amount of whipped cream and way too much apple crisp that anyone could manage and talk about anything but the Gentlemen. She finally sighs and looks at her watch. br /"I guess I should head home. Under the circumstances, maybe the professor will push the test until next week." She crosses her fingers for emphasis. br /"Is it a language test?" he asks as they clean up the mess and she nods her reply. "So you know your stuff. What are you so worried about?" he inquires with a gentle smile. One that she has always loved, the type of smile that is genuine— right down to the crinkle at the corner of his eyes. And tonight, he held that special spark. br /"Thanks, Uncle Joe." She says as they finish drying the last of the dishes. "I'll swing by the store sometime tomorrow, either to return the books or to study." They walk to the front door and she slips on her shoes and jacket. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"Returning home, Mackenzie quickly slips the key into the lock and opens the door. Closing it tightly behind her, she checks that it is indeed locked tightly and drops her keys in the basket on the hall table, lets the jacket slide down her arms she hangs it on the hook, and removes her shoes. She gathers her school things from the coffee table, setting them on one side to be taken upstairs with her. She picks up her forgotten mug and makes her way to the kitchen. Opening the dishwasher, she places it within before closing the door. It is in that moment that she realises how much safer she feels having Giles across the courtyard, her uncle a few doors down and Duncan only a phone call away. She quickly picks up the notes and turns out the lights as she heads upstairs. Stopping in the office, she places the notes on the desk so she won't forget them with the next day's books and laptop. Strange how inviting her bed appears as she prepares for a restful sleep. Emerging from the bathroom in her pyjamas, she flips out the lights and walks to her bed in darkness. Settling herself under the covers, she closes her eye and thinks about the upcoming holidays— making a mental list of baking, decorating, and gift buying. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Mackenzie sighs as the sunlight seeps into her room through the soft film of the sheers, but oddly enough cannot hear her own sigh. She clears her throat, assuming that its' sore from talking too much the previous day. She is interrupted from trying her voice out with the ringing of the cell phone. She knows that she said 'hello', but no sound comes from her lips. Oh my God! She thinks and quickly gets dressed. Realising that texting would be a better form of communication, she texts the group and they reply that they too are unable to verbally communicate and that will be assembling in one of the lecture halls. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Buffy Summers: Kenzie, please don't go to Giles'.br /spanMackenzie Lamont: Why?br /Buffy Summers: I can't say. Just do me a favour and don't go to Giles'. I think it's better if you go to Joe's bookstore and see if he has some kind of rare volume on sudden collective /Mackenzie Lamont: On it. We'll talk /Buffy Summers: Thanks a ton, and yes, we'll talk later./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"An eerie horror movie feeling creeps into her bones as she walks through the streets towards the bookstore. Opening the door, she looks around and finds her uncle behind the counter reading through what she can only assume to be Watcher journals. She taps the countertop, as the overhead bell hadn't brought him from his reading. He lifts his head and his eyes light up. Standing, he makes his way around the counter and wraps her in a huge bear hug. She returns the embrace and fins the little notebook she had brought along with her. br /'I'm looking for a rare book on sudden collective muteness'. She signs and smiles when he nods his head that he can understand American Sign. Thank God, she thinks as he scoots around the counter and retrieves a few books. br /'I think these would be more help'. He signs and she opens one to the page that he had tucked a yellow piece of paper into. The /'The Gentlemen?'br /'Methos has heard of their existence, but had never seen them before.' He signs quickly. 'Take those to Giles. They may help.' He adds with a warm /'I'll bring them back once we're finished with them.' She signs /'Good luck.' He reaches across the counter and places a comforting hand over hers and she looks into his eyes. In that moment, she essentially conveys to him that they will get to the bottom of it./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Buffy Summers: Kenzie, meet us as UC Sunnydale. The psych lecture /Mackenzie Lamont: Got some books that Joe thinks will help. I'm on my way. She replies as she quickly makes her way out of the shop and heads towards campus. Entering the large space, she finds Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Anya sitting in a cluster in the front while Giles stands in the position of lecturer. She quickly makes her way towards him and sets the books on the desk before he makes his way towards her. br /'Do you sign?' she signs and mouths for him. He shakes his head 'no' before placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. He goes to the table and opens the book to the marked page and quickly skims through the contents— clearly, this text has a little more information for them to add to what they already have and he sees the answer to their puzzle, but does not make the addition to his presentation./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB" /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Setting himself up to begin his presentation, Giles cracks his fingers— that appears to get their attention and he presses the play button on the small portable CD player he brought along for the presentation. He places the first transparency upon the projector and Buffy and Willow point out that its upside down, while Anya, who is eating popcorn motions for him to simply flip it. Giles quickly remedies the issue and begins his presentation. The first slide asks; who are the Gentlemen? He whisks the slide off and replaces it with the next. They are fairy tale monsters— it says and has a crude drawing of what they actually look like. The next slide asks; what do they want? Giles demonstrates by holding up his finger and understanding, Willow points to her chest. Xander, your average male mouths 'boobies?' while Giles just gives him one of his best 'really Xander?' stares. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Changing the transparency, showing hearts which Giles gestures towards and Xander finally gets. Anya merely raises her eyebrows and continues to merrily eat her popcorn. While changing the slides the rest of the presentation unfolds. The Gentlemen arrive at a town, steal all the voices of the inhabitants so that no one can scream than essentially removes their victim's heart. Willow and Buffy turned to each other and exchange severely disturbed glances. The next series of slides follow. They need seven, they have at least two. Wanting attention, Xander frantically snaps his fingers. 'How do we kill them?' he holds up his board. Buffy's response is taking her fist and pumping it towards herself. Xander's expression is of one of confusion and she grabs her stake from her messenger bag and repeats the gesture. Xander appears to get it and Giles looks relieved as Willow pretends that everything is 'normal'. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Popping the next slide onto the projector, it reads; in this tale no sword can kill them, a slide with a Gentleman with three swords sticking out of its body at odd angles. There goes my plan, Mackenzie thinks to herself. The next in the series had a picture of a princess with two Gentlemen lying dead at her feet and read, but the princess screamed once... and they all died. Willow holds up a CD and then holds her hands over her ears to dramatically illustrate dying— she smiles proudly thinking she has the solution. Giles holds up a finger to stop her and pauses the presentation for dramatic effect— only a real human voice. Giles points to his throat. Silently sighing, Willow throws her hands up with a pout. Buffy is frantically writing on her whiteboard. 'How do I get my voice back?' Giles doesn't share the information Mackenzie has brought forward, he has run out of slides. He intends to tell her later./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"The next slide is up; Buffy will patrol tonight. The picture is of a girl with a bow and arrow. Buffy's expression is priceless as she holds out her hands to illustrate that the girl in the picture is too fat. In response, Giles makes some quick gestures and then points to the rest and holds up one of the books Mackenzie has brought to indicate further research— as he wants to verify the validity of the sources she has brought to him before discussing further details with Buffy and the rest of the gang. Everyone simultaneously gets up and Buffy stares at the final transparency of two Gentlemen, almost as if studying the figures and committing them to memory. As they file out of the room, Giles grabs Buffy's attention and has her stay behind. He shows her the book Mackenzie had contributed that held what he thought the potential key to her getting her voice back. She nods her comprehension and reaches up to squeeze his shoulder in a gesture of comfort and to reinforce that she will be fine. He returns the gesture and she helps him collect his material before walking him to meet the others. 'Patrol', she mouths and is on her way. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"span lang="EN-GB"Here, Gentlemen, she taunts them in her mind, where are you? She wonders if her line of thinking is correct and begins to allow her feet to lead her towards an older part of campus. She doesn't see Riley, her current boyfriend, and his Initiative, Professor Maggie Walsh's secret government covert operative, buddies— dressed head-to-toe in camouflage pants and black tight sweaters carrying what must be fully automatic weapons. But she does see two very odd looking, fresh out of the asylum beings swinging their arms madly while making their way to the clock tower. Curious characters, she thinks as she cautiously follows them into the old building unsure of what lies ahead. Buffy is unprepared to find the Initiative trying to kill these beings with guns, but then again that's always appeared to be their way, kill it first, keep one to question later. She watches as one of the things in white grabs a barrel and Riley kicks it and watches it fall. /span/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Unnoticed another knocks Buffy from behind and she falls in front of one lying unmoving. Trying to do some quick math in her head, Buffy realises that it doesn't actually matter how many of them there are; she has to find the box, so she makes a dash for the stairs. At the top of the stairs, she assesses her surroundings quickly and immediately notices that there are only two empty jars. It is then that she is kicked down from behind and three lackeys grab hold of her as three Gentlemen, who appear to hover over the floor rather than walk, glide towards her— one holding out a scalpel, which gets a little too close for her comfort and a blast of electricity violently throws back the Gentleman. Riley quickly shoots a nearby lackey and now Buffy is only held by two. She quickly turns the tables with a flip, she hits one away. With Riley's weapon suddenly out of charge, she is tackled once again by the lackeys. Working together, Buffy and Riley manage to hold them off momentarily, until Buffy is stabbed by one of the Gentlemen with the scalpel and finds herself weakened a bit. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Buffy's gaze falls on the box she saw in her dream and the one Giles had shown her earlier, sitting on the table alongside the jars of hearts. Her mind flashes back to a little girl holding the box. Buffy frantically waves her hands to nab Riley's attention and he quickly smashes a blue vial that sits next to the box. Looking to her for approval, she rolls her eyes and mimes opening— understanding this, Riley mouths 'oh', and promptly smashes the box. An odd-looking mist slowly emerges from the box in swirls and the lackey holding Buffy suddenly throws her down. Two streams of mist pull themselves from the main and split once more, returning to Buffy and Riley. Not wanting to waste any more time, Buffy screams at the top of her lungs and the Gentlemen's heads explode with gooey parts of grey matter and chunks of skull landing on various places about the room. Buffy and Riley look at each other realising that their silent film ordeal has finally ended./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Giles and Olivia are happy when the two streams of mist enter his flat and find their way back to their rightful owners. He sits himself on the comfortable hunter green sofa and Olivia follows suit draping herself over him, her head resting on the sound of his steady heartbeat. Their moment of silence is broken as Giles voices the thoughts in his /"So would you say this was, uh, your best visit ever?" he inquires with a slight humour in his tone. Her eyes are fixed on the window while she formulates her response. br /"All the time you used to talk to me about witchcraft and darkness, and the like. I just thought you were being pretentious." She smiles and he can feel the change in her facial expression on his /"Oh, I was. I was also right."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;""So everything you told me was true." She lifts her head to gaze up at /"Well no, um, I wasn't actually one of the original members of Pink Floyd, but the monster stuff, yes." He replies matter-of-factly. She resets her head down and finds herself looking out the window /"Scary." She says almost under her /"Too scary?" he /"I don't know." Her reply is simple, yet at the same time very telling in the direction their relationship would strongnot/strong be going. Funnily enough though, he finds himself okay with that./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Meanwhile in a dorm room not too far away, Buffy sits on her bed deep in thought. She has had quite the experience with Riley and she is uncertain as to the direction of their relationship, or even if they really have a relationship. The conversation would be inevitable, she knew— but. A gentle knock interrupts her intense thoughts and Riley enters /"Hi." He says as he closes the door behind him. She would normally smile at the sight of him with their poster of Chocolate definitions pinned to their door providing a yummy backdrop for the yummy /"Hi." She replies /"Well, I guess we have to talk." He sits himself on Willow's bed as Buffy scoots herself to the edge of her bed, slowly letting her lean legs dangle until her toes than feet come to rest on the /"I guess we do." She replies simply as they sit silently, facing each other, mirroring the others posture of shoulders slumped and hands folded in their respective lap- Buffy twisting her fingers together nervously. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"Mackenzie sits up in her living room and reads her notes in preparation for a test she has to write the following afternoon. Somehow she finds herself far too distracted to study, instead, she makes her way to the foyer. Putting on her shoes, she grabs a light jacket and her keys and heads out to her uncle Joe's flat. She gently knocks on the door and waits for him to answer. br /"Kenzie, hey." He says and moves aside granting her access. "I see the gang was successful." His smile is comforting. She removes her shoes and jacket and smiles /"Thankfully. Put another check in the good guy's column. The books you so graciously lent me helped us tremendously. I'll pick them up from Giles tomorrow after classes." She follows him into the living room. His flat is set up in a similar manner to Giles' in that there is a small gully kitchen, a fair sized living room, a narrow staircase leading up to the bedroom and full /"You want to talk about it?" he goes into the kitchen and she sits at the breakfast bar. br /"Funnily enough, no." she makes a funny face realising how odd that just sounded, even to herself, "I just found that I didn't want to be alone." She accepts his offer of desert— a piece of freshly baked apple crisp, a speciality that he usually makes around the holidays./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"They end up with coffee, an enormously idiotic amount of whipped cream and way too much apple crisp that anyone could manage and talk about anything but the Gentlemen. She finally sighs and looks at her watch. br /"I guess I should head home. Under the circumstances, maybe the professor will push the test until next week." She crosses her fingers for emphasis. br /"Is it a language test?" he asks as they clean up the mess and she nods her reply. "So you know your stuff. What are you so worried about?" he inquires with a gentle smile. One that she has always loved, the type of smile that is genuine— right down to the crinkle at the corner of his eyes. And tonight, he held that special spark. br /"Thanks, Uncle Joe." She says as they finish drying the last of the dishes. "I'll swing by the store sometime tomorrow, either to return the books or to study." They walk to the front door and she slips on her shoes and jacket. /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 150%;"Returning home, Mackenzie quickly slips the key into the lock and opens the door. Closing it tightly behind her, she checks that it is indeed locked tightly and drops her keys in the basket on the hall table, lets the jacket slide down her arms she hangs it on the hook, and removes her shoes. She gathers her school things from the coffee table, setting them on one side to be taken upstairs with her. She picks up her forgotten mug and makes her way to the kitchen. Opening the dishwasher, she places it within before closing the door. It is in that moment that she realises how much safer she feels having Giles across the courtyard, her uncle a few doors down and Duncan only a phone call away. She quickly picks up the notes and turns out the lights as she heads upstairs. Stopping in the office, she places the notes on the desk so she won't forget them with the next day's books and laptop. Strange how inviting her bed appears as she prepares for a restful sleep. Emerging from the bathroom in her pyjamas, she flips out the lights and walks to her bed in darkness. Settling herself under the covers, she closes her eye and thinks about the upcoming holidays— making a mental list of baking, decorating, and gift buying. /p