For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.
Chapter 8
The Saturday after school ended they attended Aunt Jessica's graduation, before the end of the summer she would be an RN. Mrs. McNally threw a big party for her that went late into the evening.
The next morning, Faith watched Xander and Willow kiss goodbye as Willow headed off to a six week computer camp. Faith hugged her goodbye and watched Willow get into her parents' car and drive off.
"She's a different person than the Willow I met," Faith observed.
"Yeah, we've all gotten a lot more confident," Jesse said, "Not to mention running has given Willow killer legs."
Xander smacked Jesse lightly on the back of the head. "That's my girlfriend you're talking about."
"Are you denying that she has great legs?" Jesse asked with a smirk, turning to bring his hands up to defend himself. He and Willow had only started taking Hapkido classes with Xander and Faith a couple months ago so he knew Xander was just playing around.
"No, no I'm not," Xander smiled.
"So anything we're doing with the watcher gone back to jolly old England?" Jesse asked, changing the subject. Jesse hadn't taken part in the lessons that Faith and Willow had with the Post, but they had told him about everything they studied. Faith confided in the others that a lot of the accounts she read about slayers ended with the slayer dead and didn't seem to include much about the council doing much more than providing some training and information to point the slayer at the thing that killed them.
Post was on a trip home as the summer solstice was a historic time of ebb in the Sunnydale Hellmouth's energies. He was due to return in early August
"Well, he's hired us to not only take care of the yard, but look after the house he just bought, but as far as other stuff, just some extra training and then working for Uncle Rory," Faith answered. She and Xander had a full summer lined up with the lawns they mowed and working for Uncle Rory, but they had talked about what other changes they could make to the time line without causing a backlash before they were ready. Uncle Rory had told Xander that he was going to give Xander a car for his sixteenth birthday and so they spent a lot of their time at the garage working on a '83 Chevy Van. Even though he didn't think it would happen in the way he had originally planned it, he and Jesse still talked about taking a road trip after high school and Uncle Rory, whose trip was actually the inspiration for this, supported it. By his logic the van with its seven passenger capacity and captain's chairs that could turn around to face the bench seat in the back where a table could be set up or converted into a bed, was the perfect vehicle. Xander had told Faith that he suspected it had more to do with the fact that the back seat could be pulled fairly easily and then Rory could send Xander to pick up parts up to and including a transmission or an engine block. But they weren't going to complain. Having a vehicle that could carry people or things with some discretion was a plus in her book. The way that both Xander and Willow blushed when Jesse called it a shag wagon was pretty priceless too.
Faith and Xander both received emails almost daily from Willow for the first two weeks she was gone and then the emails started to taper off. Faith just assumed their red headed friend was busy and having fun but she noticed that the tone of the emails she sent to Xander got less and less gushy. It came to a head when Willow returned from camp, she came over to Xander and Faith's. Faith's didn't have to be in the room, in the quiet house, it was possible to listen to the conversation or hear most of it anyway.
"Xander, I've got something I've got to tell you."
"What's wrong?"
"I cheated on you while I was at camp."
"You're dating somebody else now?"
"No, they made it pretty clear that it was only while we were at camp."
"So are you breaking up with me?" Faith could hear Xander's hurt.
"I don't want to – I don't know –"
"When you say you cheated on me how do you mean?"
"Well kissing and stuff –"
"So you made out with some guy even though he said he wasn't looking for anything but somebody to mack with at camp?"
"It wasn't like that."
"So what was it like?" Faith heard Xander get up and walk across the room.
"When I got to camp, I went running the first day before breakfast – I'm glad I did since the majority of the camp was sitting in either lectures or computer rooms – At dinner that night, Janey, who was in my project group, asked me if she could run with me –" long pause "- the next morning, she joined me on my run. We got along so well – she was funny and beautiful – the second week I noticed that when we were showering – the cabins had group showers like gym class – that she was looking at me. That Friday she kissed me when we were getting dressed after showering – I was flustered I was confused – but it was nice. When it happened again a couple of days later it was like it was our little secret –"
"Did you mention you have a boyfriend to her?"
"I did, she told me this was different."
"Was it?"
"we made out once, but really we had to keep things secret so we acted like just good chums." and like I said she told me that it was just while we were at camp."
"Is it more than just chums?"
"like I said she told me that it was just while we were at camp."
"Is that what you think? – Or want?"
"Think, it was nice, but kissing you is nice too – and – I don't know."
Silence
"Have –"
"Pardon?"
"Have –"
"'Have' what?"
"You said 'Have a boyfriend'."
"Well my mom would say that I can't actually date until this year but you and I both talked about that, but I thought we considered ourselves boyfriend girlfriend or at least planned to be this year. That's what I thought anyway."
"I'd like that," Willow said in a very small voice, "but I don't want to hurt you."
"We weren't supposed to be dating technically, so I'm willing to give it a try. If you want to date anyone else, boy or girl, I don't want to find out afterwards."
"I promise."
The next two weeks had been a bit tense as Willow and Xander danced around each other. That weekend to celebrate Willow being back, their gaming group had a campaign party at the Harris house, Willow Faith and Marcie in Faith's room and the boys sacked out in Xander's room.
Faith was getting her friends situated when Marcie asked Willow, "Willow, what's up with you and Xander? You seem jumpy around him."
"I made out with somebody at camp, I told Xander when I got home," Willow confessed looking embarrassed. "He said he's okay with it, how his mom said he couldn't date until sophomore year, but it's a little weird."
"Wow, most guys would go ballistic," Marci said.
"My cousin's pretty cool," Faith observed.
"Yeah, but I almost feel worse because he's being so forgiving about it," Willow said ducking her head.
"Well, that's something you're going to have to work out for yourself," Faith told her redheaded friend. She knew from talking to Xander that he figured that Willow just wasn't ready to admit that she liked girls more than boys.
"So should I turn the boys down if one of them suggests spin the bottle or truth or dare?" she grinned, "Or should I suggest it myself."
Marcie did end up suggesting truth or dare which turned out to be a lot of fun until Jessie wearing blush and eyeshadow from one of Marcie's dares dared Marcie and Faith to kiss. Both girls had already used the dares as excuses to kiss each of the boys, well Marcie had, Faith had noticed Xander giving Jessie a hard stare when it looked like he was going to suggest Faith and Xander make out. Two turns later, his suggestion that the two girls make out. Marcie got up to move over next to Faith, but Faith held a hand up.
"Jesse, I'll do this, it's just kissing, but when you get dared to kiss Xander or Andrew are you going to wuss out?" Faith said looking at the boys.
Jesse's face got red, "Marcie can I change that request?"
Marcie nodded after a moment and they went back to the game although the dares stopped being about kissing and the mood lost some of its energy.
Xander and Willow's relationship seemed to calm down by the time Xander's birthday rolled around, Aunt Jessica even let Xander take Willow out on a date, okay a group date where he drove with Jesse taking Marcie and Johnathan taking Faith, but a date none the less. Faith hadn't really clicked with Chad after homecoming but they did remain friends.
Faith and Xander had talked about things they could change. The first plan of the summer after they verified in the newspaper that Hemery High did actually have its gym burn down was to mail a post card to a watchers council address they'd gotten from Mr. Post's papers saying "W Merrick out of picture, B Summers in trouble due to broken watch," hoping that they could keep Buffy from spending as much time under psych care as she had in their first life. Rather than draw attention to Sunnydale, Xander dropped it in a mail box in Van Nuys when he was on a parts run with Brian from the garage. Once they hit the end of July and Xander had his license, they felt they were ready to execute some more plans.
Their next action came as a target of opportunity.
The week before his birthday they were working at Rory's. Xander was only half listening when the college guy was hitting on Faith, okay it was creepy, but he admitted that even at fifteen, she was really good looking and it did happen. Most of the guys backed away quickly when she talked about her freshman year in high school, but some didn't. She could take care of herself. His ears perked up when he heard Delta Kappa Zeta. Then he was listening as close as he could without getting caught. Skip or Chip, or whatever his name was, was trying to impress Faith first with his car, a brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee, and then with how he was selected as one of the Summer guard at the Fraternity house. When he was handing over the keys, he was inordinately proud of his aftermarket alarm that could start the car so that he could run the AC before getting in on a hot day. Once Chip had left with his friend in a convertible, Xander snagged the remote off the peg board. He knew Brian wasn't going to get to this until after lunch and separated the remote from the keys. He stepped out the back gate and walked the block to the stereo/car alarm shop that they traded work with. It didn't raise an eyebrow when he bought a replacement remote with cash and had them write it up for Rory's shop, just like he'd done a half dozen times before. When he got back, Faith raised an eyebrow in question but he just said "Later." It was only the work of a couple of minutes to key in the remote to the car, he even tested the start function before hanging the keys back on the peg.
That night, they were hanging out in basement.
"So what was with the Jeep today?" Faith asked. "Guy was a smarmy prick but that's not all that new."
"Did we ever tell you about reptile boy?"
Faith's brow furrowed for a moment, "Demon at the college – you're saying it was that frat?"
"Yeah."
"So did you copy his house keys or something?"
"No, I'm thinking something a little more spectacular, a redneck ANFO car bomb using his alarm to trigger it," he said holding up the spoofed remote.
They cased the house for two nights noting that none of the three guys living there seemed to have overnight guests. Then watched for their opportunity. On Tuesday the jeep was backed up next to the entrance which they thought was the kitchen that morning around three a.m. they pulled the van into the Delta Kappa parking lot. They waited for a few minutes figuring they could pretend to be kids making out if anyone stuck their head out. Seeing no activity in the house, they went into action, they moved three jerry cans of gas that they had seen on a dirt bike trailer that was in the lot up against the house behind the Jeep. They then placed a dozen file boxes full of home mixed fertilizer explosive, something that Xander had some experience with his first go around, a few sandbags to direct the charge were all loaded into the back of the Jeep. They wired a couple of large firework shells up to the cigarette lighter and drove away. Then around the block and as they drove past the house, Faith triggered the remote. The effect was spectacular, they could see the house silhouetted by the explosion behind it and two of the front windows blew out.
A little after dawn, they were back in the van driving to the Watcher's house from there they ran around the campus towards the end of their run, their route took them by Fraternity row, first through the park behind the houses. They could see through the trees, that their bomb had had the intended effect mostly destroying the house.
They were going to run down the opposite side of the street but saw cones and a cop car blocking off the street the house was on. They could see that the house was about almost completely burned out. Most of the front wall was still standing but the second story was more than half collapsed.
Their next action was was both more and less dangerous. They had been watching robot Ted for the last six months, when they first checked on him the neighbors said he had been married but that no one had seen his wife for several years. They had confirmed through a public records search that even though he looked to be in his thirties, Ted Buchanan at that address had married four times in the last thirty-five years. Right after Post had returned from London, they acted.
"So what do we do on the outside chance that Ted is actually a human at this time?" Faith asked.
"Well at that point, we hide the stun gun and scream for somebody to call an ambulance."
Ted's next door neighbor was one of their regular yard customer. They were also being paid to come by the Millers for the next two weeks to pick up newspapers and make sure that there wasn't any mail left in their box while they were on vacation so they knew that there wouldn't be anyone looking over from that side of the fence if they had to come back later. Shortly after they got to work, Mrs. Miller left to take her son to swimming lessons as she had before when they'd been working for her. Xander intentionally dropped some of the trimmings he was making into Ted's yard.
Faith rang the doorbell
"Mr. Buchanan?" she asked when Ted answered the door.
"Yes, can I help you Miss?"
"My cousin and I are doing some work for the Millers and we accidentally dropped quite a bit of clippings into your yard. We'd like to clean up after our selves because we don't want you or the Millers to think that we do that kind of work."
"That's the kind of attention to detail that you don't see much anymore, I'll meet you around at the gate."
Once they were out of sight of the street, Faith zapped him, and pushing him so that his arm scrapped against the stucco of the house as he fell.
"Yeah that pretty much says robot," Xander observed looking at the tear in the skin of Ted's arm that showed mechanical parts underneath the surface. Faith quickly took out a knife and made a small cut in the Robot's neck no blood and revealed some wiring confirming that it wasn't just an advanced prosthetic. Faith went to lift Ted,
"Oof – Xander give me a hand with this guy, he's heavier than he looks." The cousins quickly carried Ted inside the house. Xander retrieved a small sledge from the can he had outside. Remembering the stories about this guy from Buffy, he wasn't going to deal with Ted getting back up. Inside the quiet of the house, the sound of Xander disassembling Ted with a sledge hammer was rather loud. The two teens quickly exited and cleaned up the branches they had dropped and went back to doing their work on the Miller's yard.
That afternoon, they slipped through the gate in the alley and let themselves back into the house. They made a quick search of the house to verify that there weren't any security or surveillance systems, finding none, they got down to a more thorough search of the house. The house yielded only a few things of note, a lock box that was very heavy for its size and an odd electrical connection that must have been Ted's charging station in the master bedroom.
"How could he have made this in the fifties and have it last this long?" Faith asked looking at the charging unit.
"I'm going to go with Hellmouth," Xander answered.
Faith nodded.
The bunker under the garage yielded more. Xander steeled himself to look in the bunk room where as a teenager, the first time, he had seen Ted's wives. He searched this time but found nothing other than a box under the bunks each with a wedding dress and wedding photo.
He and Faith searched and found another room which had been turned into a workshop where Ted the robot was built. After they made sure that there wasn't another Ted just ready to go online, they left the shelter. Taking the lockbox back to the van, they drove to the Watcher's house.
"Miss Lehane, I wasn't expecting to see you today," Edward Post greeted them.
"Mr. Post, We've encountered a situation that we need your help with." Faith spoke quickly putting anxiety into her voice.
"What seems to be the matter?" Faith's watcher asked.
"We were attacked by a humanoid robot."
"Really Miss Lehane that is quite preposterous." Post said stiffening.
"Let us show you then."
"Alright then Miss Lehane but this is hardly putting you in my good graces." Her watcher said following her out to the driveway.
"I'll go in the back and let you in the front door," Xander said as he headed to his van.
Returning to Ted's house, he cautiously entered the back door and saw that Ted was still on the floor. A minute later, Xander saw Faith and Mr. Post coming up the walkway. When the doorbell rang he answered standing so he wasn't in view of the street. Faith led Mr. Post into the kitchen where Ted's body was on the floor.
"Good lord," the watcher gasped.
"Like I was telling you, Xander and I were cleaning up some branches that we dropped over the fence when Mr. Buchanan tripped going up the stairs, he hit his arm against the rail. I thought he had cut himself so I came over to help. I shrieked when I saw that he wasn't human. He grabbed me and Xander came to help as I fought him off. We kind of got carried away."
"The first thing I could grab was the sledge I have for driving garden stakes,"Xander said trying to sound sheepish.
"Well yes, understandable, one doesn't see a robot masquerading as a human very often." Post looked around,"You two stay here." He left and searched the house, then led them out to the garage. Xander and Faith hadn't placed the rug back over the trap door. Faith and Xander waited while he explored the bunker.
"Faith good job bringing this to my attention. I will take care of things from here."
That evening, Faith and Xander were in the Harris garage the lock box was easily opened with a pry bar.
"Why does a robot need a bug out fund?" Faith asked looking at the bundles of cash and paper wrapped rolls of coins. Examining the stacks, she saw American Gold Eagles and several coins from other countries.
"I don't know, habit programmed in from his creator? But the cash is all from the seventies and later, I guess getting gold coins became more difficult." Xander said thumbing through the bills.
"Well, this is a small fortune, but most of it doesn't really do us any good. The cash we can spend but we sure can't draw attention to ourselves and we're going to have to sit on these coins at least until you are eighteen, because right now, we don't have any way of turning them into cash unless you want to tell either your mom or Uncle Rory about this," Faith said setting the heavy coins back into the box.
"So are you ready to go after our next target?"
"Yeah, do you want to involve Jesse and Willow?"
"No, not yet."
Saturday morning, they loaded their yard tools and a few extra things into the van just after dawn. Early weekend morning on Fraternity row was quiet in the summer. Xander pulled up next to the abandoned frat house that held Sunday and her gang. The two entered the kitchen through the unlocked door. Stakes and machetes drawn.
Finding the kitchen empty Xander quickly pulled down the curtains obscuring the windows letting morning sunlight in. Just as Xander was pulling the last curtain down the first of Sunday's gang came into the kitchen, a long haired skater type and a chubby redhead, the skater lunged at Xander but pulled up short singed as he realized the brightness was from direct sunlight, not the diffuse light through the curtains that had been, Xander swung with his machete hitting the vamp in the arm then followed through with the stake dusting him. His companion didn't have time to organize her thoughts though as Faith brought the machete down on her neck dusting the now headless corpse. Xander picked up the legs of a broken chair and cut strips of the curtains, he quickly assembled two torches and used lighter fluid to soak them. With a flick of a lighter, he lit the two torches. A minute later, they heard another vampire coming down the hall.
"Rookie, you imbecile, you know Sunday says no fire. Dav stop him – What the hell do you think you're doing? What are you burning?" the feminine voice said stridently.
"What the fuck?" the female vampire said as she entered the kitchen to be met with Faith's machete turning her to dust.
The two moved into the main room of the downstairs, Faith taking out a vamp who was sitting in a recliner eyes closed with headphones on. Xander quickly moved to uncover windows as Faith stood guard holding both lit torches. The sound of Xander using a crowbar to pull wood off the windows was enough to draw more attention. Another vampire came running down the stairs. Xander turned from what he was doing and hit the vampire across the knees breaking the right one. As the vampire hit the ground, Xander's follow up swing hit it in the face Xander heard the satisfying crack as the blood sucker's jaw broke.
Faith handed Xander his torch back and quickly staked the vampire.
"Minions, can't a woman get laid around here?" they heard called down from upstairs. "Rookie, I smell smoke, I swear if you don't put that out, I will light you on fire myself."
"Would you stop that for a minute?" They heard the pissed off female vamp say. Xander assumed the voice they were hearing belonged to Sunday, the leader of this nest Faith nodded to him torch and machete at the ready. Xander set his torch in the fireplace and drew a super soaker from his backpack, quietly priming the pump to pressurize it. They heard a male voice complain, "But we weren't done yet? Last time I stopped too soon and that was a problem."
"Just go away!" - A muttered -"idiot frat boys" – stomping noises reached the top of the stairs, "Rookie!" She screamed from the top of the stairs.
As she came into view, she was belting a robe, she spied Faith
"What the fuck is this supposed to be? Did someone order a Tomb Raider snack pack?" The arrogant blonde sneered.
Not waiting for the vampire to choose their attack, Faith moved drawing her attention, "Yeah I beat the game, so I thought something more challenging was in order," Faith answered moving the torch into a low forward position.
Whatever the blonde was going to reply turned into a shriek as Xander blindsided her with Holy Water. Faith used that moment to strike taking the blonde's head.
"At least one more," Xander said as they heard-
"Sunday?" A large very naked jock came down the stairs
"Rookie, I'm gonna kick your ass for messing up my time with Sunday" the vampire said not even paying attention to his surroundings.
"What's this shit?" He said right before Faith staked him.
Faith was jazzed, she hadn't felt this good since they returned. They quickly searched the rest of the house staking two more vamps that seemed to be stoned. They then ransacked the house coming up with cash and electronics along with boxes and boxes of clothes.
Most of the electronics were out of date, but they did grab the most recent computers they could find, a stereo, and a couple of PlayStations and N64s and all the games and cds they could find. They loaded up the van and left. After stowing their loot at home, they made lunch. Faith was still jazzed, and didn't realize what she was doing until she plowed through her third sandwich and plate of chips.
That afternoon they headed to Rory's for work. Faith spent the afternoon feeling keyed up and antsy. Finally at dinner she recognized it as the H&H, Well, she thought, won't be the first time she had dealt with that.
After dinner, she and Xander ended up sparring in the basement, Aunt Jessica was ensconsed on the living room sofa watching a movie.
Xander was just bouncing through his techniques, once they started speeding up their techniques, Faith realized Xander was hitting harder too as she deflected off an elbow strike.
"X, you're pretty worked up tonight, you okay?"
Xander stopped for a moment, "Yeah, just hyper," he said kind of bouncing.
"Weird, I figured it was just me. I feel just like I used to after slaying," Xander looked at her for a minute and then blushed like the teenager he was.
"Yeah, I'm right there with you," Xander said.
"Well, I know how I used to take care of that and I don't think your mom would approve." Faith smirked.
"Not helping, Faith,"
"Oh well, won't be the first time that energy goes to waste." Faith said moving forward and throwing a punch. Moment over the two teenagers went back to sparring only ending after Aunt Jessica had come down stairs. She sat on the bottom step watching them for a few minutes.
"You two really are good," Aunt Jessica said when they stopped.
"Thanks Mom," Xander said.
"If you guys are done, do you want some pie?" Aunt Jessica asked.
"That sounds good," Faith answered. "We just need to do some cool down stretching and we'll be up."
"I'll get some tea started and see you in a few minutes."
After stretching the teens joined Aunt Jessica upstairs. They chatted over their pie mostly talking about Faith and Xander's upcoming belt test . Finished Xander thanked his mom for the he pie and excused himself to go shower.
Faith got up and refilled her mug from the kettle, "Aunt Jessica, it is fun and Aunt Vivian was right, it has helped me deal with stuff left over from Boston, but also it feels like it's necessary to learn."
"Is everything okay Honey?" Aunt Jessica said placing her hand on Faith's.
"It's nothing immediate, it's just what you told me when I came here, this town has a surprisingly high violent crime rate."
"Faith, that's something you shouldn't have to worry about."
"But I do and it is hard to make sense of things."
"Crime seldom makes sense Dear."
"It's more that the types of crime don't make sense and the amount of violent accidents in this town really don't make sense. Animal attacks and gang attacks, except I've never heard anyone say they've seen packs of stray dogs or mountain lions and I haven't seen any gangs, trust me, where I grew up, I know how to spot gangs and barbecue forks? That seems a little out there. It's like there's two Sunnydales, the shinny side where's there's almost no unemployment and where the schools have some of the best test scores in the state, and the other side where the high school has much lower than normal completion rate, there's blocks of abandoned warehouses, and there are bizarre instances of violence." Faith saw Aunt Jessica about to interrupt but pressed on. "I've read H. G. Wells, it's like we are the Eloi just blithely ignoring the Morlochs." Faith wound down. "Sorry, I'm all keyed up and babbling, I probably sound like a paranoid."
Aunt Jessica looked at her mug of tea, "No, you're not paranoid - Sunnydale is a good town to live in - I grew up here, my parents grew up here, my grandparents made this their home. The kinds of areas you normally have to live and work in to get the same deal that has the city paying my student loans are like your neighborhood in Boston or worse. That being said, yes it is dangerous at night. At the hospital we see and hear a lot of things that don't make any sense and you just learn to shrug it off. Some of it is typical hospital stuff from what I've seen online, but some of it is stuff that had no sane explanation." Jessica paused, "You can't let it control your life, but don't do stupid things. That's why Xander has a car and when you turn sixteen, you will also get a car. I'm not going to tell you to not hang out with your friends and be a teenager which includes going to clubs and movies and to the mall, but I'd like it if you travelled with more than just one other person and I don't want you wandering around town on foot after dark. I need to have this talk with Xander too, when you start dating, don't go parking someplace secluded, come back here where I know where you are."
"Xander and I will be as safe as we can be." Then it hit Faith what she'd said - "I mean in general - we're not going parking or anything."
Jessica looked at her for a moment and then broke out laughing.
"That's all I can ask Faith," she said when she stopped laughing.
Sunday morning both Faith and Xander were up with the sun and out running, the avoided talking about it but Faith was still keyed up from the day before. Judging by the way Xander was acting and the way he kept adjusting himself, he was in the same boat. The feeling continued and Faith was actually starting to get a little concerned until they got to church. Walking into the sanctuary Faith started to calm and when the communion wafer was placed on her tongue it was like a cool wave washed over her, stilling her spirit. After church, they went out for brunch, when Aunt Jessica left for a second trip through the buffet line, Faith spoke quietly to Xander.
"Did anything feel different about taking communion today?"
"Yeah, it's like I've been bouncing with energy and aggressively horny since we left the frat house yesterday, when I took communion, it just slid away," Xander looked around, "I still feel energized, but not like I'm going to explode from the pressure."