It was with really great concentration skills that Beth was able to ignore the muffled shouting match going on in the kitchen. It seemed both Mr. Wood and Spike had had a little too much to drink and had gotten into an argument over fighting techniques, which quickly (and obviously) became a fight about Spike having been a killer. It made sense that there was no lost love between the two men, but it was a wonder that Mr. Wood kept coming for Thanksgiving despite his not quite so buried hatred of all things Spike. They could be civil when they wanted to, which, unfortunately, was not often enough. As it was right now, Buffy was only a few choice words away from jumping into the fray and forcibly separating the two, maybe even putting them in "time-out."
"Man, they can go at it like dogs," Jackie chuckled, taking a seat beside Beth on the piano bench. The sound of the fight was occasionally broken up by her hitting keys, creating a stilted song. She had to agree though; it sounded like there was more growling than actual words.
"I thought your dad said he wasn't coming," she remembered him saying over the phone two weeks ago when he assured her he wasn't too busy with his own life to come down and see her over the break.
He shrugged, not all too sure what to tell her. "That's what he said. Changed his mind in the end, though. I think he was channeling my mom. She was always pushing him to let bygones be bygones. She got it though, didn't she? She killed someone too."
"But this is a bit more personal," she noted, glancing up when she heard the sound of something breaking, followed by a high-pitched shout that could only be her mother. There was a cacophony of voices—mostly Spike and Buffy—before she heard the back door open and close with a slam. The house fell into silence again, though with her keen ears, she could hear the fight between the two men resuming outside. "She was your grandmother, you know."
"Yeah, but I try to put it in perspective," he told her. "How many grandmothers do you think your dad killed? Besides, my gram knew the game and she played it, just like my mom did. They knew the rules and they played their part. You gonna hold a personal grudge against every vampire that makes an attempt on your life?"
She shifted in her seat, her piano playing picking up tempo as she began to hit the keys in more rapid succession. "No, guess not," she replied, "except James, because fuck that guy."
Jackie chuckled. "I always had a feeling you'd attract the weird ones."
She frowned at his words, knowing he was trying to be funny but also feeling like he failed miserably. "Weirdos attract weirdos," she grumbled. "Guess that's my lot in life. Makes sense, since I'm not exactly your standard person anyway."
"Hey, no need to be so hard on yourself," he said, trying to backtrack. "I'm sure there's someone out there for you. I think if the absolute mess that your father is can find love, then so can you."
She snorted. "So far the only guy who's ever shown interest in me turned out to be a vampire and he didn't even like me the way I was currently. No, he wanted to change me. Literally."
"Okay, but that's more of a vampire thing than anything else," he pointed out. "You've got this fear that nobody out there could ever get over you being part vampire. It's not really all that odd, you know. Vampires have been romanticized for centuries; somebody out there's gotta dig you."
"What, somebody who's got a fetish for fangs and blood-drinking, that's my soulmate?" she asked, glancing at him with a derisive look.
"Somehow I feel like that was a personal jab at me," he commented. "I do remember my mom being over the moon when she knew you were gonna be a girl. Went on and on about how she and Buffy were 'finally going to be real sisters.'"
"Your mum didn't get excited about that," she retorted. While she had no memory of Faith, she did hear quite a few stories about her and at no point could she picture the woman jumping for joy over the possibility of matrimony between her son and Beth.
"And how would you know? Were you there?"
"Oh, actually I was, thank you."
"As a baby," he reminded her. "I think I have better recall than you. And yeah, maybe she wasn't running around doing backflips and cartwheels over it, but she was seriously considering the idea. I think it would have made her real happy."
"So are you saying we should get married?" she said with as straight of a face as she could manage.
"God no," he replied, making a face. "That's gotta be illegal in so many states."
She let out a laugh before sobering up again. "But seriously, how can I expect someone to look past all the weirdness that I am?"
"I think if your dad can pull a woman like your mom, you shouldn't worry," he told her.
She snorted. "If my dad even lets a boy past. James didn't exactly soften him up to the idea of me dating."
She'd been repetitively banging on of the piano keys, up until the point where he grabbed her hand to stop her. "There's something you're not telling me," he declared.
She sighed. "It's not like—well, it's—I—"
"Elizabeth," he asked, his voice breathy, "do you like someone?"
"Don't sound so scandalized about it," she hissed, pulling her hand away. "And don't be so loud. What if my dad hears you? Or worse: my mum?"
He chuckled. "She'd explode, wouldn't she?"
"Like I dropped Mentos in a bottle of Coke."
"So that's what's got you all twisted about this?" he asked. "You like someone and you're worried about how they might react to your vampireness?"
She nodded. "It's complicated. We're friends."
His eyes widened. "Damn, I wish I knew your friends, but you never invite me to meet them."
"You're only here like three days in a year," she retorted. "But it doesn't matter. He knows about the whole vampire thing, but dating? That's different."
"You think he'd be friends with you if he really thought of it that badly?" he asked. "'Oh, she's fine to get lunch with, but kiss? Oh no.'"
"It's different," she stressed.
"That's bullshit," he said, mimicking her drawl. "It's one thing if he's not into you at all; it's another if the only reason he wouldn't date you is because of that. If that's it, you need to dump him—platonically."
"Well that's always a possibility too," she concluded. "He might just not be attracted to me. He's never acted like it. He says we're friends."
It was unclear if Jackie was trying to be kind about this; he snorted awfully loudly. "Like I'm sure you call him?" he asked, and she chose not to give him any more ammo by answering that. "Anyone who's not attracted to you is either a wuss and thus, not worth your time, or not into girls. And you wouldn't know someone's attraction to you if it hit you like a bus."
"That's not true," she defended. "I know when people flirt with me."
He laughed. "No you don't," he told her. "And flirting is different. Anybody can flirt. I flirt with everybody; doesn't mean I want to date them. I'm talking about want. But you wouldn't know if this friend of yours was pining after you if he took out a billboard."
She opened her mouth to retort, but he continued, "Maybe instead of hiding your feelings away like you so often do, you take the risk and say something?"
Easy for him to say; Jackie was charming and handsome, someone who easily could get any date they wanted. She was a skinny, pale girl who could toss boulders for fun. Not exactly prime dating material.
"You'll find somebody," he promised, his smile both comforting and reassuring. "Maybe not this guy, but somebody."
"Yeah, just like you will?" she asked in reply, thinking of his own dismal love life. He went after vampires, a match made to fail if there ever was one (after all, how could it be easy to date someone who thinks of you mainly as food?).
He didn't take the bait. "You'll find someone out there who loves you for every little bit. Don't settle for anything else, alright? You deserve as much. Now, let's see who can play the most Franze Liszt without messing up."
"You're on."
-.-
Beth leaned against the pinball game machine, mindlessly watching as the individual lights lit up and the game emitted noises every time the small ball bounced against an object. She didn't quite have a grasp on Daniel's single-mindedness of the game, his eyes in rapt attention as it followed the ball with every sling. She also didn't understand how he'd kept the ball from going down the little chute at the bottom, as despite her fast reflexes, she surely would have gotten it in there ten times over by now.
Nadja was not so intrigued by Daniel's pinballing skills, opting to sit over on a bench against the nearby wall, clacking her bowling shoes together. Beth didn't know why she'd already put them on, considering they weren't due to get a lane for at least another half hour, but she figured it was one of those things that didn't really matter in the end. Nadja could do as she wished.
It had been Daniel's idea to go bowling before Zack had to fly back to Massachusetts, though Beth was now getting the inkling that he hadn't suggested the idea for actual bowling (he had made a beeline for the arcade games the moment they stepped into the bowling alley). They had all night to hang out, or at least until one o'clock when the alley shut down and they were forced to wander the streets like a pack of vagrants. Nadja had suggested a movie—mainly because they could all get in for free—but both Zack and Daniel had wanted to do something that involved moving. Beth was energetic enough to be excited about that, even if she'd never gone bowling before. Jackie had once tried taking her many years ago, but they'd driven by a play land on the way there and well, that was that kind of the end of that story. He hadn't trusted Beth's attention span, or his ability to not give in, ever since.
"Here," Zack greeted without preamble, handing one of those large, salty pretzels to Beth (easily the best thing she'd ever had in her life; how had she gone so long without eating on of these in Scotland?). He'd taken off his jacket and her eyes were drawn to the way his arm flexed when he handed it to her. Had he always been that fit? It wasn't like she constantly looked at his arms, or like, you know, taok notes or anything, so like how would she know how fit he was, but also there had been that summer they'd spent on the lake, and she'd seen him then without his shirt on a lot and okay maybe she had stared at him then too, and she didn't remember him looking like that, but he had thrown her into the lake a few times, and so he must have been at least somewhat fit—(okay, and if the Beth-train could make its way back to the station, thank you).
"You owe me four bucks," he added, pulling her thoughts out from the less-than friendly direction they had just taken.
"Four?" she repeated around a mouthful of soft pretzel. "I thought this was a gift."
He gave her a partially amused, partially annoyed look, but dropped the matter entirely. He turned to give Nadja her drink, missing Beth's evil smile (Zack never seemed to have the capability to deny her just about anything). He sat down beside his cousin, pushing the extra set of shoes to the floor.
"Why'd you have to do that?" Nadja complained. "How are we going to know whose are whose?"
He did his best to keep the patronization out of his voice. "Well, Nadja, seeing as the shoe size is labelled on the back of the shoe, I think we'll figure it out. We've got a whole half hour to get that conundrum sorted out." Obviously, he failed.
"Not to mention we don't have the same shoe size," Beth remarked, pointing at her own foot, which was noticeably smaller than both Zack's and Daniel's.
"It's still rude," Nadja huffed (who had considerably smaller feet than everybody else) "When do we get our lane?"
"Well, it's been about fifteen minutes since you last asked, so about twenty-five minutes now," he replied, only barely glancing at his watch.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I didn't realize MIT carried degrees in sarcasm."
"Yeah, plan on going for my Master's."
"How is college?" Beth inquired, figuring he had the best, most normal experience out of all the people she knew who went to college.
"MIT or in general?" he asked in return.
"I guess in general," she replied. "I don't think I want to go to MIT."
"A lot less rules," he told her. "Parents don't get on your case for things and teachers don't care if you show up or not. It's just very unstructured. I think it'd be like the Slayer academy if your parents weren't there and the Watcher's weren't as strict."
Beth thought about that for a moment and it seriously sounded like a disaster. Three hundred-odd girls with varying degrees of strength living together in one building with little to no supervision? The building would be rubble in minutes.
He noticed her expression, and guessing correctly, he added, "And none of that Wonder Woman strength either. Just regular, maturing adults going to school."
Nadja snorted. "Maturing?" she asked. "What sort of college do you go to?"
"How did you know you wanted to go to MIT?" Beth asked, ignoring her friend's comment.
He shrugged and Nadja quickly answered for him. "He's always wanted to go to MIT," she explained. "It's where all the techno-geniuses who build killer things in movies come from. So obviously the robotics kid wants to go be like the guys on TV."
"It's more than that," he defended. "It's one of the top ranked universities for engineering."
"But that fact came up after you already decided you wanted to go," she pointed out. "Beth, don't try and get college advice from the guy who figured it all out at the age of three."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Okay, I didn't figure it out when I was three."
"Where are you going?" Beth asked Daniel, wondering if he was even listening. She didn't even know if he had blinked.
"U-Dub," he replied without pause, eyes never once leaving the fast-moving pinball (she was actually pretty impressed with how easily he followed it). "You?"
She shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know," she replied honestly. "I'm not even sure I want to go to college. My mum's got all the brochures though. She's actually gotten quite ecstatic about the whole thing."
"Does your dad want you to go too?" Nadja inquired.
"No, he's entirely unbothered by the whole thing," Beth replied. "He just nods along to whatever my mum says. I guess he either doesn't remember his time in college or didn't have a positive enough experience to push me toward it."
"Your dad went to college?" Zack asked, a funny sort of look on his face.
"He only wanted everyone to think he was some hooligan," she told him. "He actually came from a relatively high standing family in Victorian British society. See, I come from old money."
"Well then Old Money, pay for your own pretzel," he teased, and she stuck out her tongue at him.
"And withhold from you the pleasure of buying me things?" she asked. "And besides, It's not my money. Just because I come from old money doesn't mean I have any. It's more a title than anything."
"Old poor money," Nadja concluded. "Does this mean you'll be out on the streets soon?" Beth didn't bother to respond.
"Done," Daniel said with a flourish, throwing up his hands as the game finished. He'd successfully kept the game going for more than twenty minutes and he looked mighty proud of himself.
"Good for you," Beth congratulated, patting him on the back.
"Shall I go again?" he asked, looking around at all of them.
"Well, we've still got awhile until we get our lane, so knock yourself out," Zack told him, leaning back against the wall.
Daniel needed no further approval. He returned his attention to the pinball game, shoving quarters through the slot until the noise started up again and the ball dropped.
-.-
Beth liked the way the smoke curled up through the air, a grey filter through which she viewed the night sky. There weren't too many stars out that she could see, what with the clouds and the fact that they were reasonably close to a bright city. Back at the slayer academy, since it was stuck out in the middle of godforsaken no man's land (there were very few men around actually, when she came to think about it), she'd been able to see a multitude of stars and it'd been beautiful. Nadja's backyard was a far cry from that, but it was still pretty. Plus, they were roasting marshmallows, so there were things she was willing to overlook in the name of sugary sweets.
Nadja, sitting in front of the fire pit with a blanket draped across her lap, scowled when she yanked her marshmallow away from the hot flames when it caught fire. "Darn it," she grumbled, shaking the burnt gooey mess off into the fire. "Second one that's done that tonight for me. I'm usually pretty good at this. You're the one who burns them. Is the wind blowing the flames my way? I think the wind is blowing the flames my way."
"It's karma for laughing at me when mine fell off the stick," Beth replied haughtily as she wiped excess chocolate and marshmallow off her face with her finger, sticking said appendage into her mouth. "I've passed my rotten skills onto you. You're welcome."
Nadja scowled again, shoving her skewer into the hot coals. "Most definitely not welcome."
She only grinned.
Sitting back in her chair, Nadja got a sort of contemplative look on her face, one that made Beth just the teensiest bit concerned. "Have you filled out your college applications yet?"
She pulled a face, shaking her head hard enough that her hair stuck to her face by way of leftover sugar. "Augh, you sound like my mum," she muttered. "Do we have to talk about it?"
Nadja shrugged, the look on her face going defensive. "Well, it's something we need to do," she argued, her voice all strained. "We've only got a certain number of months before they close applications and in that time, you've got to get references and write essays—not to mention résumés. Like, at this age, who needs to have a résumé?"
"Uh, people who apply for jobs?" she asked with a slight head tilt. "You're sounding kind of upset about this. Is everything alright?"
"I don't sound upset," Nadja denied, ignoring the very plain question in front of her, a big enough sign that something was up and Beth would just have to do a little digging to find out.
"Maybe to your ears," she agreed, "but to mine, you've got that tightness in your voice that only comes about when you're upset about something. Is it just because this college stuff is stressful? I took a look at those essays and woof. Talk about a loaded question. Exactly how much of my life story can I give without turning it into a plea for pity?"
The dirty look shot her way let Beth know her humor wasn't on point tonight. She sighed, choosing a different tactic, the only stand-by: The Understanding Friend.
"I get what you're feeling. All this stuff about figuring out the rest of your life is a lot. Just the college you go to can define you."
"No, you don't," Nadja told her and Beth was affronted. But hey, at least she was getting somewhere.
"What do you mean I don't know?" she asked, doing her best not to sound indignant (and failing—remember, The Understanding Friend).
Nadja rolled her eyes like Beth had just said the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. Which, given that she had no background to Nadja's feelings, was likely a possibility despite the innocuous statement (Beth did have her father's tendency to overlook the smaller details sometimes).
"I'm going to need a lot more help than your sassy response if you want me to say the right thing," Beth informed her.
"You already have your life planned out," Nadja replied waspishly.
"I do?" she asked, hearing this news for the first time. "I don't know what I did to make you think that, but I don't even have tomorrow planned out. I don't even remember what tomorrow is."
"Wednesday," Nadja said quickly before moving on, "and I meant career-wise. You're a slayer, Beth. Maybe your mom wants you to go to college for things like 'experience' and 'rounding out your skills' or whatever, but for the rest of your life you will be a slayer. What else are you going to be?"
Beth took a moment of silence, figuring it wasn't best to reply right away. Besides, she didn't know exactly how to respond to it. Nadja was right though; Beth did have her life set out. She'd finish her slayer training and field training before being tasked out to a location where she would fight against demons and monsters and the forces of evil for a nice paycheck. Sure, she didn't know what major she wanted to pick for college, but that was, in the broader view of things, very inconsequential. She could go with government or biology or electrical engineering (except actually not that; she really didn't want to do that) and in the end it wouldn't affect her career at all. It wasn't like mixed martial arts or Demonology were actual major choices (or maybe they were; she hadn't really spent a lot of time looking over "that college thing" as she so callously called it). And in a way, this greatly benefited her. Only a few years ago, before she'd been called as a slayer, she'd fretted over what place in the world she had, unsure of what she was going to do. And now Nadja was feeling that way because it wasn't like somebody got a sacred calling to become a teacher.
"Okay, so you're right," she agreed slowly. "I do have a career already. Never really thought about that, even though I kept telling my mum I didn't need to go to college for that very reason. But I get what you're feeling, Nadja. Before I got the superpowers from those all-powerful and annoying Powers, I didn't have a clue what I was going to do with myself either. Wasn't like the Slayer Academy was going to take me back. I think about 90% of them spent a good amount of time trying to get me out. And not to mention that I had these super-parents to aim for. Quite a jump before the slayerness, let me tell you."
Nadja sighed, whatever frustration she had at Beth leaking out. "It's hard, wasn't it? Having to look up at them and feeling like you were never going to be that big. I mean, look at my family. I've got doctors and lawyers and business owners and everyone was just so proud of Zack for getting into MIT and here I am, aiming for U-Dub without an idea of what to do in my head. They all keep telling me to go and do something, but I don't know what it is and I don't feel like I have it in me to be what they want me to be. I don't think I'm going to be anything great, Beth, not like everyone else in my family."
"I've got a sacred calling. Makes things easier it seems," Beth murmured, earning herself a small smile from her friend. "But we've all got our place somewhere, Nadja, and just because it isn't big or impressive doesn't mean it's not important to somebody. Not everybody gets to rock the world, but just imagine what the world would look like without a janitorial staff."
"Now you're just being purposefully ridiculous," Nadja said with a snort, trying to hide her smile.
"I'm serious, the whole world would be a right mess, but no one thinks that what they do is impressive," Beth continued to explain. "Though, the staff at St. Jude's are saints. I couldn't imagine having to clean those bathrooms—"
"Stop," Nadja interrupted. "I get your point and you're making me imagine them too. But thanks for trying to cheer me up. It's not really working, but I'm guessing I'm going to feel this way until I feel more driven. And right now, I don't have a clue."
"Well, I can help you," Beth offered, "by, uh, you know, being there."
Nadja gave her a funny look. "You've never really been anyone's emotional support, have you?"
"I've been severely lacking in friends most of my life, so what do you think? Not to mention, I'm normally the ones with all the emotional problems."
"I guess you've got me there," Nadja murmured.
"But hey, this will be like practice for me then," she decided. "It's a win-win situation. I help you through your time of need and in return, I build my empathy skills."
"Downside: I'm your guinea pig," Nadja added. "What if you mess me up or something?"
She waved off such a silly concern with a lazy hand gesture. "No, I think it's too late in your developmental process to do that. The worst I can do is close you off to future attempts to get you to open emotionally."
"I don't know, that sounds like you're messing me up," Nadja hummed her disagreement, a smile creeping up on her face.
"Nonsense," she argued. "You'll be fine in the long run, promise. I'm going to help you out. Starting with your s'mores skills, since it seems like I have become the expert in this situation."
Nadja pulled her skewer out of the fire, waiting a moment for the metal to cool off before shoving another marshmallow onto it. "You've got a fallen marshmallow and two burnt ones to show for tonight. I don't think you'd be considered an expert under any definition."
"Don't be ridiculous! The second one was just a really dark brown. Now, scoot closer to the master. Let me show you how it's done."