Fishy Business
Sunnydale, the world without shrimp 1998
Dear Diary,
The month that the Sunnydale swim team were actually winning the state championships, was a pretty grim month. Obviously I never saw any of the monsters myself but I did hear about them. Buffy, Willow and Xander were sat around her room talking about it one night, I didn't mean to eavesdrop but I just happened to hear them discussing boys in speedos and naturally I was curious.
I was knelt down beside the crack in Buffy's bedroom door, Willow was talking. "But fish monsters? We've never seen fish monsters before."
"I know, I think Giles was almost wetting himself about the new species. He got all his journals out and wrote pages and pages, I think he even drew pictures." The three of them laughed, "but they were good guys, well- good enough." I wondered what she meant by that but I got my answer a few seconds later.
"Sorry about Cam, Buffy. I know you were starting to like him." Willow piped up again, she sounded careful though. We all knew how sensitive Buffy was about Angel and really anything about her love life at that moment.
Buffy kind of looked at her and shook her head. "Doesn't matter Will. It was nothing after what Angel said to me the morning after we- you know?" I saw her look down, clearly they all knew and I didn't. I think they'd heard this before, Buffy didn't need to tell them what he'd said because the story had been so overtold with tears and anger and more tears, that they all knew far too well what she meant.
I sat back against the wall and took a breath. I wanted to be like this, I wanted friends like this. I wanted to sit around and talk about boys and eat candy and watch movies. I wanted to be old enough to have a boyfriend and show him off. I hoped that when that did happen, there wouldn't be any demons around to ruin it. But back then I thought when Buffy went away to college, all the demons would just go away. I thought at some point there wouldn't be anymore and we would all just go back to normal. Like it was before we moved here. When mom and dad were still together and we were a proper family. I understand know how that could never have happened.
I also heard there was a spectacle made when Xander himself joined the swim team. Buffy said he started wearing speedos, which I am disappointed to say I never got to witness. There were times I saw Willow thinking about it though. She would go all quiet and start biting her lip and get all starey-eyes at him. Buffy never said anything, but she'd give her a little nudge every now and again.
Buffy eventually told me that they drove off the fish monsters into the ocean. I wonder if they'll ever come back? Could be an opportunity for Xander to get his speedos out again. Wouldn't that be a sight?
Dawn Xx