Of the core Scoobies gathered in the Cleveland Slayers House today several years after Sunnydale's collapse, Willow, Faith, and Xander weren't feeling too happy with Giles at the moment. Apparently, that Englishman currently based overseas at the New Council's Scotland headquarters claimed just minutes ago there were possible signs of an upcoming apocalypse somewhere in the Midlands and he needed to stay on top of things there, rather than leave at once for America as Buffy demanded in her urgent phone call to her former Watcher.

The two women and the man sitting around the conference table definitely weren't buying that excuse. It was amazing how quickly Giles had justified his reason for not leaving Scotland, almost like he'd made it up on the spot. Trading a pair of suspicious glances, Willow and Faith were sure that thousands of miles away, Rupert Giles was smugly drinking a cup of tea and congratulating himself in his stuffiest manner over avoiding the latest absurd Scooby Gang crisis.

These ladies sent their persistent glowers towards where Xander was seated further up the table, remaining eye closed as if to block out the room's painful light and rubbing his throbbing temples with his fingertips—

Bang!

Everyone else jumped slightly in their chairs at an angry Buffy slamming her fist down upon the tabletop at her position of the head of this piece of executive furniture. Though, Xander also scrunched up his face in agony and whimpered, "Oh, man, don't do that again!"

Ignoring him for now, Buffy pointed an irate finger at Willow. "Well? You've had long enough! What sort of curse does Dawn have now?"

Willow only rolled her eyes in exasperation, "I magically scanned her every way I could think of! There's nothing wrong with your sister, so why can't you just accept Dawn's simply fallen totally in love with the guy she's dating?"

"No, no, no," Buffy repeated, doing a firm shake of her head at every word. "It happened much too fast! Nobody outside Hallmark romcom movies gets that strong a crush on each other this quickly in real life!"

Thinking over what she'd just said, Buffy's face brightened at a sudden realization. She sent a narrow-eyed stare at where Wils stubbornly looked back at her, before claiming, "I know! Somebody around here did the w-word thing, and our whole universe got changed by a vengeance demon!"

"Gee, and here I was thinkin' you lost your marbles lately all on your own," acerbically sniffed Faith. "Why the hell would those kinda demons fix things just so's Little D has a boyfriend now?"

Drawing in a breath for an outraged rejoinder towards her sister Slayer, Buffy was interrupted in this by Willow hastily interjecting, "Sorry, Buffy, but I checked for it, too, one of D'Hoffryn's minions getting involved. Nothing like that happened, so will you please stop being paranoid and just accept their new relationship?"

All of the others could easily hear Buffy grinding her teeth in sheer frustration. She sent a very dirty look at her so-called friends and did the grumpy folding of her arms across her chest, before declaring, "Fine! I'm still gonna keep checking him out six ways from Sunday, no matter what!"

Beadily examining Xander who'd now leaned forward to rest his overheated face against the cool tabletop that'd hopefully relieve his stupendous hangover, Buffy snapped at him, "You'd better have learned something from your boys' night out last night that'll make Dawn dump him like a shot!"

Xander didn't even bother to look up, just mumbling past dry lips pressed onto the table, "Forget it, Buffster. All the sports bars we visited, all he had was a couple sodas in between watching the big-screen games. Me, I had to down multiple pitchers of beer to block out the guy's constant get-rich-quick schemes! Even worse was when he shifted into bragging about being a Young Republican which was when I called for a cab and left him there!"

"Coward," Buffy hissed at Xander. She then cast a cold eye at where Faith was smirking back at her.

"Don't tell me, you didn't have any luck either, from what I saw! Getting you from New York because he'd never seen you before, and all it took was a lousy thirty seconds from dropping by his table in your sluttiest dress to giving up and leaving with that visiting lacrosse team?"

Faith's smirk deepened even further while tossing off at B about to explode any minute now, "Swingin' those sticks, it really gave 'em toned arms that they used plenty times 'fore I wore ever'body out!"

The vicious growl this produced from Buffy made Faith chalk off yet another win against Cali-gal. In her most cheerful voice, Faith continued, "As for how short it took, right after I slid into the booth and gave him a peek at my cleavage, he said straightaway he had a girlfriend and wasn't interested, thanks very much. Gotta give him points for honesty, so looks like your big scheme to ruin his rep was a total washout, B."

"Uh-huh," Buffy disagreed, giving them all a superior look. "You really think that's all I had planned?"

That caught everyone's attention, even making Xander straighten up in his chair and warily regard Buffy appearing to be quite proud of herself. With a growing sense of dread in his tone, he asked, "What'd you do?!"

Answering with utter satisfaction, Buffy revealed, "After the both of you let me down, I waited until he left the bar. Two of the newbie Slayers grabbed him at my signal and shoved him in the trunk of their car. They took him to the nearest neutral demon club and thoroughly introduced someone to what really lives in the dark corners of the world, keeping him there the rest of the night. By now, I figure he hasn't stopped running yet when Melanie and Trina let him go at sunrise—"

CRASH!

This time, that loud noise which had Xander uselessly clapping the palms of his hands against his ears was from the conference room door being slammed open by Dawn Summers storming inside to scream at her sister, "YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

Slumping back into his chair, Xander moaned, "Kill me now. Just so it's quiet."

Faith reached over to give Xan a sympathetic pat on his shoulder, only to halt in surprise at seeing another person next stroll into the conference room. They all heard him then tell a furious Dawn, "Honey, calm down. Apart from us finding each other, what happened last night was one of the best things that's ever happened to me."

"What?!" came from all the other shocked occupants of the conference room at hearing this, even Dawn gawking at her boyfriend.

Nodding eagerly, a red-haired guy in his mid-twenties beamed at them all while rubbing together his hands covetously. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a new political base? We had a nice chat, me and those demons, and they were very interested in learning about the Republicans. With their support, I'm a shoo-in for the next city council election! Who knows what the future might bring, an actual chance to go national?"

"Oh, Fergie," cooed Dawn at the man in her life, "You're so amazing!" She gladly accepted his hug and ensuing smooch which appeared not to end until sometime at the finish of this decade.

Faith resignedly observed the pair of young people locking lips with each other to next glance towards B sending Little D and Fergface her best smoldering expression of disapproval.

"Yo, what's got your back up now?"

Growling under her breath, Buffy replied, "His stupid name!"

Willow lifted a startled eyebrow. "Ferguson? It's not like it's weirder than any of ours! Besides, that's his mom's maiden name, which is actually a pretty nice bit of family history."

Buffy sent Willow a rather disgusted look, accompanied by a grouchy, "If it goes on like that—" she waved a pessimistic hand at the still-embracing duo "—it won't be Dawn Summers; it'll be Dawn Darling, straight out of the worse kind of 'eighties tv cartoons!"

The heads of Xander, Willow, and Faith turned as one to eye each other after learning that. Xander was the first to speak.

"That's it; I'm hearing an apocalypse calling me. See you, folks."

Gingerly arising to his feet, Xander was informed by Faith also leaving her chair, "I'm with ya, boytoy. The Midlands, right? Wherever that is."

Willow hurriedly joined the others, announcing, "The central part of England, actually. First, we'll stop off to see Giles and get a thorough briefing about the whole thing. It could take days. Or a week. Or longer."

Flinging his arms around the shoulders of Willow and Faith at his sides while they all commenced a brisk quick-march together out of the room , Xander firmly said, "Be prepared, that's our motto!"

Swerving around Dawn and Ferguson still kissing each other and taking no notice of how betrayed Buffy now appeared at her friends' abrupt desertion, that Slayer then heard from the outside corridor of the Cleveland House where they'd gone out of sight a final reproof from the Red Witch, "That's the Boy Scouts, Xan!"

Author's Note: Yes, it's a takeoff on the Nickelodeon episode 'Babysitting' from Clarissa Explains It All where a 7 year old Michelle Tratchenberg makes a guest appearance.