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Stark and Miss Potts are going to Monaco in two days, which means that Buffy is going to Monaco in two days. The company (or maybe her boss personally, she’s not really sure) has a race car in some sort of Grand Pricks race thing, and Miss Potts has business to do. It’s only for a few days, and Buffy can tell that Miss Potts and Mr. Stark don’t expect her to already have a passport, but Buffy doesn’t trust her new employer not to die while he’s out of her sight. He’s kind of an idiot.
Buffy tells Stark over his breakfast that she’s going to be late to work the next day.
“Already?” he asks, frowning at her. “Why?”
“I’ve got to go get my passport.” Feeling awkward (and somewhat defensive), she adds, “Unless I’m not supposed to go with you to Monaco.”
“Plenty of room on the jet,” he says while fishing out his Stark phone, probably to text Miss Potts that Buffy is coming along too. “Wait an hour, and I’ll get Happy to drive you anywhere you need to go. He’s running some errands for me.”
Buffy is so startled that she cannot help but stare at Mr. Stark for several moments.
He wants someone to drive her home. To Sunnydale.
“No one wants to go to Sunnydale.”
No one should want to go to Sunnydale. That’s like having a death wish, especially for someone as vampire-prone as Tony Stark is.
“Why not?” Mr. Stark asks. “It sounds sweet.”
Buffy takes a deep breath and holds it.
A large part of Buffy’s job seems to be protecting Tony Stark from his own terrible ideas. Stark taking any particular interest in Sunnydale is a terrible idea, one that he needs to be protected from. This is the first test of Buffy’s ability to do her new job.
Buffy slowly exhales, letting go with her breath her desire to just forbid Stark from being interested in her life. Forbidding her had never done anyone any good anyway. Sneakiness is probably her best bet.
Buffy can be sneaky.
She can.
“What will you be doing while I’m getting my passport?” asks Buffy, hoping that if she doesn’t have the temerity to simply order him to stay in (relatively) safely in Los Angeles, Tony Stark will follow what seems to be his routine and disappear into his workshop to mutter at various robots for most of the day.
“Working in my shop,” Stark says promptly. His eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why?”
“I’m your assistant,” Buffy says, hoping that she sounds very, very reasonable. Giles had always left her to her own devices when she sounded particularly reasonable or extremely unreasonable. He had always seemed to assume that the former meant that she was on top of things, and the latter had just made him unbearably uncomfortable. “I don’t want to get in trouble for not assisting you enough.”
He snorts. “I don’t share lab space with anyone.”
Buffy glances at the clock, does a little math in her head, and says, “I can wait an hour.”
An hour’s wait won’t put Happy in Sunnydale past sunset.
The ride to Sunnydale is long and kind of awkward. Buffy is relegated to the backseat before they leave the driveway, and Happy doesn’t seem to want to talk (He shut down her attempts to talk about Monaco, the Raiders, and even the weather.) so Buffy shuts up and watches him drive.
Happy seems, well, happy with the silence. He doesn’t even turn on the radio in his half of the car, so Buffy either has to sit in silence with him or ask him to roll up the divider between them so that she can turn on the radio or television in her half of the car.
It feels too awkward to ask Happy to roll up to the divider, so Buffy sits in silence and studies him. The back of his ear is not particularly hairy, the back of his right shoulder seems to wear a suit well, and he doesn’t seem to notice that Buffy is staring at the back of his head. Maybe he doesn’t care. Either way, he seems like he’s totally in the zone.
Buffy wonders if Happy gets the same zen from driving that Buffy gets from slaying. If so, she can totally get the demand for quiet from the peanut gallery. And she’d hate to ruin someone else’s pursuit of zen.
So Buffy sucks it up and asks that he raise the divider, turns on the radio, and fiddles with her new Stark phone. She toys with the idea of calling ahead – her friends would be in class but her mom or Giles might answer – but the idea of being hung up on is terrifying. Buffy prefers to ambush the things (and people) that terrify her.
The service for Buffy’s phone disappears about fifty miles outside of Sunnydale, which seems about par for the course. Who’s going to want cell phone reception in a desert, anyway? And, hey, it neatly removes the entire to call or not to call dilemma from the table.
Buffy forgets all about her personal angst when Happy slowly drives down Sunnydale’s main street.
It is utterly deserted, no people, no moving cars, no nothing. Windows and doors are boarded over, some from the inside and others from the outside, and there are long, wide smears of blood along brickwork and painted storefronts.
Buffy had hoped that if she didn’t let Happy see Sunnydale outside of daylight hours, the town could fake being normal-sauce for a few hours. Clearly, she had been expecting too much of Sunnydale.
The black divider between her and Happy goes down with a little whirl of moving gears.
“Is this normal for this place?”
“No. Let’s go check on my mom first.”
Buffy briefly considers discarding the car and going to the art gallery on foot. They would certainly stand out less. But Happy is human, and in Buffy’s experience it is considerably easier to keep humans alive when they are encased in mobile metal shells.
“In about two blocks, you’re going to want to turn right on Parker Place.”
“Okay,” Happy acknowledges, flicking a glance her way in his rearview mirror.
They’re in the middle of the turn when there is a jarring thud all along the right side of the car, and Happy curses. He jams on the brakes. When they look to their right to see what hit them, Happy gives a wordless shout. Buffy can’t blame him because they are kind of gross even for a Hellmouth.
The zombies, three of which have their face pressed to the right rear window, moan and rub their faces against the side of the car, leaving smears and chunks of rotting flesh on the window. Buffy can see their lipless teeth gnashing.
Buffy mentally kisses her new shoes goodbye because there is no way that she’s going barefoot in a zombie apocalypse. There’s too much broken glass and too many unidentifiable bodily fluids to risk it.
She only wastes a fraction of a second wishing that Happy kept swords or axes or even a killing shovel in the trunk of his car. Then she tosses her new handbag into the front seat with Happy, undoes her seatbelt, and moves to crouch on the backseat, Mr. Pointy in hand.
“Open the sunroof, Happy.”
“What?” Happy shouts, half turning to glare at her, only to startle and glare at the right side of the car when something else thumps against it. “Are you crazy? Look what’s outside of the car!”
“Well, we can’t leave them wandering around,” Buffy says reasonably. “They might eat somebody.”
“Eat somebody?” Happy yells, his voice going high on the second word. “They’re trying to eat us!”
“Me? Eaten by a zombie?” scoffs Buffy. “Pffffft. As if. Now, open the sunroof, Happy. I’ve got this.”
Happy shoots her one last, wild look, and then twists around to face forward again. A split second later, the engine revs and Buffy yelps as she is suddenly knocked off balance and at an angle. She bounces off of the backrest and falls off the seat and onto the floor of the car.
“Happy!” shouts Buffy as she yanks herself up and onto her knees using the window between their seats. He seems to be in the middle of doing a tight U-turn.
“We’re getting out of here,” he declares, his voice too high and kind of wild. “We’ll send help back.”
“Not down that street, we aren’t,” Buffy mutters.
Behind them, Main Street has filled with the dead and rotting. Looking at them is enough to make Buffy miss the vamps; too bad that she killed them all before she left town. Although on second thought, maybe that’s for the best because Buffy cannot imagine an apocalypse situation in which the presence of vamps would make anything better. They’d probably nom on everyone in the shelter with them.
Speaking of which…
“Happy, let’s head for the high school. If there’s anyone left, they’ll be camped out in the library.”
“The high school? What are you, crazy?”
“It’s where I’d go. And it’s where all the anti-zombie books will be.”
All of her weapons – well, all the ones that she had left behind when she went to Los Angeles – would probably be there too. When everything started going wrong, Giles and the others would have raided her place… and hopefully taken her mother and sister with them. Buffy will never forgive them if they borrowed her crossbow collection and left her family behind.
At Happy’s wild look, Buffy sighs. “Look, I’m from this town. Trust me. We need to get to the high school’s library. And it’ll probably be best if we drive.”
The sewers would be filled with either zombies or demons. Buffy could handle that, but it is Happy’s first apocalypse. She has to respect that and try to remember to compensate accordingly.
Another moment and then Happy’s face hardens with determination.
“Right,” he says, nodding. His voice sounds almost normal again. “We’ve got to get to the anti-zombie books in the high school library. Of course. Which way?”
“Back that way,” Buffy replies, pointing in the correct direction.
Happy executes another one of those fast, tight U-turns that sends Buffy sliding across the backseat, and they roar past Parker Place with only a few thumps against the right rear quadrant of their car to mark the zombies. Buffy hauls herself back onto the seat and glances through the rear window in time to see that yup, there’s a small hoard of zombies shambling down Parker Place too.
Buffy really hopes that they’re being attracted by the noise and movement of the car rather than, say, a sense of smell that would put a shark to shame.
When they reach Sunnydale High, Buffy decides to count it as a win that the high school is still where she left it. Even better, the school gates have been barricaded shut from the inside.
“I can’t believe it,” mutters Happy. “There are actually living people in there.”
“Or there were,” Buffy counters grimly, thinking of the boarded up windows and doors on main street. All of the doors that had been boarded up from the outside had probably been boarded up by living people too, but Main Street had still ended up overrun.
Buffy prays to anyone who might be listening that her family got out before things got too bad in town.
“Wait here,” Buffy orders as she gets out of the car, all of her senses straining.
Everything is silent save for a quiet, familiar hum. When you’ve broken into as many places as Buffy has, you know an electric fence when you hear one.
A moment later, Happy shuts off the car and scrambles after her.
“What part of ‘wait here’ was I unclear about?” Buffy demands.
“There’s no way that I’m letting a teenage girl go first,” Happy says grimly.
“We can’t go over the fence,” Buffy says, instead of arguing with Happy. Anyone who stops to argue age or gender roles or explain about being one girl in all the world during the zombie apocalypse deserves to get eaten. “It’s electrified. We’re going to have to go through the stacks.”
“The what?”
“Never mind. Just grab my purse.” At Happy’s incredulous look, Buffy adds, “I have hairspray and a lighter. It’s better than nothing.”
Happy gets her purse and hands it to her. As a reward, Buffy lets him carry the makeshift flamethrower. She has Mr. Pointy, anyway.
The tunnel through the stacks is the stuff of cartoons and prison break movies. It is hard packed dirt held up by splintering timbers and luck. Fortunately, Happy seems to see about as well in the dark as Xander or Willow, which means that he blithely trips down the tunnel, unaware of how close they are to being buried alive.
“Why is there a hidden tunnel into the library anyway?”
“It’s actually out of the library,” Buffy says lightly. She is paying close attention to their surroundings, peering into the darkness, listening for the drag of limbs, stretching her senses to their limits. “We had to do something during our free period.”
Happy snorts.
There doesn’t seem to be any zombies ahead of them. But behind them…behind them…there is a quiet scrabbling. It might be rats. It is probably something dragging itself after them.
Buffy doesn’t stop or go back to investigate – she doesn’t want Happy to stop moving forward – but she begins to crowd forward against his shoulder, trying to hurry him along. Who knows how many zombies are shambling after them?
If we make it through this, Buffy thinks grimly, I am never, ever leaving home without a nice, big axe ever again.
But first, they have to make it through this.
“Something behind us?” Happy asks, half turning.
“I’m just in a hurry,” Buffy lies, only discovering after the fact that it is the truth. “My mom, my sister, and my friends…”
Words fail Buffy.
Happy’s expression softens. “I’m sure they’re fine. If they’re not in here, they probably got out before, er, things got bad.”
“I hope so.”
Happy nods. He fumbles around for a few seconds, finds her shoulder, and squeezes it. He also quickens his steps.
At the end of the tunnel, Buffy pounds on the metal door that lead into the stacks.
“Giles!” she shouts. “It’s Buffy! Open up!”
Behind them, the scrabbling is resolving itself into a pair of body rhythms: a step-sliiide, step-sliiide and a pause-draaag, pause-draaag. And there are other, more distant noises. Those two are just the first of many.
“Somebody!” Buffy shouts, pounding against the door harder. “Open up!”
“Shhhhh!” hisses Happy. “I think I heard something.”
“Giles!”
“Buffy?” calls a muffled voice through the door. Buffy doesn’t recognize it.
“Yes!”
“Name something that you saved me from!”
“What?” Buffy shrieks.
“Something coming,” Happy says grimly, moving himself between Buffy and the zombies.
“That’s it!” Buffy decides. “I am breaking this door down!”
“Don’t you dare!” shrills another, far more familiar voice. Buffy has never been so glad to hear it. “You! Nerds! Get the door open before something bites Little Miss Slays A Lot. All we need is for her to become one of them.”
From behind the door comes a series of clicks and a heavy scraping sound as if someone (or several someones) is pushing a bookcase away from the door.
“Ugh,” mutters Happy. “I can smell them. I think I can taste them.”
Buffy twists around to look behind her.
In life, the zombies were probably freshman. Now, they are mindless eating machines encroaching on her personal space. So, you know, not a huge change for them.
But Happy can’t see them.
Buffy ducks past Happy to punch the closest zombie in the chest. It doesn’t react beyond gurgling and reaching for her.
Buffy bats its grasping, half rotted hands away. With her left hand she reaches out to grasp the back of the zombie’s head, forcing it down. A wedge of dim light falls across her as she brings Mr. Pointy down, ramming her stake through the top of the zombie’s skull.
A hand curls around her right ankle, and then Happy is there, kicking, shouting, and stomping his feet. His dress shoes, which had been shiny when they had left Los Angeles, slam into the other zombie’s head over and over again until its head bursts like an overripe melon. Those shoes are never going to be shiny again.
Behind them, Cordelia Chase snaps, “You’re late! Hurry up and get in here!”
“I wasn’t aware that I was on a schedule,” Buffy deadpans as she wrenches Mr. Pointy free of the corpse (which disappears in a flash of fire and a puff of ashes) and turns to shove at Happy’s shoulder to get him moving again in the right direction.
“You are so full of it!” retorts Cordelia, sounding outraged, as Buffy hustles Happy into the dimly lit stacks. The library’s main lights never seemed to reach far into this part of the library. “Everyone knows the score: weirdness happens, you slay it, and then we either party or pretend it never happened. Weirdness happened, and you weren’t here to slay it! This is not an after-party!”
“So pretend it didn’t happen!” Buffy shoots back, her tone surprisingly bitter. “I was busy having life things happen to me!”
“’Life things?’” demands Cordelia. Buffy can practically hear the air quotes in there. “Like shopping?” She scornfully eyes Buffy’s outfit while the others shut the door and work to move the bookcases back into place. “That skirt? Really? Are you blind?”
“Homelessness, breaking up a demonic slave ring, and general slayage,” Buffy snaps back. She smoothes a hand, the one without zombie juices on it, down her skirt. “And this skirt is fine. This is business wear, not a fashion statement.” Buffy would totally take a crack at Cordelia’s outfit but her pajamas are way more embarrassing than Cordy’s. Lamely, she adds, “I’m a corporate secretary now.”
“Right,” says Cordelia disbelievingly. “And I’m the tooth fairy.”
“This is Happy,” Buffy continues, ignoring Cordelia. She can’t think why she ever missed Cordelia or worried about her. Cordelia Chase is an impossible bitch.
“We share an employer,” Happy stiffly contributes, his tone faintly embarrassed, and Buffy glares at him because that was like an icicle through the ego. Buffy would not be at all surprised to discover that Happy was popular in another life.
“My condolences,” Cordelia says, brief but sincere, to Happy. Buffy transfers her glare to Cordelia.
Before she can say any of the three things on the tip of her tongue, Jonathon Levinson, Tucker Wells’ little brother, and what looks like the entirety of the science club come bounding over. There’s a lot of awkward hugging. (The awkwardness is on her part. Buffy is still pretty sure that she doesn’t know most of these people. But the boys fling their arms around her and hug her anyway. Tucker Wells’ brother even mutters something about Chosen Ones. Buffy thinks that he might be quoting Star Wars.)
“I can’t believe that you didn’t remember about the vampires at Parent-Teacher Night,” says a guy that Buffy is pretty sure she’s never met, but she has the vague impression that he might know Willow.
He looks hurt though so she scrapes up a smile for him anyway and says, “I remember Parent-Teacher Night, but I had other things on my mind just then. Specifically, zombies. I wasn’t expecting them.”
“No one expects the Inquisition,” says someone else, and everyone except Happy laughs. First timers are always so stuffy about the potential end of the world as they know it.
“My family,” Buffy begins, turning back to Cordelia, who rolls her eyes theatrically. For a woman wearing plaid pink pajama pants and ugly, scuffed up tennis shoes, she has a lot of attitude.
“They’re here. Of course, they’re here. Giles went and got them first. Oz picked the rest of us up.”
“Good,” Buffy breathes, easily and for the first time since she had realized that Sunnydale had been overrun by zombies. The tightness in her chest unclenches suddenly and completely, leaving her reeling. Fortunately, no one seems to notice.
“Not good!” retorts Cordy. “We’ve been stuck here for days! We’re low on food, we have to shower in the locker rooms, and I smell like other people’s B.O.! And all of it’s your family’s fault!”
“It is not!” Buffy deliberately wrinkles her nose like something reeks, and Coredelia’s eyes widen. It is a direct hit to Cordy’s ego. “We’re not responsible for your hygiene issues!”
“It was your mom who started the zombie apocalypse! And you weren’t even around to stop it!”
Buffy opens her mouth to say many vicious and cutting things in defense of her mother. What actually comes out, though, is this: “I’m sure that it was an accident and that she didn’t mean to.”
Her voice is very small.
Buffy is pretty sure of that, at any rate. Her mom just didn’t notice (that her boyfriend was a killer robot, her oldest daughter’s bloodied clothes, vampires, Angel, alien invasions, vampiric invasions, Buffy’s moods, or that Buffy hung out with a lot of middle aged men) a lot of things. Buffy figures that her mom likes the world better that way.
Cordelia snorts. She rolls her eyes so hard that it has to hurt.
“Whatever. Let’s just go see Giles so that we can get this whole zombie thing over with. We’ve missed a whole week of cheerleading practice. You know how hard that is to make up.”
Buffy lets that one pass, but only because she really wants to see her mom and Dawnie and Giles and the rest of the Scoobies.
“Come on,” orders Cordelia, turning to lead the way out of the stacks. When they leave, the science squad stays behind.
“Aren’t they coming with us?”
“No. Someone has to guard the tunnel.”
“And you picked them?”
“You couldn’t make it past them,” Cordelia points out. “The zombies don’t stand a chance.”
That doesn’t make sense. Buffy is about to say as much to Cordelia but they step out of the stacks just then and into the concentrated stare of two dozen people, among them the man that Buffy vaguely recognizes as Sunnydale’s mayor. They had interrupted some sort of meeting, and two of them, Xander and Willow who were standing on either side of Giles like bookends, look downright hostile about it.
But Giles looks at her like he had just had a prayer answered so Buffy focuses on his face. She waves at the group in general (and Giles in particular) and tries on a smile.
“Honey, I’m home.”
No one who knows Buffy personally seems happy to see her.
Not Xander and Willow, who are banished from the meeting to help play tour guide to Buffy and Happy, or Cordelia, who blames Buffy for the disaster that is currently Sunnydale. Not Giles or Oz, neither of whom has a word to spare for her, or Snyder, who has no end of things to say to her, all of them about how much he is going to enjoy refusing to let her re-enroll after the zombie situation gets sorted out.
Happy witnesses all of it, and Buffy hates that she can’t read his expression. Of course, she also hates that he sees any of it. Buffy regrets bringing him home during apocalypse week, never mind that every week is apocalypse week in Sunnydale.
Buffy is feeling pretty low by the time they get to the communal daycare.
Her little sister is playing cards with some other middle schoolers when the Scoobies lead them into the room. A ripple goes through the middle school age children, starting near the door with the boy who can make a person’s worst fears come true. He is older, of course, with pale peach fuzz under his chin and an earring. Across the room, Dawn squeaks and looks up at her with wide eyes. Then Dawn is bounding across the room, the first person to know Buffy well and be happy to see her.
Billy reaches Buffy first, easily flinging his arms around her shoulders. He’s already big enough to do that.
“I didn’t do it this time,” he murmurs into the shell of her ear. He sounds desperate. “I promise I didn’t, Buffy.”
“I know you didn’t,” Buffy says, giving him a careful, little squeeze. “It’s not your fault.”
The boy relaxes and then Dawn is there, shoving him aside so that she could love on and scold Buffy in near equal measures. In Dawn’s wake come some of the kids from hospital and a few of her classmates, including Dawn’s friends Janice and Amanda.
In the three hours since they left Stark’s house, this is the absolute best five minutes, bar none. It’s the best five minutes that Buffy has had in a long time, since long before she killed Angel. Buffy doesn’t cry or even tear up, she thinks that in the last three months she’s cried out all the tears that she might ever have to shed, but her eyes are hot and prickly. She closes her eyes, relaxes, and hugs the kids a tiny bit tighter than she intends to. They don’t seem to mind.
“Buffy…”
“Mom!”
And zombie apocalypse or not, Buffy is so, so happy to see her mom. She quickly stands, hugs her mom (and then loosens her grip a bit when her mom gasps), and even tells her how happy she is to see her.
“Don’t worry, mom,” Buffy says as she pulls back from the hug. “I’ll fix this zombie thing.”
And just like that their happy family reunion is over.
“Buffy, you are not going to have anything to do with – with the zombies. They’re not,” her voice drops an octave, “not your business.”
“The prophecy goes ‘blah blah blah… something about standing alone against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.’ I think it’s safe to say that contagious, flesh eating zombies come under the ‘forces of darkness’ heading.”
Non-contagious, flesh eating zombies probably did too, not that Buffy had ever run across any.
“If it were me, Mrs. Summers, I’d take the bail out and run with it,” Cordelia advises. “You’re going to have enough trouble living this mess down. That it’s your daughter who’s going to fix your screw up and save Sunnydale from the zombies can only help your reputation at this point.”
“Cordelia!” hisses Willow, while glaring at the girl in question.
“It could’ve happened to anyone,” Xander adds loyally. He is also glaring at Cordelia Chase.
Willow and Xander’s responses aren’t exactly helping Buffy’s growing suspicion that Cordelia might have been right about who unleashed the zombie apocalypse on Sunnydale. On the bright side, she had been right that it was an accident and her mother really hadn’t meant to threaten the world as they knew it.
“In point of fact, it couldn’t have happened to me,” Cordelia retorts. “I would never have bought a magic man’s death mask, much less hung it on my wall. I mean, we live in Sunnydale. I know the rules. No buying chachkies with creepy magical pasts no matter how good they look with your new Jimmy Choos because buying normal stuff is dangerous enough.”
“I didn’t buy the mask because it matched my Jimmy Choos,” Buffy’s mother replies stiffly. “I don’t even own a pair.”
“You, you, you! Why does this conversation have to be about you?” Cordelia turns to Buffy. “Now I see where you get it from.”
The best thing about Cordelia Chase, Buffy decides, is that she happens to everyone, pretty much equally and never with any holds barred.
“Well, I for one appreciate your self-control on the magical chachkies front, Cordelia,” says Buffy. She is working hard to keep a straight face. “I think putting down a zombie apocalypse will be enough extracurricular activity for everyone this week.”
“Maybe,” Cordelia allows, “but if the cheerleading team makes regionals despite zombie week, I am going to go shopping, and I will be buying that chachkie. And I’ll expect you to be on hand to kill whatever comes out of it.”
“Noted. Just give me a call.”
Satisfied, Cordelia nods sharply and glances at the clock on the wall.
“We just have time to finish showing her everything and grab lunch in the cafeteria before they finish their meeting in the library. Then we’ll go see Giles.”
Without waiting to hear anyone else’s opinions, Cordelia heads for the door. Buffy has time for one last complicated look from her mom and another hug from Dawn and a few of the other kids before Willow, Oz, and Xander hustle her and Happy Hogan after Cordy.
There’s a social ladder in the high school turned shelter, and Cordelia Chase is still at the top of it. As they walk through Sunnydale High’s hallways and pop into its various classrooms, Buffy watches Cordy mercilessly boss (nearly) everyone that they come in contact with and marvels at Queen C’s ability to land on her feet.
Lunch is a pre-packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an individual size bag of Doritos, and a bottle of water. Buffy practically inhales hers, and then has to watch as everyone else eats their rations more slowly. Stupid zombie apocalypse. The first thing she is going to do when it’s over is to grab her passport, but the second thing will be making Happy stop for takeout.
After lunch, the Scoobies usher Buffy and Happy back to the library, where Giles is indeed waiting for them. He is standing at their usual research table, looking too tired and too thin, and Buffy’s heart squeezes painfully in her chest.
Her Watcher’s pale eyes flick over her and then over Happy before he says, “I think we would be best served to have this conversation in my office, Buffy.”
Buffy nods, mostly because she can’t think of anything clever to say and her tongue feels too big for her mouth anyway. She starts across the library, the Scoobies still in tow, and Giles says sharply, “I wish to speak with Buffy alone, I’m afraid. Please see to our guest’s comfort in the meantime.”
Buffy does not even want to try to imagine the looks that the others are throwing at her back. She goes into the office and Giles follows her, shutting the office’s door with a quiet click.
Buffy cannot stand the prospect of another rejection, especially not from Giles, who out of everyone has the best reason to be mad at her for running away. She starts babbling almost as soon as the door shuts, telling him about L.A. and the vampires and demons that she killed there. And she doesn’t quite know how it happens, but somehow the words slip out of her.
“Giles, I’m so, so sorry about Miss Calendar and Acathla and not being here to crush the zombie apocalypse and – and everything.” And oh geez, it’s humiliating, but her eyes are hot, and she might actually cry.
Buffy turns her back, because (head cheerleaders and) Slayers don’t cry. And if they do, they don’t get caught. Buffy wishes that she had put on waterproof makeup that morning.
Giles says, “My dear girl,” and puts his hand on her shoulder. He even gives it a little squeeze, which in Giles-speak is like hugs and tears and welcome home. And then his white, slightly wrinkled handkerchief appears over her shoulder. Only a zombie apocalypse could put wrinkles in Giles’ handkerchief.
Buffy sniffles, takes the handkerchief, and turns around. She hates it when Giles’ hand falls away, but she smiles as brightly as she can manage.
“Thanks, but no tears. See?”
She doesn’t return Giles’ handkerchief though. Her grip on it is too tight for that.
Buffy finally glances around Giles’ office. Every flat surface in the cramped space is covered with teetering stacks of books, including the little Watcher’s safe, his desk, and the chair to one side of the desk. None of that is exactly new, but the map of Sunnydale pinned to the wall over the desk is. Most of the map is shaded red, and Buffy cannot help but notice the wavering circles centered on 1630 Revello Drive. Sunnydale High is at the edge of the outermost circle.
“So,” says Buffy with false brightness. “What are we looking at?”
Giles clears his throat.
“The infestation began when your mother acquired an African tribal mask as a piece of art and hung it on the wall. Its original owner was a necromancer who imbued it with certain properties, among them a penchant for raising the dead as zombies. It may even be his actual soul stored within the mask.”
Buffy crosses her arms over her chest. “I hate it when Cordelia’s right.”
“Be that as it may, there are larger problems to focus on at the moment, Buffy.”
“Sorry, Giles,” Buffy says, feeling immediately contrite. Sunnydale has been overrun with zombies. Things probably cannot get any more serious than that.
Nodding, Giles continues, saying, “Unfortunately, no one noticed the sudden influx of zombies until they were everywhere within the first circle on the map. Each of the subsequent circles denotes their expanding territory at the end of each day. Regardless of how it’s powered, the zombie wearing the mask has been shown to be the, er, brains behind the zombies’ advance. The lesser zombies are smarter and more well coordinated when the mask is nearby.”
“Oh.”
Counting rings (and days), Buffy thinks, If I’d come home instead of accepting Stark’s job, I might’ve been able to stop this before it started. Scowling, she asks, “And where’s the next Slayer? Why isn’t she dealing with this?”
Giles looks surprised. “I can’t imagine how you heard.”
“Heard what?”
“The council lost contact with the newest Slayer six weeks ago. Her Watcher’s mutilated body was found and reported shortly thereafter. Apparently, it was the work of a local vampire boss.”
Buffy thinks about that for a moment, remembering how it had felt to be hunted by Lothos. (And then she spent several moments not remembering how it felt to stake her first Watcher, Merrick.)
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Buffy decides. She drops her arms to her sides. “Step One: Stop the zombie apocalypse. Step Two: Get my passport and go to Monaco with Stark. Step Three: Come back from Monaco and, if she hasn’t turned up yet, find my newest little sis.”
“Are you quite certain about Step Two? In light of recent events, it seems rather frivolous.”
“Chaperoning Tony Stark’s drunken rambles has opened up whole new vistas of slayage for me, Giles.”
Buffy knows that she’s small, blonde, and cute, and she works with what she’s got. Slaying, at least in places where it isn’t generally known that there’s a small, blonde, and cute Slayer on the loose, is generally pretty easy for her. The trick is to look harmless and walk down dark alleys, attend shifty parties, and act like a cliché.
In places where she’s known, either by reputation or on sight, changing up her dress code can bring a few more slays to the table. When a girl’s got well known looks and fashion standards, no one expects the brunette in the slouchy sweatshirt and beat up sneakers to secretly be a cute blonde with a fashion addiction and a penchant for violence.
Stark can scare up three vamps by staggering down any given alley while being drunk and obnoxious. It makes Buffy feel like maybe she’s not as good at playing bait-and-kill as she had thought.
(It also makes her wonder just how much blood Stark has unwillingly donated over the years to the undead and fanged. The world is probably lucky that Stark has not yet been turned. The thought of a vampiric Tony Stark is enough to make Buffy shudder.)
“I sincerely doubt it,” Giles says, drawing Buffy’s attention back to the matter at hand. “At best, your new job with Stark Industries will be a distraction from your sacred duty.”
“I think even the PTBs know that a girl’s gotta eat,” Buffy retorts as flippantly as possible. “Anyway, the Sunnydale Hellmouth is the new Slayer’s turf. It’s the rules.”
“I hardly think –”
“Hey, I knew it. Kendra knew it. And the new girl knows it. Trust me, Giles. She’s going to show up here sooner or later to patrol the Hellmouth. I’m just helping out while she’s busy wrapping up loose ends back home.”
“And then you will cheerfully turn aside from your sacred calling and devote yourself to being Tony Stark’s secretary.”
“Personal assistant,” Buffy sharply corrects. “I needed a new turf and I found it – him. And where goes my turf, so goes me. And we are going to Monaco where I will be moonlighting as a slayer of vampires… and possibly as a beach bunny. Do they have beaches in Monaco, Giles?”
“Tony Stark is not an active Hellmouth!”
“You only say that because you haven’t met him.”
“One hardly needs to have met him to know him,” Giles says stiffly. “In California, you cannot check out at the supermarket without seeing photographic evidence of his exploits. Everyone knows all there is to know about Tony Stark. He’s made certain of it.”
“I’m not saying he’s deep. I’m saying that he’s a walking, talking disaster in action.”
At Giles’ ferocious glasses cleaning, Buffy sighs.
“Let’s just focus on Step One for now. We’ve got to stop the zombie apocalypse.” Buffy brightens as she considers the next bit. “Giles, I think I need a flamethrower.”
“There is absolutely no need to arm you with a flamethrower,” says Giles quickly, and Buffy pouts a little. It’s not her fault that fire is so useful… and pretty. “A sword or an axe will do quite well, I should think. Did the others tell you that I brought your weapons chest to the school?”
“No,” Buffy replies, happy again. She loves her weapons, most of which had been taken off of dead demons or given to her as gifts. They are full of good memories. Buffy had taken a few pieces with her when she left home, but she had missed the weapons that she had left in Sunnydale.
“The contents of your weapons chest have been an enormous help to our patrols.”
“Okay, so we’ve got weapons and a plan. Now we just need to know how to stop the zombies.”
“If you locate and destroy the necromancer’s death mask, the other zombies should stop moving.” Giles taps the innermost circle of the map. “The last time that anyone saw the zombie wearing the mask, it was on Revello Drive.”
With her luck, the zombie with the mask is living in her mother’s house and getting rot and death cooties all over their stuff.
“We’ve got the who, what, where, why, how, and when. I think we’re good to go.”
“Wait, when is the when?” asks Giles, and then frowns. Buffy grins. It sounds like something that she would say.
“I was going to go now. Now is the when.”
“Buffy, you cannot simply stroll home to Revello and destroy the necromancer’s mask. The situation has advanced well beyond that.” When Giles takes off his glasses, pulls out a semi-clean handkerchief, and begins cleaning his lenses industriously, Buffy knows that she is not going to like whatever he is about to say. “I’m loathe to admit it, but you will have to take a group with you, Buffy. There are too many zombies for a lone Slayer, particularly one who cannot drive yet.”
“Hey, the license thing is not my fault!” Buffy automatically protests before the rest of Giles’ remarks have finished processing. She grimaces. “Are you sure?”
Buffy did her best slayage when left to her own devices. An audience, even one made up of forgiving friends, made things harder and more complicated. And sometimes it made her self-conscious.
“I’m afraid so.”
“So who should I take zombie hunting?”
Giles makes tea and they haggle over names.
Buffy doesn’t mind Giles coming along; he is her Watcher, after all, and she’s used to him. When she left Sunnydale, she had not been running away from Giles.
But the idea of including other adults puts Buffy on the defensive. They’ll just want to take over and try to tell her what to do even though she has the most experience handling the things that bump in the night. The Scoobies are also on the table.
“No way! They can’t come! Giles, they hate me!”
“Nevertheless, even now they are among the most experienced at surviving the supernatural. They helped to board up the downtown and later with the evacuation to the high school. Xander, Willow, and Oz are regular members of the scavenging parties.”
“What about Cordelia?”
“She prefers to keep things organized within the high school.” Giles adjusted his glasses. “She has a surprising facility for organizing people and making things happen.”
“Somehow, I’m not surprised.”
So there would be no Cordy on the search and smash mission. Too bad. For once, Buffy had been looking forward to having her along. Cordelia was not even close to being the most fearsome or inspiring slaying partner that Buffy had ever had, but she could be good support. And she made a great buffer between Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies.
“If the mask is not destroyed, the zombie plague could spread well beyond Sunnydale’s borders. The chances of anyone else succeeding at a later date are much slimmer. They would not even know what had started the zombie apocalypse or how to end it. As the Slayer, you must look beyond your personal feelings and focus on saving the world.”
“Giles, I know!” Buffy flings herself backwards in her seat. Slouching, she crosses her arms over her chest. “I do that all the time!”
It’s like he doesn’t even remember her killing Angel or all the times that she had worked with Cordelia or how she had gone to fight the Master even though she had known that he would kill her. She had once even worked with Spike! If that didn’t say mature enough to overlook the past and interpersonal fail, Buffy didn’t know what did.
“Which in this case means working with people who might hate you,” continues Giles, apparently ignoring Buffy. He takes off his glasses, the better to clean them. “I’m sorry.”
Not as sorry as Buffy is.
In the end, while Willow was chosen for the mask hunting expedition, the non-Buffy members of the group voted Willow off the island the moment she started babbling about how helpful her magic was going to be this time. Apparently, Buffy was not the only one who had been burned by Willow’s magic before.
Oz takes it pretty well, but Xander glares at Buffy like she had personally thrown Willow out of the group. It isn’t her fault that no one wants to be subjected to one of Willow’s magical mishaps while fighting hordes of zombies!
The biggest surprise, though, is when Happy and Cordelia insist that they are coming along too.
“My father always says that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself… or hire the very best in the field to do it for you,” Cordelia announces as she awkwardly grasps the handle of an ax. She has a shovel slung across her back, the thin rope tied beneath its head and at the bottom of its shaft bright blue against her tank top. The edges of the shovel look unusually and exceedingly sharp. “I need this taken care of sooner rather than later, so I’m doing both.”
“You’ll need a driver,” Happy says simply. He slants a look towards Cordy. “And I’m one of the best.”
“Sure, knock yourselves out,” Buffy says before Xander or anyone else can protest. “Or don’t, actually. Let’s go with ‘the more the merrier,’ and get this show on the road. What’s Happy going to be driving?”
Happy is going to be driving a powder blue station wagon with worn seats, suspicious stains, and a vanity plate that reads “BINGO 4L.” Someone, probably the greasers from the auto shop classes, had taken off the car’s front bumper and welded a homemade body scooper to the body of the car like on a bulldozer or something out of a scruffy scifi movie. There are blades protruding a foot or so from each of the car’s specially made hubcaps and the windows had been replaced by something equally clear but more durable in an effort to keep the people in and the zombies out.
“What happened to the van?” asks Buffy, dismayed.
“Devon and the guys borrowed it,” Oz says with a shrug. “He said something about going up to Portland and waiting for this to blow over.”
“How did he see this blowing over?” asks Happy.
Slanting a look Buffy’s way, Oz shrugs. “In Sunnydale, things just have a way of working themselves out.”
Yeah, right.
“Let’s hurry up and get this over with,” orders Cordelia, already storming towards the bingo-mobile. “I’ve got cheerleading practice this afternoon. And I call shotgun.”
Everyone gets assigned a window either in the backseat or the rear of the station wagon to protect from zombies. It’s one of the clerks from the highway motel, a bank teller, and Giles in the backseat and the bank manager, a guy Buffy has never met before, the high school football coach, Xander, and Oz in the way back. And because there is one more person than there are seats, Buffy ends up sharing the front passenger’s seat with Cordelia. It’s a seating arrangement that fills neither of them with joy.
“Do you have to put your elbow there?” demands Cordelia.
“Yes,” Buffy says tightly, “because it’s still attached to my arm.”
Happy starts the car and Buffy is saved from further conversation with Cordelia by virtue of the fact that he needs directions to Revello Drive, something that Buffy is happy to provide.
Getting through the school gates is kind of a hassle, what with the armed guards and the flailing dead people trying to squeeze past the car and onto the school grounds, but after they clear the wrought iron fence, everything’s solid, because Happy is driving like this is Grand Theft Auto: Zombie Apocalypse Edition. Under his lead-footed guidance, the Granny-wagon roars through the empty streets, veering neatly around knots of corpses and swerving across lanes to mow over individuals. Happy drives too fast for the zombies to slap themselves against the sides of the car and wrenches the Bingo-mobile around corners without noticeably slowing or going up on two wheels. Honestly, it’s impressive, and Buffy kind of has designs on making Happy teach her to drive.
Soon they’re on Revello Drive, home of Slayers and Zombie Overlords alike. There are tons of zombies shambling up and down the street but only one house on the block has the zombie equivalent of a block party happening on its front lawn. It’s pretty easy to guess which house the head zombie has set up his headquarters in.
Yeah, it’s her house. Surprise, surprise.
For a wild moment Buffy envisions burning the building to the ground. It would be easier than trying to scrub zombie goo out of everything. And the fire might even destroy the head zombie’s mask.
Too bad Giles is so stingy with the flamethrowers.
Giles asks Happy to go around the block, and Buffy sighs.
At least she’s slain enough Frankenstein’s monsters and robbed enough graves since arriving in Sunnydale to already know what gets dead guy juices out of most fabrics. Yet more fun life lessons learned while slaying.
Next to her, Cordelia wrinkles her nose.
“It’s like caramel,” she proclaims, and it takes a moment for Buffy to decide that she probably means ‘karma.’ “Your mom started the zombie apocalypse and now she’s homeless.”
“The house is still standing!”
“Yeah, but you’re never gonna get the zombie juice out of the carpets… or the walls. And the smell, ugh! This place is a total tear down.”
“I voted for flamethrowers but someone turned me down.”
“Burning is better,” agrees one of the adults in area behind the backseat, surprising Buffy. It’s the one that she has never met before. “And home owners’ insurance usually covers fires. It doesn’t cover acute zombie infestations.”
“Thank you, Mister, er…”
“Mr. Gillian,” supplies the man. “I’m an insurance adjustor.”
“Ah, thank you, Mr. Gillian,” hastily inserts Giles. “Unfortunately, Buffy’s previous record with arson precludes her mother from burning anything down. Buffy would be the first suspect.”
“They were for vampire infestations,” Buffy offers shortly and several heads in the backseat nod. There were a lot of unexplainable fires in Sunnydale. Most, but not all, had been set by Buffy.
“Now, to focus on the matter at hand,” continues Giles. “How shall we approach the house?”
“Fighting our way to the nearest door and then getting it open would be a waste of time and effort. Just park the car in the living room… or the garage, I suppose,” advises Buffy. “The living room is more centrally located but the garage has a chainsaw in it.”
Buffy has never gotten to go slaying with a chainsaw. Getting to use one now would definitely improve this whole disastrous trip home.
“Drunk driver,” adds Mr. Gillian. “It’s not as good as a fire but worth some remodeling.”
“No chainsaws,” insists Giles at about the same time.
Buffy twists around to glare at her Watcher, ignoring Cordelia’s yelps and complaints about the placement of Buffy’s knees and elbows, to demand, “No flamethrowers and no chainsaws? Why must you hate joy?”
Cordelia snorts and Happy’s expression says it all: he thinks they might be out of their minds. Happy, who works for Tony Stark, disapproves. Buffy bets that Stark would be just as flippant (but way more drunk) if he ever found himself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.
“When we reach the house again, please aim the car for the living room’s bay window, Mr. Happy,” advises Giles, who is clearly ignoring Buffy. Huffing out her breath in a show of indignation, Buffy twists around to face forward again.
“All right, we crash the car into the living room, get out, and kill as many zombies as it takes to find the one with the mask. Then we smash the mask and party,” surmises Buffy.
“Stay together,” adds Giles. “Our strength will be in forming a circle and preventing the zombies from sneaking up behind any one of us while we wait for their leader to arrive and direct their movements against us.”
“Cordy, Happy, and I’ll go first,” Buffy puts in. “Happy and I’ll fight the zombies, while she gets everyone else out of the car. Got it?”
There are cautious assents all around, and for once not even Cordelia has something to add. Everyone puts on their seatbelts or braces themselves for impact.
When Happy hits Revello Drive again, he somehow coaxes even more speed from the old station wagon. Bracing herself against impact, Buffy watches the bay window come closer and closer. Cordy grabbed Buffy’s forearm and holds on tight.
A moment later they bounce over the curb and up onto the front lawn. The glut of zombies slows them down a little, the heavy thumps of their bodies making someone behind Buffy squeak, and then they are through the front window in a crash of metal against wood and glass.
The impact jars though Buffy, stunning her. A zombie slaps against her window, rattling it in its frame, and adrenaline surges through Buffy. She wrenches off her seatbelt and slams the door open, knocking the zombie backwards. Buffy surges from the car, axe in hand and broken glass crackling under her feet, and begins chopping off heads and arms and torsos. If it’s rotting and within arm’s reach, Buffy hacks at it with the axe.
Cordelia and Happy are still inside the car, where Buffy left them.
“Cordy!” Buffy slams her axe through a zombie’s rotting torso and is punished with an explosion of ick. She is absolutely drenched in zombie goo from the waist down. “Cordelia, snap out of it!”
“R-Right!”
Cordelia scrambles out of the car, dragging her axe and shovel with her, and Happy follows, slamming the door shut behind him. They inch their way to the right, Cordelia jabbing at the occasional zombie with her shovel and Buffy doing the lion’s share of the fighting, until Cordelia shouts, “Here’s good!”
It takes a few tries to get the car door open, although Buffy is too busy to know what the problem is. All she knows is that it isn’t zombie related, because she and Happy have got the zombie angle mostly covered. Buffy is hatchetting everything that doesn’t register as human, attacking in broad strokes rather than kills, while Happy gets the pieces dragging themselves across the floor before they can bite her calves or latch onto her ankles and foul up her movements. Happy Hogan isn’t super skilled with an axe but he makes up for it with energy, something that the zombies lack. But if the side of the car wasn’t behind them, they would definitely be done for.
“Larry won’t get out of the car!” reports Cordelia, her voice high and angry.
Buffy doesn’t waste energy feeling surprised. She had already done the surprise thing when Larry, the weaselly night clerk from the highway motel, had agreed to come. Backing out now seemed about right for him.
“Then I’m, ugh, coming for him next!”
Cordelia hisses a string of threats at Larry, most of them anatomically impossible and all of them about what she will help Buffy do to him if he doesn’t man up right now, and Larry gets out of the damn station wagon.
Miss Pennyfeather and Giles slide out after him and suddenly everything is much less desperate. Miss Pennyfeather, the bank teller, is amazing with an axe. When Buffy tells her as much during a brief lull – the zombies from other rooms and outside are having trouble navigating the doorframes and the jagged hole in the wall respectively – Miss Pennyfeather smiles and, looking both pleased and abashed, says, “We have monthly in-services at the bank.”
“Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance!” booms Mr. Smith, the bank’s manager, as he joins them. The bank employees both have their own personalized axes, courtesy of the Sunnydale Credit Union. Everyone else had borrowed weapons from Buffy’s weapons chest. To Buffy, he adds, “I don’t suppose you do in-services?”
“I’ve never thought about it,” Buffy says blankly. “No one’s ever asked.”
“Think about it. You could make a tidy sum on the speaker’s circuit.”
“Be that as it may, we should focus on the matter at hand,” interjects Giles, and the bank manager nods, seeming to take no offense to the redirect.
“We’ll form a circle and take turns,” Buffy announces. She’s thought about this. “It’ll be five on and five off for as long as it takes. When the mask shows up, I’ll go for it.”
To her surprise (and secret joy), people immediately start forming groups. Mr. Smith and Miss Pennyfeather band together, while Larry slouches over to stand next to Mr. Gillian. Giles and Happy pick her, and Cordelia and Oz move to stand with Xander.
“You don’t always have to be the hero,” snaps Xander. “Whoever’s closest to the mask should go for it!”
“I don’t think the mask is going to come right up to us and do its own fighting,” retorts Buffy, while eyeing the seething crush of zombies at the various entrances to the room. The zombies, seemingly incapable of forming a line or taking turns, are tearing each other to pieces. “I’m going to have to go to it. And it’s me, Giles, Happy, Miss Pennyfeather, and Mr. Smith up first.”
“I just think –”
“Don’t bother,” snaps Cordelia. She bodily yanks Xander back against the car’s side with her, Larry from the motel, Mr. Gillian, and Oz. “There can only be one head cheerleader on any squad and, much as it pains me to admit it, she’s ours. Where goes our Slayer, so goes us – no matter how epically bad her plan seems.”
“Thanks, Cordelia,” mutters Buffy, feeling ambivalent. Cordelia had certainly mastered the left-handed compliment.
“No problem!” chirps Cordelia.
At the same time, Xander shouts, “But she left us in the lurch!”
“I’d leave right now if I could!” cries Larry. He is almost loud enough to cover the sound of several enterprising zombies fighting their way through the crush of their brethren and into the living room. “As soon as this is over, I’m getting out of town. I’ll go somewhere nice; someplace without zombies.”
“It’s a big world out there,” says Oz supportively.
“And you’re tough enough to survive Sunnydale,” adds Buffy bracingly. “I’ve found that to be a huge advantage over everyone else.”
Xander tries again. “She doesn’t get to just come back and be the big hero when she –”
“Harris, while I value your unique perspective on our situation,” inserts Miss Pennyfeather, terrible in her earnestness, “you are actively working to make our team objectives harder to reach. I will chop off your head if you continue to make this harder than it has to be.”
“But –”
“I don’t care. No one in this group over the age of twenty cares. We just want to do the job that we came here to do and go home. Now is not the right time to have whatever emotional, embarrassingly teenage conversation you want to have. Do it on your own time, because I’m not kidding about the head chopping thing.”
And as if to punctuate her statement, Miss Pennyfeather cuts a particularly enterprising zombie in half with one chop and no fuss. Happy helpfully sets about chopping it into smaller, less grabby pieces.
“An elegantly efficient solution to a minor personnel problem,” grunts Mr. Smith as he beheads another zombie. “And I really must commend you on your delivery. It was calm, polite, and firm without being confrontational. You’re management material, Miss Pennyfeather.”
“Why thank you, Mr. Smith.” The last part of his name is lost in a small shriek as Miss Pennyfeather brings down her axe on a zombie’s head. Buffy helpfully kicks it off of Miss Pennyfeather’s axe. “I’ll hold you to it.”
That is, perhaps, more than Buffy ever wanted to know about the inner workings of the Sunnydale Credit Union. She’s still more than vaguely interested in the possible in-service job though. Having money and stuff and an apartment has made her a total money grubber.
Buffy’s group has switched out with the other group and then switched in again when the mask finally gets around to showing up. Buffy didn’t see it enter the room and didn’t feel it either. It was the zombies that betrayed its presence. They all suddenly smarten up. And speed up.
Suddenly, it’s everything that everyone can do to keep the zombies back, all ten of them fighting furiously.
Buffy is shoulder-to-shoulder with Giles and cleaving heads from necks as fast as she can move her arms when she spots it through the clouds of ash swirling around her: a brown mask with glowing blue eyes and a body that is mostly bones and tatters of flesh.
There is no way that Buffy can reach it, not through the press of corpses.
“Cordelia! Shovel!”
She takes a couple of steps back and a length of wood thumps into Buffy’s outstretched hand. Raising it to head height, Buffy left her defense to Giles and the others, waiting… waiting until…
Buffy threw the shovel like a spear, its blade slamming through the zombie’s skinny neck a heartbeat later. Three heartbeats after that, the remaining zombies collapse.
To Giles, Buffy says, “See? I can totally take constructive criticism.”
Mr. Gillian snorts, Larry laughs, wild and jagged, and soon most of them are laughing; most, but not all. Whatever; none of the Scoobies are no longer her problem. Returning to Sunnydale has not left Buffy sentimental for the good old days.
Surprisingly, Cordelia volunteers to help Buffy grab a few things from her room, which is how they discover that the upstairs is entirely untouched. Zombies apparently have real problems when it comes to navigating stairs.
So Buffy grabs a change of clothes, a pair of comfortable boots, and a quick shower while Cordelia dumps armloads of clothes into some of the clear trash bags from the upstairs bathroom. Buffy’s work clothes end up in another one, carefully knotted at the top.
“Seriously?” Cordelia demands when Buffy emerges from the bathroom, squeaky clean and carrying the bag of thoroughly soiled clothes. “Those are trash!”
“If I threw out everything that got splashed with something gross, I wouldn’t have any clothes left.”
Cordelia wrinkles her nose. “You seriously need to talk to Giles about a clothing allowance.”
“Believe me, I’ve tried. The man just doesn’t get it.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes.
“Maybe the next Slayer will have better luck,” Buffy adds, and Cordelia briefly glances away.
“I need to get your new number,” she says, looking back at Buffy. “Just in case, you know?”
“Sure,” says Buffy. She finds a pen and a blank note card in her desk and writes her number on it. “Will you pass it on to Giles when you get a chance? Just in case.”
“Sure thing,” chirps Cordelia as she tucks Buffy’s number into a pocket.
Buffy fetches her passport from the small safe in her mother’s room, and they tote Buffy’s clothes downstairs, where Happy, Giles, Xander, and Oz are waiting for them. Larry, Mr. Gillian, Miss Pennyfeather, and Mr. Smith have already wandered off.
Cordy dumps her share of the bags of clothes into the station wagon’s backseat and says, “See you later, Buffy.” She leaves, Xander slouching after her. He is already complaining, his strident tones drifting back to Buffy.
Oz gives Buffy a quick hug before hurrying to catch up with the others.
Happy drives Buffy and Giles back to where they had left Stark’s car.
“I need to get a few things from the school before we go,” Buffy says to Happy. “Meet you at the high school’s front gates?”
Happy nods.
Buffy walks back to the school with Giles, who spends the entire time trying to get Buffy to give up her job and return to her lack of everything in Sunnydale. She’s so busy arguing with him that she never gets a chance to give him her new cell phone number.
Buffy is thoroughly aggravated with Giles by the time that they part ways, which actually makes the parting easier.
She collects up what she can of her weapons collection and says goodbye to Dawn and the other kids, who promise to keep an eye out for the pieces that she’s missing. Buffy can’t find her mom so she goes back to Dawn and leaves a note with her for their mother. She also writes her cell phone number on Dawnie’s forearm.
Jonathan Levinson catches up to Buffy near the school gates.
“Buffy?” he asks, looking ill at ease. “Can we – Can I speak with you?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
They are nearly to the school’s gates before Jonathan abruptly asks, “Can I get your number?”
Shocked, Buffy stops walking then she has to hurry to catch up. “Jonathan, I don’t –”
“Oh, no, it’s not that!” blurts Jonathan, flushing pink. “I mean – I could – If you wanted – And you were nearly too late this time.”
Buffy flinches.
“Not that I’m saying what happened was your fault,” Jonathan rushes to say.
She’s glad that he sounds certain because Buffy isn’t so sure. If she had been in Sunnydale, she might have stopped the zombie apocalypse before it had gotten out of hand. Of course, if she had stayed, no one would have helped Anne or broken up that demonic slave ring in L.A. But she could have come back on the bus like she had intended instead of taking Stark’s job…
Choices were hard.
“It’s just that when something weird happens in Sunnydale you usually… handle it,” continues Jonathan, interrupting Buffy’s thoughts. She’s grateful for it. “I heard what you said to Cordelia Chase in the school library, and I think that – I think that someone should be able to call you if anything… strange happens. Stranger than usual, I mean; something that needs your attention.”
“Oh, right,” gasps Buffy, feeling embarrassed. “You’re right. I should have – Do you have a cell phone?”
Jonathan has a pen rather than a cell phone, which is good enough.
“Thanks. I’ll only call if it’s an emergency.”
“It’s fine if you call,” replies Buffy automatically, uncertain there is anything else that she could say. She doesn’t know what she and Jonathan could talk about if he called her up just to chat, but the idea of telling him not to call her unless it is important makes her feel uneasy. “Hey, could you do me a favor and give Giles – Mr. Giles, the librarian – my number? He’s good at spotting the weirdness. And sometimes he researches things for me.”
“Sure thing, Buffy.”
Their parting is as awkward as the rest of their conversation has been.
Happy finds Buffy before Buffy finds Giles or her mom.
“Do you have your passport?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. Your things are in the trunk. Let’s go.”
“What? But I haven’t – Happy! I have to say goodbye to –”
“Call them on the phone,” grunts Happy. He has Buffy by the arm and is practically carrying her off. “I want to be out of here before nightfall.”
“Well, okay, yes, I can see your point. And that’s probably a very good idea, but – Happy!”
The drive back to Los Angeles is long and mostly silent. Buffy and Happy only speak twice.
The first time, they are ten miles past the last gas station, in the desert, and Happy is wearing a pair of ill-fitting shorts, orange flip-flops, and a white t-shirt that says ‘Sunnydale! You won’t want to leave!’
Buffy suspects that irony made him buy that shirt because Happy hadn’t been able to get out of town fast enough. He had practically carried Buffy to the car and thrown her in the backseat. The only reason that Happy stopped at the last gas station before the desert to refuel, buy clean clothes, and change was because they never would have made it to the next town on what was left in the gas tank.
Buffy, who is dressed in a pair of jeans and a light sweater from home, understands his desire to be clean. She draws the line at letting him burn her clothes.
“If we start doing that, then I’ll have no clothes left,” Buffy argues as she tries to get her things away from Happy. Unfortunately, he is holding them up and to one side of his body, well out of Buffy’s reach… unless she’s willing to break his legs.
Buffy is not yet ready to break his legs over a plastic garbage bag filled with dirty clothes. And, though it pains her to even think it, the shoes were pretty close to unsalvageable anyway.
“Let me wash mine!”
“There are ashes and decayed bits of human flesh on your skirt,” Happy says slowly, as if Buffy hasn’t been there when it had happened. “I don’t know – I don’t want to know – what your blouse is stained with. Not to mention what you did with your shoes.”
“I’m sure I can – Happy!”
Happy, who has already made a cheerfully crackling fire with his own dirty clothes and shoes, tosses Buffy’s things into the blaze. Dismayed, Buffy watches the latest sacrifices to her calling catch and burn.
“I wish you hadn’t done that.”
Happy snorts.
“I mean it! I loved those shoes!”
Happy stares at her with open disbelief. “You were never going to get the zombie off of them.”
“You don’t know that,” Buffy sulks. She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’ve got a lot of experience getting stains out of things.”
Happy looks disturbed rather than convinced. Buffy wishes that she had made time to take debate.
The second time that they speak, Buffy starts the conversation. They have just passed a sign welcoming them to Los Angeles.
“Can we agree to never speak of what happened in Sunnydale? Especially not in front of the boss?”
Buffy does not want Tony Stark to take a particular interest in her, her family, or Sunnydale.
“What happened in Sunnydale?” asks Happy, tilting his rearview mirror so that he can look at her through it. “I’ve already forgotten.”
Buffy smiled. “Yeah, small towns are boring like that. And Sunnydale is the worst.”
“I believe it.”