Casa de Summers, Sunnydale, California, Early April 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time)
... Yeah, they were regretting the lock on the bathroom door these days, because somehow Andrew had gotten hold of a video camera. It would have been cute, almost, how he'd designated himself some kind of documentary guy, except that he kept shoving the camera into people's faces and narrating overdramatically. Plus he kept blowing off the Potentials in favor of the Scoobies, which annoyed Kennedy on their behalf. What, like they weren't important?
Also, he kept locking himself into the bathroom to record segments while a line formed outside. Personally, Kennedy was half rooting for Buffy to actually break the camera over his head like she kept threatening to do.
Well. Except for how Buffy was all gloom-and-doom about the vision she'd had when she jumped through the portal, and kept making speeches about it. Yeah, yeah, they got it. Big evil coming, army of Ubervamps, they needed to be ready. What did she think Kennedy and the other girls were doing every day? Seriously? Mostly, Kennedy had started tuning out the speeches, much like she was learning to tune out Andrew and his constant narration. Hey, as long as he didn't get up in her face and grill her about the aftermath of Willow's portal spell and how the two of them had been noticeably awkward for days afterward, she could ignore him. She just didn't want to have to explain all that.
It had been bad, yeah. They'd had a long talk about it that night, and Kennedy had been clear about the fact that she wasn't going anywhere but she was super not-thrilled about doing Duracell duty without a heads-up. Maybe that had been more stubbornness than anything else; it had been a couple of days before she got a handle on the urge to flinch any time Willow touched her, but the First had been so intent on trying to drive her away that she didn't care to let that happen.
Okay, so she was determined to prove the First wrong. This wasn't some kind of endless cycle of doomed relationships, because she wouldn't let it be, and from the look in Willow's eyes every time Kennedy flinched away she got the feeling they both needed to know that.
...plus after about four days she just couldn't take it any more. All things considered she thought she'd shown remarkable self-restraint. (Or maybe she wouldn't admit that the First was right and the danger was its own kind of turnon. Because it was.)
So anyway, all was inching steadily back toward good on that front, but Andrew and his camera didn't need the details. As long as he let her use the patrol footage to review with the girls in training it was all good, really. Actually they'd just finished doing that, and Kennedy had sent the girls off to take their turns in the shower and put equipment away when she heard the front door open.
It was Buffy and Principal Wood, looking like they'd just had to fight their way out of the school or something, and from the way Wood immediately stalked through the house in search of someone it was not hard to guess trouble was afoot.
"Whoa," Kennedy remarked to Buffy. "Rough day at the office?"
Buffy
"High school sucks," Buffy said, closing the door behind her. "And here I thought I was done saying that when I wasn't in it anymore."
Maybe she shouldn't have gone to work at one.
Kennedy
"I kinda liked it, personally," Kennedy said, leaning against the stairway railing. "But, I get it. There's a whole Hellmouth clause."
Look, at least she didn't point out what the narrative did.
"Speaking of which. What the hell happened to you guys?"
Buffy
"A little bit of war," she replied, totally serious.
Buffy was a little overly serious these days, maybe.
Kennedy
Juuuuuuuuust a little.
"Not a surprise. You do keep telling us that's what it's all about." So maybe that came out a little sarcastic; the speech over breakfast had broken a few records. And Kennedy hadn't consciously realized it, but somehow she'd given in to the vague notion that a lot of things-- the disaster with the portal spell, the increasingly grim motivational speeches-- wouldn't have happened if Buffy hadn't decided to take that impromptu trip to vision-ville. So there was a touch of resentment there, too. She was trying to keep a lid on it, but who knew how long that would last?
"...but not exactly five million Ubervamps swarming out of the basement, I'm guessing--" mostly because they were, you know, still alive-- "So who'd you throw down with?"
Buffy
"The seal thing in the basement is turning the kids on... everyone," she said with a sigh. "Every thing that makes high school suck, they're internalizing it, and turning it on everyone else."
She paused.
"I think someone exploded."
Kennedy
"Hello to the way too literal," Kennedy guessed, wincing. "So, like, newspaper staff throwing down with yearbook was an actual thing?"
Not that she'd ever been into that kind of extracurricular back when she went to normal high school, so it was a guess.
"Never complaining about Fandom High's wacky brand of suck again. Ever."
Buffy
"What, people never exploded there?"
And Buffy was only a tiny bit smug-feeling about being right. This was one of those cases where it sucked too hard to be gloaty about that.
Kennedy
"No one who couldn't put themself back together again afterward," Kennedy answered, not trying to one-up her this time, for once; she was a little cautious about saying it, though, because death was getting to be way too regular around here. "Seems like no matter what kind of crazy shit went down there, everything managed to be okay again. Something tore holes in reality and ate bits of the island-- we found a way to fix it and get everything back. Wake up as a guy one morning, bitch for a while, and figure it'll go away on its own 'cause that's what always happens on weird weekends around there. That sort of thing. This..."
She shrugged. "Pretty sure we can't just pull the covers over our heads and figure everything will calm down and be fine again in the morning. You have a plan for the seal thingie?"
Buffy
Buffy was still staring at her a little for that explanation.
"Right, move past the boyparts," she muttered, and then raised her voice to normal volume. "Time to talk to Andrew. See what he knows. ...Hopefully without the camera."
Kennedy
"He's some kind of expert on this seal?" Forgive Kennedy for sounding incredulous about that. "Well, guess everybody's gotta have a hobby."
Buffy
"Well," she said slowly, "he's got some experience with it, anyway."
Not any of the good kind, mind...
Kennedy
"Thus the formerly-tied-to-a-chair hostage thing." Kennedy couldn't decide whether this explained more than it made things more confusing. She also couldn't decide whether that really mattered any more. "So you think maybe he knows something that'll calm the evil manhole cover of doom down."
And again with the dubious.
Buffy
"When you have a problem this big, it helps to go to the person who might have helped it along," Buffy said dryly.
Okay it might have been accidental, for all she knew, but exploding kid and all.
Kennedy
"Fun," Kennedy said, going for equal levels of dry. "Thought we were gonna gear up and go kick some ass. There you were, getting my hopes all up."
What with the constant speeches about war and all...
Buffy
Did you want to turn this into a dry-off, Kennedy? Because Buffy was up for it.
Like so: "I wouldn't exactly count it out. That would be why everyone needs to be prepared and all..."
Everyone knows, Buffy. Everyone.
Kennedy
After four months what, exactly, might lead anyone to believe that Kennedy was going to pass up any chance to prove she could compete?
"Really." That was her, trying to channel the Sahara into a single drawn-out word. "Wasn't sure if you really meant that about us being prepared. I mean, we don't exactly talk about it or anything."
Except for all the freaking time.
Buffy
You win this round, Kennedy. Though you may have started up another speech, so...
"I say it because you need to be prepared. Unprepared people die. Generally I try to keep that from happening."
Kennedy
"Message coming through loud and clear, believe me," Kennedy muttered sullenly, but with a slight edge to her voice; Chloe was still a sore spot. Thanks, the First. "Just saying, there's only so prepared we can get if we never get any field action."
Yes, she was going to push that point. Again.
Buffy
"We've been over this," Buffy replied. Reiterating her stance to the point that everyone could probably quote her verbatim was Important, but when someone else did it...
Kennedy
"They're ready," Kennedy insisted. "They're never gonna know what they're made of if they don't get a chance."
Buffy
Buffy held up a hand like that was going to stop an argument from happening. "First things first, okay? We figure out the seal dealie, and then we can go another round."
Kennedy
Kennedy rolled her eyes, but-- you know, she actually wasn't going to start an argument just yet, because she thought she saw a way to get something she wanted here.
"Fine. Can I help shake him down, then?"
If she got to do that literally, hey, bonus.
Buffy
Buffy shrugged, figuring she'd end up taking the lead and having more backup that could beat Andrew up if necessary couldn't hurt. "The more the merrier, right?"
Kennedy
"Pretty good philosophy for a lot of things in life, you ask me." YES, KENNEDY, EVERYONE GETS IT ALREADY.
Well, it got her to look a little less cranky, at least. Look, it was a place to start.
"Threatening his camera's a valid strategy. Tell me it is."
Buffy
The answer was immediate: "Only if you really mean it."
She hated that thing. Haaaaaaaaaaaaated it.
Kennedy
Kennedy gave her the look of what kind of question is that, really?
"Some things really don't need to be on video, so yeah."
Like she'd been paying enough attention to realize he'd actually been filming the repaired window.
***
Who knew getting Andrew to talk, really talk, could be so difficult? They'd had to use magic to do it in the end, which could have been uncomfortable except that he'd agreed to let Willow put him under the funky glowy-charm hypnosis.
Once he did talk, anyway, Kennedy couldn't really blame him for repressing the memories, or whatever else he'd done to keep from thinking about the truth. Having the First use the form of your best friend? She knew how much that sucked, provided she didn't think too hard about who his best friend was. She couldn't really get behind him giving in to the First's manipulation and killing his other best friend so much, but if she had... yeah, she'd probably be repressing too.
It didn't fix the fact that everything going down at the Seal of Danzalthar was because of the blood Andrew had spilled on it, though. Using a ritual knife engraved with demon languages, that he'd hidden in the cutlery drawer (what the hell?).
That meant a mission-- except Kennedy was pacing agitatedly in the kitchen instead of getting ready to go.
And talking to Andrew's camera. Sigh.
"So she says, 'Everyone get ready to go,'" she told the camera, all clipped words and glowering. "And I'm thinking, great, I'm ready, I haven't had a chance to really get into the action in forever, my girls've been training, we've all been busting our asses here. We are so ready. Turns out?"
She threw her hands up, ran them through her hair, paced a few steps away from the camera and back again to lean on the counter, one foot kicking restlessly against the floor.
"She's not taking me or my girls," Kennedy went on, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "Not even taking Willow. You know who she's taking? The men. Oh. And you, Andrew."
Ugh, what was that about? All those speeches about how they were special, they weren't just weak little girls, and now this? Also: not entirely accurate, since Xander wasn't going, but accuracy could kiss her justifiably pissed-off ass, because Andrew got to go, and he was a murderer-- well, okay, so was Willow technically. More to the point, he'd had a hand in starting all of this. And he got, what, rewarded for it?
"I mean, talk about a morale killer, right? All the girls get left behind? What the fuck is that?" She sighed, and this was more than she really wanted to unload but she was on a roll now. "Didn't think Buffy would play it like that. Guess she's not really what I thought she'd be."
Apparently her tirade (hey, at least she'd held back on the whole thing about feeling betrayed because wow, melodramatic much) was enough to stun him into silence; he was just standing there, wide-eyed, not even prompting her to go on.
Not that he had a chance to, anyway, when Buffy yelled for him to get a move on.
"Guess you better go," Kennedy said acerbically, rolling her eyes. "Big Boss is calling you."
***
Whatever they did at the high school that night, it must have worked; by the time they got back-- worse for wear, which meant there must have been a fight, which didn't make Kennedy any less resentful-- Buffy and Spike looked relieved, and Andrew looked like he'd been crying. Nobody really stopped him when he grabbed his video camera and hurried into the bathroom tonight, anyway.
It was the tears, Spike explained to Kennedy the next day; she thought it sounded stupid, but apparently Andrew crying over the Seal out of guilt over Jonathan's death had calmed things down.
He didn't add "For now," but they were all thinking it anyway. They always were. It was all about waiting for the other damn shoe to drop, and the longer it didn't...
It would be a relief if it did. And that was kind of scary.
[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, the drill, it is the same as always. hey, look, only one today. middle bit preplayed with the lovely annieadderall as stillbaking, based on btvs 7x16, "storyteller," and includes a slightly tweaked cut scene from said episode. i feel bad that i can't do much more with this episode, because i love it. oh well.]]
Also, he kept locking himself into the bathroom to record segments while a line formed outside. Personally, Kennedy was half rooting for Buffy to actually break the camera over his head like she kept threatening to do.
Well. Except for how Buffy was all gloom-and-doom about the vision she'd had when she jumped through the portal, and kept making speeches about it. Yeah, yeah, they got it. Big evil coming, army of Ubervamps, they needed to be ready. What did she think Kennedy and the other girls were doing every day? Seriously? Mostly, Kennedy had started tuning out the speeches, much like she was learning to tune out Andrew and his constant narration. Hey, as long as he didn't get up in her face and grill her about the aftermath of Willow's portal spell and how the two of them had been noticeably awkward for days afterward, she could ignore him. She just didn't want to have to explain all that.
It had been bad, yeah. They'd had a long talk about it that night, and Kennedy had been clear about the fact that she wasn't going anywhere but she was super not-thrilled about doing Duracell duty without a heads-up. Maybe that had been more stubbornness than anything else; it had been a couple of days before she got a handle on the urge to flinch any time Willow touched her, but the First had been so intent on trying to drive her away that she didn't care to let that happen.
Okay, so she was determined to prove the First wrong. This wasn't some kind of endless cycle of doomed relationships, because she wouldn't let it be, and from the look in Willow's eyes every time Kennedy flinched away she got the feeling they both needed to know that.
...plus after about four days she just couldn't take it any more. All things considered she thought she'd shown remarkable self-restraint. (Or maybe she wouldn't admit that the First was right and the danger was its own kind of turnon. Because it was.)
So anyway, all was inching steadily back toward good on that front, but Andrew and his camera didn't need the details. As long as he let her use the patrol footage to review with the girls in training it was all good, really. Actually they'd just finished doing that, and Kennedy had sent the girls off to take their turns in the shower and put equipment away when she heard the front door open.
It was Buffy and Principal Wood, looking like they'd just had to fight their way out of the school or something, and from the way Wood immediately stalked through the house in search of someone it was not hard to guess trouble was afoot.
"Whoa," Kennedy remarked to Buffy. "Rough day at the office?"
Buffy
"High school sucks," Buffy said, closing the door behind her. "And here I thought I was done saying that when I wasn't in it anymore."
Maybe she shouldn't have gone to work at one.
Kennedy
"I kinda liked it, personally," Kennedy said, leaning against the stairway railing. "But, I get it. There's a whole Hellmouth clause."
Look, at least she didn't point out what the narrative did.
"Speaking of which. What the hell happened to you guys?"
Buffy
"A little bit of war," she replied, totally serious.
Buffy was a little overly serious these days, maybe.
Kennedy
Juuuuuuuuust a little.
"Not a surprise. You do keep telling us that's what it's all about." So maybe that came out a little sarcastic; the speech over breakfast had broken a few records. And Kennedy hadn't consciously realized it, but somehow she'd given in to the vague notion that a lot of things-- the disaster with the portal spell, the increasingly grim motivational speeches-- wouldn't have happened if Buffy hadn't decided to take that impromptu trip to vision-ville. So there was a touch of resentment there, too. She was trying to keep a lid on it, but who knew how long that would last?
"...but not exactly five million Ubervamps swarming out of the basement, I'm guessing--" mostly because they were, you know, still alive-- "So who'd you throw down with?"
Buffy
"The seal thing in the basement is turning the kids on... everyone," she said with a sigh. "Every thing that makes high school suck, they're internalizing it, and turning it on everyone else."
She paused.
"I think someone exploded."
Kennedy
"Hello to the way too literal," Kennedy guessed, wincing. "So, like, newspaper staff throwing down with yearbook was an actual thing?"
Not that she'd ever been into that kind of extracurricular back when she went to normal high school, so it was a guess.
"Never complaining about Fandom High's wacky brand of suck again. Ever."
Buffy
"What, people never exploded there?"
And Buffy was only a tiny bit smug-feeling about being right. This was one of those cases where it sucked too hard to be gloaty about that.
Kennedy
"No one who couldn't put themself back together again afterward," Kennedy answered, not trying to one-up her this time, for once; she was a little cautious about saying it, though, because death was getting to be way too regular around here. "Seems like no matter what kind of crazy shit went down there, everything managed to be okay again. Something tore holes in reality and ate bits of the island-- we found a way to fix it and get everything back. Wake up as a guy one morning, bitch for a while, and figure it'll go away on its own 'cause that's what always happens on weird weekends around there. That sort of thing. This..."
She shrugged. "Pretty sure we can't just pull the covers over our heads and figure everything will calm down and be fine again in the morning. You have a plan for the seal thingie?"
Buffy
Buffy was still staring at her a little for that explanation.
"Right, move past the boyparts," she muttered, and then raised her voice to normal volume. "Time to talk to Andrew. See what he knows. ...Hopefully without the camera."
Kennedy
"He's some kind of expert on this seal?" Forgive Kennedy for sounding incredulous about that. "Well, guess everybody's gotta have a hobby."
Buffy
"Well," she said slowly, "he's got some experience with it, anyway."
Not any of the good kind, mind...
Kennedy
"Thus the formerly-tied-to-a-chair hostage thing." Kennedy couldn't decide whether this explained more than it made things more confusing. She also couldn't decide whether that really mattered any more. "So you think maybe he knows something that'll calm the evil manhole cover of doom down."
And again with the dubious.
Buffy
"When you have a problem this big, it helps to go to the person who might have helped it along," Buffy said dryly.
Okay it might have been accidental, for all she knew, but exploding kid and all.
Kennedy
"Fun," Kennedy said, going for equal levels of dry. "Thought we were gonna gear up and go kick some ass. There you were, getting my hopes all up."
What with the constant speeches about war and all...
Buffy
Did you want to turn this into a dry-off, Kennedy? Because Buffy was up for it.
Like so: "I wouldn't exactly count it out. That would be why everyone needs to be prepared and all..."
Everyone knows, Buffy. Everyone.
Kennedy
After four months what, exactly, might lead anyone to believe that Kennedy was going to pass up any chance to prove she could compete?
"Really." That was her, trying to channel the Sahara into a single drawn-out word. "Wasn't sure if you really meant that about us being prepared. I mean, we don't exactly talk about it or anything."
Except for all the freaking time.
Buffy
You win this round, Kennedy. Though you may have started up another speech, so...
"I say it because you need to be prepared. Unprepared people die. Generally I try to keep that from happening."
Kennedy
"Message coming through loud and clear, believe me," Kennedy muttered sullenly, but with a slight edge to her voice; Chloe was still a sore spot. Thanks, the First. "Just saying, there's only so prepared we can get if we never get any field action."
Yes, she was going to push that point. Again.
Buffy
"We've been over this," Buffy replied. Reiterating her stance to the point that everyone could probably quote her verbatim was Important, but when someone else did it...
Kennedy
"They're ready," Kennedy insisted. "They're never gonna know what they're made of if they don't get a chance."
Buffy
Buffy held up a hand like that was going to stop an argument from happening. "First things first, okay? We figure out the seal dealie, and then we can go another round."
Kennedy
Kennedy rolled her eyes, but-- you know, she actually wasn't going to start an argument just yet, because she thought she saw a way to get something she wanted here.
"Fine. Can I help shake him down, then?"
If she got to do that literally, hey, bonus.
Buffy
Buffy shrugged, figuring she'd end up taking the lead and having more backup that could beat Andrew up if necessary couldn't hurt. "The more the merrier, right?"
Kennedy
"Pretty good philosophy for a lot of things in life, you ask me." YES, KENNEDY, EVERYONE GETS IT ALREADY.
Well, it got her to look a little less cranky, at least. Look, it was a place to start.
"Threatening his camera's a valid strategy. Tell me it is."
Buffy
The answer was immediate: "Only if you really mean it."
She hated that thing. Haaaaaaaaaaaaated it.
Kennedy
Kennedy gave her the look of what kind of question is that, really?
"Some things really don't need to be on video, so yeah."
Like she'd been paying enough attention to realize he'd actually been filming the repaired window.
***
Who knew getting Andrew to talk, really talk, could be so difficult? They'd had to use magic to do it in the end, which could have been uncomfortable except that he'd agreed to let Willow put him under the funky glowy-charm hypnosis.
Once he did talk, anyway, Kennedy couldn't really blame him for repressing the memories, or whatever else he'd done to keep from thinking about the truth. Having the First use the form of your best friend? She knew how much that sucked, provided she didn't think too hard about who his best friend was. She couldn't really get behind him giving in to the First's manipulation and killing his other best friend so much, but if she had... yeah, she'd probably be repressing too.
It didn't fix the fact that everything going down at the Seal of Danzalthar was because of the blood Andrew had spilled on it, though. Using a ritual knife engraved with demon languages, that he'd hidden in the cutlery drawer (what the hell?).
That meant a mission-- except Kennedy was pacing agitatedly in the kitchen instead of getting ready to go.
And talking to Andrew's camera. Sigh.
"So she says, 'Everyone get ready to go,'" she told the camera, all clipped words and glowering. "And I'm thinking, great, I'm ready, I haven't had a chance to really get into the action in forever, my girls've been training, we've all been busting our asses here. We are so ready. Turns out?"
She threw her hands up, ran them through her hair, paced a few steps away from the camera and back again to lean on the counter, one foot kicking restlessly against the floor.
"She's not taking me or my girls," Kennedy went on, not bothering to hide her annoyance. "Not even taking Willow. You know who she's taking? The men. Oh. And you, Andrew."
Ugh, what was that about? All those speeches about how they were special, they weren't just weak little girls, and now this? Also: not entirely accurate, since Xander wasn't going, but accuracy could kiss her justifiably pissed-off ass, because Andrew got to go, and he was a murderer-- well, okay, so was Willow technically. More to the point, he'd had a hand in starting all of this. And he got, what, rewarded for it?
"I mean, talk about a morale killer, right? All the girls get left behind? What the fuck is that?" She sighed, and this was more than she really wanted to unload but she was on a roll now. "Didn't think Buffy would play it like that. Guess she's not really what I thought she'd be."
Apparently her tirade (hey, at least she'd held back on the whole thing about feeling betrayed because wow, melodramatic much) was enough to stun him into silence; he was just standing there, wide-eyed, not even prompting her to go on.
Not that he had a chance to, anyway, when Buffy yelled for him to get a move on.
"Guess you better go," Kennedy said acerbically, rolling her eyes. "Big Boss is calling you."
***
Whatever they did at the high school that night, it must have worked; by the time they got back-- worse for wear, which meant there must have been a fight, which didn't make Kennedy any less resentful-- Buffy and Spike looked relieved, and Andrew looked like he'd been crying. Nobody really stopped him when he grabbed his video camera and hurried into the bathroom tonight, anyway.
It was the tears, Spike explained to Kennedy the next day; she thought it sounded stupid, but apparently Andrew crying over the Seal out of guilt over Jonathan's death had calmed things down.
He didn't add "For now," but they were all thinking it anyway. They always were. It was all about waiting for the other damn shoe to drop, and the longer it didn't...
It would be a relief if it did. And that was kind of scary.
[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, the drill, it is the same as always. hey, look, only one today. middle bit preplayed with the lovely annieadderall as stillbaking, based on btvs 7x16, "storyteller," and includes a slightly tweaked cut scene from said episode. i feel bad that i can't do much more with this episode, because i love it. oh well.]]