While the others shop for toiletries, changes of underwear, phone cards, food, Dawn ducks into Office Depot and buys a stack of spiral notebooks and a fistful of pens. Back at the hotel, she dumps them on the bed with a take, have gesture and the girls swoop like gulls. The Scoobs hang back, curious, but dopey, around the edges of the suite management gave them in lieu of a conference room. Dawn passes them notebooks, too, receiving small smiles as she goes, an evaluative look and a nod from Giles, who produces his own steel-nibbed pen, a tilted head and thoughtful, "Thanks," from Buffy. "They're for whatever you want," Dawn tells the room at large. "I just thought you might, you know, have stuff to write down."
*
Like beanstalks curling skyward overnight, the girls are transformed. Heads turn when they walk, singly or in small prides, through the lobby, across the parking lot to Denny's. They're not merely beautiful. Poised with Shiva smiles and slanting shoulders, they are compelling, uncanny. Giles' brain, dizzily a-buzz with thoughts of boarding schools and refurbished councils, lobs up uncensored, Wherever will we find enough virtuous vampires for them to fuck?
*
Buffy is dreaming of a white bed in a white room, large, sunlit and serene, when Willow interrupts. "Uh, hi!" the witch's voice shimmers between her ears. "Hope I didn't interrupt a good one. Just checking the connection. Um, the white pigeon poops at midnight. Meet me next to the waffle iron tomorrow at ten." Exit witch, leaving rumpled sheets behind her.
Next morning, Buffy, Faith, Ken, Vi, and two of the foreign Slayers find themselves clustered by the breakfast buffet, clutching coffee cups and watching Willow watch the waffle timer.
"So you don't actually speak Russian?" Tash confirms.
Willow beams. "You guys were my guinea pigs. Limited edition trial run of the first ever d-newsletter. Like e-newsletter, except, dream—!"
"You're still kinda scary," Faith opines.
"This is how we find your sisters. And tell them that they're not alone."
*
"Will, I'm all right," Xander sighs, looking up as his best friend enters and softly shuts the door behind her. He tosses his magazine to the bedstand. "You should go sleep with Kennedy tonight. She'll be missing you." Willow crosses to the bed, sits cross-legged. "It was ... I mean, thanks—for staying with me. I'm glad you did, but—"
"You're not all right."
"No. I'm very, very far from all right. But I'd rather sleep alone."
*
For the first time since their mother died and Dawn tried to call her back, Buffy and Dawn sleep together.
*
"Full-time counseling staff," says Faith. Delicate snorts chime from several quarters.
"Perhaps the Coven could suggest people," Willow murmurs.
Andrew takes minutes.
"Faith's right," Buffy weighs in from her spot in the corner, where she's nursing her chai. She's been quiet, letting the girls read from their lists torn from spiral notebooks. "Shrinks with a clue: big fat asset.
"Also, write this down: non-arbitrary leave time. No one parks on a hellmouth for longer than two years."
"Maybe leave that negotiable if a slayer's working on a college degree?"
"We can talk about it."
"Could you write down catsuits?" requests Rochelle.
*
"Buffy, may I have a word?" Giles' query stops her as the girls file out for lunch.
"Sure," she says, and tucks her feet back under her body in the big chair. His wary deference pains her; she wishes he would just be Giles again. Whoever that is.
He takes off his glasses, but instead of reaching for a kerchief, just dangles them from his fingers as he looks at her. The gesture makes him look unwontedly soft and vulnerable. "I've been thinking.... Once the girls have been packed home for the summer, and before we begin traveling to collect the new ones, I'd like to invite you and Dawn and the others to come home with me to England, or rather, to my sister's property in Devon. She, she runs a distillery, keeps the local coven in mugwort and lavender. You could meet them—Willow's witches. There's a bed and breakfast, lots of room, blessedly quiet—I thought—"
"Thank you." She stops his babble with a light hand on his wrist. Feels his pulse. "That's—thank you. I think all of us could use a rest."
His smile isn't exactly wide and easy, but it's a start.
June 7, 2005
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