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by Chris Kenworthy (scoobyhq@fcmail.com)
Disclaimer: If it's been on TV, I didn't make it up!
"Oh, god, help me!!" Buffy complained, looking at the four bags she had just stacked on the dining room table. "I know that I'm forgetting something, but I can't figure out what it is!!"
"The fact that this trip is supposed to be fun?" Joyce suggested. Buffy shot her a look that was at least as deadly as any crossbow bolt. "I know, I know and I'm sorry," Mom immediately apologized. "What you're forgetting... umm... Beach towel?"
"Got it." Buffy tapped a bag.
"Robe?"
Tap. "Check."
"Makeup?" Buffy just flashed her mother a look. "Okay, okay, what - you've never gone anywhere and forgotten makeup?" Buffy didn't dignify that with a reply either. "An arsenal of weaponry in case an army of darkness descends on this quiet little beachside town."
Buffy jumped towards her parent in sudden outrage. "Mom!! Don't even say that??"
"Why not honey?" Joyce asked, frowning herself.
"'Cause... cause it's jinx," Buffy managed to mutter out.
"Oh. Well then I'll just put my finger on my nose and hop around in a circle," Joyce suited action to word, "and that'll take the jinx off." Buffy was shaking her head, but decided to let it go at that.
The doorbell rang. "Coming!" Joyce called out. She ran to the front of the house and brought back a Willow, loaded down with a suitcase, a carry-on, and a knapsack.
"Hey," Willow said. "You ready to go?" Joyce had decreed, in her capacity as chaperone, that she'd drive Buffy and Willow down to Pacific Shores in her own car, while Xander and Cole rode together, thus eliminating any possibility of forbidden trysts with whichever group she wasn't present to watch. (At least Buffy and Willow very much hoped that Xander and Cole weren't the slightest bit interested in trysting with each other.)
"And this way, the guys can do a male-bonding thing, and we can gossip all the way down," Joyce had said. Buffy suspected that she felt her position as unofficial den mother of the scooby gang somewhat threatened by Celia's sleepover, and that that was why she had volunteered for this trip in the first place.
"Hair clips!!" Buffy suddenly yelled out, very much surprising Willow and her mom. Buffy ran into the bathroom, grabbed a handful of medium-small barrettes, and stuffed them into one of her suitcases. "Maybe that was it. Okay, we can go."
(Somewhere, heading down the interstate...)
"So, um..." Xander said uncomfortably, breaking the equally awkward silence.
"So," Cole repeated equably. They had been on the open road for about a half an hour, and subjects of conversation had been run out for about twenty-five minutes.
"Did I thank you for inviting me up on this trip?" Cole asked nervously, about ten seconds later.
"About three times already," Xander admitted with a silly grin. "But I don't mind, you can say it again. I'm funny that way."
Cole laughed at that. "But why did you ask me along, if it isn't too gift-horsey to ask?? Just because I'm dating Buffy??"
"Kinda," Xander admitted. "Double-date seemed the best way to go with this time-share deal, when I found out it was a possible. Even double-date plus chaperone." He smiled over at Cole in the driver's seat. "Plus, you seem like a really cool guy, and I do still kinduv owe you for the night of the masquerade dance..."
"No," Cole corrected. "We've been over that, and you don't owe me anything." A pause. "Not that I'd turn down the trip, though." That set both boys off laughing.
"Actually, the fact that you don't see the healing thing as a merit is to your credit even more," Xander said idly. "I'm glad that Buff's found a guy like you. Which is, I guess, another reason I invited you along - to show her that I approve of you two."
"Oh?" Cole raised an eyebrow. "Your opinion about the guys she dates is very important to her?"
"Not in the slightest," Xander admitted with a short bark of laughter. "Who knows what might have been if it was." Cole took his eyes from the road to shoot a confused stare at Xander. "Well, for about a year I was totally convinced that *I* was Buffy's soulmate. She didn't agree, at least, not in the sense that I was going for."
Cole laughed, somewhat forcedly. "You... you had a thing for her?"
"Well, yeah," Xander replied, not noticing the details of Cole's reaction. "I mean, who wouldn't fall for her? You know what I mean, right man??" He sighed. "I've come to terms that it wasn't to be for Buffy and I, of course. I probably wouldn't have been able to see what Willow and I could have together if I hadn't. She's still a beautiful, gorgeous girl, though, isn't she?" Cole only grunted in response to Xander's ramble. "That's another good thing about this beach weekend idea. Buffy and Willow in swimsuits - maybe bikinis.
"Oooff! What was that for?" Xander complained two seconds later.
"That's my date you're talking about too there, man," Cole said, calmly putting the hand he had just lightly cuffed Xander with back on the steering wheel. "Show some respect."
(At the Spanish Conquest condominium complex.)
Rupert Giles hurried somewhat irritably down the stairs, wakened and summoned by a knocking on the door. When he flung the portal wide, he was surprised to see Celia Johnson standing there, framed in the December sunshine.
"Umm... Celia. What are you -- did we have plans for today??"
"Well, I thought so," Celia said with a shrug. Giles stepped back from the doorway, and she entered calmly. "Though maybe it was never spelled out. Today's the day that Buffy and her friends are heading off on their vacation, right? So we need to be out and around the town, trying to catch some mischief that the Uprisers are making while the Slayer's away. Right??"
"Oh. Yes, of course." Giles shook his head. He had actually reasoned the same way himself, except... "I thought we'd be waiting until night - on the presumption that the Upriser's minions would be vampires or other denizens of the darkness. Trick is, after all."
"Well, that's a reasonable assumption," Celia admitted. "I, on the other hand, prefer to assume nothing. Faith can handle the night shift for us." She smiled. "So go up, get dressed. We can pick up breakfast on our first pass around town."
Giles sighed and headed back up to his bedroom.
(In Pacific shores.)
"Oh, boy," Willow said, looking out the window. "Cole wasn't lying, this town is beautiful! The landscapes, the ocean, the buildings..."
"The pier..." Buffy continued without pause. "Oooh, there are people selling clothes!! C'mon, mom, pull up a parking space and let's go have a look!"
"Buffy." Joyce sighed, shook her head. and began to drive past the pier - clothes, parking spaces, and all. "We're already late, and we've got a car pretty full of clothes already. I'll drive you back here once we've met the boys at the beach house and unpacked."
"But these are *new* clothes!" Buffy protested with classic teenage logic.
"And the guys aren't gonna want us to go shopping after we've unpacked," Willow chimed in. "Right now, we can hit the stalls, pick up a few things, and be back before they start to worry."
Joyce groaned, knowing that she couldn't stand against the stubbornness of two teenaged girls. Buffy alone was normally more than a match for her. She pulled into the parking lot and turned off the motor. "Ten minutes. That's it," she declared, knowing that if she got Buffy and Willow away from the pier in under half an hour she'd be accomplishing a miracle.
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