THE MISSION: Part Two
by Jeanie The Tortoise Fly
SPOILERS: after "Killed By Death"...Isn't Ryan a cutie?

DISCLAIMER: None of the Buffy characters belong to me, they belong to Joss Whedon and the WB etc. No copyright infringement intended. The Doberman Pincher is being borrowed from Robyn's fluff piece, as John could probably tell you. Anya, Robyn, and Windrider are real people...they have given me permission to include them in this fic. They don't belong to anyone except themselves...though Anya has on occasion claimed that the bank owns a piece of her...My parents and my pets are real too but they don't get a say in this. Jeanie is me. No one owns me as far as I know so there's no copyright infringement there. When I'm done, I promise that all of the characters will be returned in one piece...even Windrider.

Part Two

"Your dad? He went out back a couple of hours ago. I thought I saw smoke over the fire pit so I assumed he was starting a bonfire..." Jeanie's mom glanced out the window as she said this. "Funny there's no smoke now...Well I have to go to work. Nice meeting you Willow and Xander."

With that, Mrs. Sebastian gathered her dinner [she was working the night shift at Children's Hospital], her purse, and her coat. She attempted to kiss Jeanie goodbye, but Jeanie masterfully dodged the kiss aimed at her forehead, by leaning down to calm her insistent dog Kaila. Through the whole scene Kaila was barking, Gandalf [the Sebastian's other Keeshond] was getting exited thinking that Ruth was going to take him for a walk, Xander was mesmerized, staring out the window at two humming birds who were fighting over the feeder [they didn't seem to realize there were *two* feeders], and Willow was starting to show signs of paranoia due to the collection of frogs in the Sebastian's house. [They collected frog memorabilia from miniature toy frogs to froggy-banks to frog mugs.] By the time Ruth had gone out to her car, Willow was frantic. Xander hadn't moved, his intent gaze glued to the feuding hummers.

Jeanie looked over at her *friends,* as her mother had called them, and noticed the looks on their faces. She decided to deal with the simplest problem first.

"Xander...they're just birds! Snap out of it!"

"But...they're so small..."

"Xander they are humming birds. They're supposed to be small. Now Willow needs our help." With that Jeanie turned to the young hacker, who was now curled up on the floor in the fetal position, screaming.

"Frogs! Frogs! Ohh My God! The Frogs! Get them off me! Frogs! Frogs!" Kaila and Gandalf were licking Willow's face and hands, unable to figure out what was wrong with her.

"Willow! It's all right they're fake. See this is just a toy...They're not real. Willow?"

Xander and Jeanie finally got Willow calmed down enough to explain to her that all of the frogs in the house were fake.

Once Willow was sitting on the couch, calmly sipping a nice hot cup of tea, the three of them started to piece together all that must have happened. They figured that after Jeanie had gone through the portal, her dad had accidentally stepped through it too. This meant Mr. Sebastian was probably loose in Sunnydale. There was only one thing to do...they had to go back to Sunnydale and find Jeanie's dad.

Before they went out to the back yard where the Sliders-like gate was, Jeanie insisted they dash into her room to grab her stashed bag of sour berry candies. While Jeanie searched for the bag [she had hidden it better than she thought], Willow admired her surroundings.

"Wow! Think you've got enough stuffies? Yikes! Who are all these people?" Willow was now looking at one of the three large bulletin boards which were nailed to two of the walls. These contained pictures carefully arranged, so as not to damage any, and held on with multicolored thumbtacks.

"Oooooh...Douglas Adams' "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy!"...and it's got pictures! Cool!" Xander of course was more interested in the 'important stuff'. He also noticed the large map of Tolkien's Middle Earth which was pinned on another one of the walls. Then just as Jeanie found the bag of candies hiding in her old Cello's case, Xander and Willow realized there was something missing in the room.

"Um Jeanie? Where's the bed?" Jeanie pointed through what they had thought was a closet doorway. Inside was a bed which had Quixote and Kira, her two cats, curled up on it. "Ohh, nice kitties," was the only response she got.

With what they had come for, Jeanie, Xander and Willow proceeded to go to the gate which was in the back yard. Jeanie took out the timer, pressed a button, and a blue portal appeared. They jumped through the portal and prepared to land in Sunnydale. Jeanie landed on a Doberman pincher which let out a pained yelp. Willow landed on an unmade bed with a soft thud. Xander came flying out of the portal and found himself laying on the ground staring at a pair of runners. The owner of the runners helped Xander up and then went to extricate Jeanie from the Doberman which had pinned her down by sitting on her stomach and growling. Once free of the dog Jeanie glanced up at her rescuer, an almost sixteen year-old who had a peculiar white streak in her light brown hair.

"Robyn! What? Why're we in your room? We're supposed to be in Sunnydale! My dad...we have to go find him..." At this point Jeanie gave up trying to make sense and resigned to sit in the swivel chair by Robyn's desk.

Robyn explained that the gate was new and she didn't understand why it sometimes got it's destinations mixed up. As Willow explained that they were looking for Jeanie's dad, Robyn took the timer from Jeanie and reprogrammed it for Sunnydale.

"I'm coming with you. That way if something happens to the timer again I can fix it." Robyn got no protestations from Willow or Xander, and Jeanie was too busy chewing on a couple of sour berry candies to say anything.

And so the Three had become Four. Robyn pressed a button on the timer, and the four teenagers jumped through the portal that had just appeared.

Xander and Robyn both landed in a heap in the alley behind the Bronze, narrowly missing a stray undead cat. Willow landed on an empty crate, while Jeanie landed on her feet. Unfortunately Jeanie's feet came to rest on the undead cat who was fleeing from the falling objects. So she tripped, and her fall was broken nicely by the heap that was Xander and Robyn.

Once they assembled themselves [after the ritual check for broken bones etc.], they started for the Bronze. Across the street they saw Ryan, the little boy from the hospital during Buffy's stay, crying with his head in his arms.

"Ryan? What's the matter?" Trust Willow to act calmly in a situation like this.

"Santa Claus yelled at me...and he said 'Bah Humbug!'" With that, Ryan burst into another tearful fit.

Jeanie looked at her friends and voiced:

"Well, at least we know my dad has been here..."

* * *

...Will they find Jeanie's dad? Or will the Vampires beat them to it?... ...To Be Continued...

Feedback?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? {pleading puppy dog eyes}Pweeeeeese?!?!?!?!?!?!?

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