Diclaimer: You know I don't own this stuff, why do have to put this here....? Anyway - owning the story is good enough for me.
Author's note: The first few chapters of this story may be kind of slow and lacking with the action and what not, but it's coming up, I promise...
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"Disneyland!" Dawn said suddenly. Everyone on the bus, even Vi who looked like she was suffering from a mild case of motion sickness, looked over at her. "Come on... it's perfect!" She paused, and then spoke her next words like a pompous tv show host. "'Hey team of total world savage... you just totally saved the world! What are you gonna' do next?' ... We're going to--"
"Sleep." Buffy offered. Dawn looked at her and gave her a small smile.
"Okay," She said. "But then we're going to Disneyland."
"... Okay." Andrew started a little hesitantly. "But can we maybe steer clear of fantasy land? Those rides give me nightmares..."
"You know, I hate to admit it," Xander responded, but not directly to Andrew. "But I'd have to go with Tucker's brother on this one. I mean, the name 'Fantasy Land' is like... false advertising. It has you thinking that it is a merry land of fantasy, which to me would be a land of girls with big--"
"Xander!" Willow said.
"Hearts and minds." Xander finished with an embaressed smile. Willow settled back in to her seat. Some of the girls giggled. Some of them didn't. Some of them didn't understand how the core (which is what they came to refer the main scoobies as) could be taking this so well.
"Anyway," Xander continued quickly. "There are things in that land. Strange, unspeakable things."
"Like that one time in first grade when we walked past the witch in the tower window, and you thought that she was going to come after you for like a month." Willow said - laughing.
"Hey, that was enough to give any little boy the wiggins!" Xander defended himself.
"Plus," Kennedy chimed in. "Mr. Toads Wild Ride takes you in to hell... and I have had enough of being taken in to hell for one... million life times." Giles looked back briefly from the steering wheel.
"It takes you in to hell?" He asked, completely disconcerted.
"Careful," Buffy said. "You have to choose your wording more carefuly when you're talking to someone who lived in Sunnydale for a long time." She looked over at Giles and called out, "It doesn't actually take you in to hell... it's more of a pop up book version of hell." Giles creased his forehead.
"Americans." He mumbled under his breath.
"And that's just the kiddy rides." Xander said. "Plenty more haunted houses and singing bunnies to go around the whole park."
"These rides are for children? Don't they have enough to be scared about without being sent in to a nightmarish situation?"
"Ah," Faith interjected. "But it's just a pop up book version of nightmarish situation, Mr. G..."
"Missing the point people!" Dawn interupted the heated debate she had just caused. "Aside from the... hell and nightmares ... Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. We need a vacation from all this scary stuff to--"
"Visit more scary stuff..." Kennedy said with a shrug and a smile.
"Well, whatever we do, sleep comes first." Buffy said, becoming serious, and addressing everyone. "Then food, then we can talk about potential happy having." There was a general murmer across the bus as everyone agreed.
"About the food," Andrew started. "There's this onion flower thing..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Is it bigger than a bread box?" Spike asked annoyed. Anya was laying about a foot away from him.
"Have you ever thought about that?" She asked, then turned her head toward Spike. He looked at her. "A bread box. And what the hell is a bread box anyway? ... A box where you store bread. Yeah, I can see how that's imperitive to life. And spice racks too. I mean, have you ever once sat back and thought, out of the millions and millions of things you could possibly want, 'Gee, I could really use a bread box right about now,' or - or, 'Man, my life would be so much easier if only I had a spice rack'?" Spike stared at Anya for a few moments.
"... How bored are you?" Anya shrugged.
"Anyway - no."
"So, then it's smaller than a bread box?"
"Yes."
"Is it an eyepatch?" Anya looked at Spike.
"How did you guess that?"
"I've been told that I'm a twenty questions genius..." He creased his forehead. "By a bloody moron actually... anyway - I can read your mind, remember?"
"Oh... right." Spike propped himself up on his elbow again.
"So, thinking about your cycloptic sweetie, are we?" Anya didn't meet Spike's eyes.
"What makes you think that?" Spike looked at her skeptically.
"An eyepatch?" Anya took a deep breath, and sat up. She shrugged.
"How's he going to live without me? He wont be able to drive in a straight line, that's for sure... And who's going to open the jar of pickles for him?" Spike sat up as well.
"Do you care?" He asked. "I thought you wanted him to be miserable." Anya looked around as though there was something to look around at.
"Love isn't all it's cracked up to be. I mean... you think it's about them wanting to spend their life adoring you... when really, it's about you wanting to spend your *eternity* adoring them. It's about wanting them to be happy. *Making* them happy if it's at all possible. It's not about pain... or even about them loving you back. It's just about you loving that person, and being there for him in anyway you can." She finally looked at Spike. "And it sucks. The whole freaking spectrum of human emotion completely sucks. If I would have known that it would suck this much, I would have stayed a demon..."
"Being a demon ... doesn't make it any easier to escape the spectrum, love." Spike responded quietly. Anya looked down.
I know, she thought - then looked back up. "I just want Xander to be okay."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"How you holding up?" Buffy asked as she slipped in to the seat next to Xander at the back of the bus. Everyone else but Giles, who was still manning the bus, had fallen asleep during Andrew's informative lecture on an extraordinary food he refered to as the "flowering onion"...
"The trick," he had started. "Is to soak it in cold water for an hour so it doesn't lose it's shape." He looked down. "Spike told me that. He threatened me with death if I ever told anyone about that conversation." He looked back up. "But... now that he's gone... I think he would want me to pass that on..." No one had had the heart to do anything but smile at him... then he, too, had fallen asleep.
"The wheels on the bus keep on turning." Xander responded to Buffy. "And I don't know where I'll be tomorrow..." He looked at the blood on Buffy's blouse. "How about you?" Buffy looked at her shirt as well.
"What - this?" She made an indifferent gesture, then looked back at Xander. "It took more than being impaled through the stomach to kill me... both times." Xander smiled.
"Yeah - and it took more than fun and games for me to lose an eye.." Buffy smiled slightly. "... Okay - that was lame. I'm making Giles jokes now. Give me a second to think of something more witty to say." Buffy rested her head on Xander's shoulder.
"Take as long as you need." She said. "The world's not going anywhere." Xander smiled and rested his head on Buffy's.
"I got it!" He said, and looked at Buffy. "It took more than pointy sticks to put my eye out... ironically, pointy sticks never got me in any trouble." Buffy laughed.
"That joke was a little lower on the lame meter..." Xander smiled.
"That's all I wanted." A beat. "I'm sorry about Spike." Buffy thought for only a moment.
"Don't be. He got what he wanted."
"Was it what you wanted?"
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish Spike was on this bus right now... but I also be lying if I said I didn't wish that my mom, Kendra, Tara, and Anya... were here too. There are a lot of people who should be on this bus who aren't. Sunnydale took too much away from us... and Spike helped put a stop to it. I'm proud of him. Anya too." Xander looked down.
"You know..." He started, then looked back up. "You should sale the rights of your life to some hot shot tv producer."
"A tv show, huh?... I guess our lives would make an interesting one."
"Yeah, and we could give it a catchy name like, 'Slayer'."
"Great, we'll name our show after a bad metal band."
"... 'Sunnydale'?"
"Too WBish."
"... 'Buffy the vampire slayer'.... I mean, I would watch it... or maybe not because of the unpleasant assosiations it would have with me almost dying a whole bunch of times, but I bet other people would watch it. We could get rich of the idea..."
"Buffy the vampire slayer." Buffy repeated to herself thoughtfully. Then her and Xander looked at each other.
"Naaah."
Suddenly the bus stopped and jerked forward. There were groans of displeasure as slayers woke up throughout the bus.
"What happened?" Someone asked. The bus exploded in to an uproar. Buffy crawled over Xander, and walked up to the front of the bus where Giles stared with confusion written all over his face, out the window. Buffy looked at him worriedly.
"Giles, what happened?"
"Who do you think they are?" Buffy creased her forehead, then looked forward to see what Giles was talking about... In front of the bus stood 3 people in a kind of v shape. One person was in front of the other two. All of them wore black hooded capes, and it was difficult to see their faces. They said nothing. Nor did they move. One by one, everyone joined Buffy up front. "They weren't on the road as I was coming up, Buffy. I would have seen them..."
Suddenly everyone turned to the back as someone let out a blood curdling shriek...
Willow.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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