Summers Back Yard, Sunnydale, California, Late March 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time)

So Buffy and Giles were having some kind of argument, Kennedy could tell that much. Something to do with Spike's chip, or possibly the principal of the high school who might or might not be evil. To tell the truth she was a bit too distracted to pick out the details. She had good reasons, though, right? Potentials to wrangle, Slay-training to do, three months' worth of unresolved tension to, uh, release (in a PG sort of way) with that girl she wasn't calling that word yet since they were sort of easing into this thing.

Okay, mainly that third item, but in her defense see above re: three months. And change.

If the other Potentials had noticed, and it was hard for them not to considering the number of people in the house and accompanying relative lack of privacy, they weren't giving her a hard time about it to her face. Mainly, Kennedy suspected they were reaping the benefits of her good mood. Even if they did have anything to say she wouldn't have cared.

The Scoobies were a slightly different matter, if only because they were actually friends with Willow, but again Kennedy wouldn't have let it get her down if they didn't like it.

Well, no one had said anything to her yet, although she thought she'd heard Dawn muttering in the foyer when they'd snuck back upstairs for a few minutes after breakfast.

Still? She was in a pretty good mood, and humming to herself as she wrestled makeshift practice dummies into position for the afternoon's training session.

( You're nothing like her, you know. )

[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, you know the drill. preplayed with the effervescent regretiz4suckas as inthekeyofme, and based on a cut scene from btvs 7x14, "first date." oh, variations on scenes i wish had happened in canon.]]

Summers Basement, A Couple of Days Later, Late March 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time)

So as it turned out, the chip that had been implanted in Spike's brain to keep him from hurting humans was gone. That had happened during the night Kennedy had spent trying to get to the bottom of Willow's non-Fandom-related gender-swapping problem, and explained some of why Buffy had been so worried about him that day. Also the collapsing, though Kennedy had been preoccupied at the time. There hadn't been a big announcement about it or anything, though, and that was the part some of the girls-- and the Scoobies, for that matter, if she was interpreting correctly-- had a problem with. It had all come out one night on patrol in an explosion of slangy British-ness, when Spike hit Giles by accident and comedic confusion ensued.

Then last night had been Buffy's date with the Sunnydale High principal, who was a totally hot young guy with an earring if Dawn and Amanda were to be believed, and as it turned out everyone who'd been betting on whether he was a demon had been wrong. (Rona was vocally sorry about that; she'd been hoping for a nice cut of actual money, since Kennedy had declared she'd literally pay up if he really was one.) No demon there. Just a guy who fought demons because oh, yeah, his mother was a Slayer who'd been killed in the line of duty.

That part put a damper on the betting when the girls found out about it; all of Buffy's speeches about how any one of them could be the next Slayer dovetailed with that revelation in a not so fun way.

But Datefest 2003, as Anya grumpily dubbed it, wasn't so demon-free. Xander, whose unmistakable romantic bickery tension with Anya was the subject of as much gossipy speculation from the Potentials as whatever vibe Buffy and Spike had (and Kennedy and Willow were fair game too), had ended up on a date with some girl he'd met at the hardware store, which had led to him being strung up over the giant evil manhole cover of doom over the Hellmouth in the school basement, stabbed in the side and bleeding onto said manhole cover. Or the Seal of Danthalzar. Whatever. Anya hadn't been wrong, as it turned out; Xander's date had been a demon after all, and as interested in getting on the First's good side as half the demon populace of the town. (That was an interesting tidbit, actually.)

It was in line with everything Xander had told Kennedy about his previous romantic history. All things considered, it did paint a pretty ominous picture of dating on the Hellmouth but she figured if she hadn't been scared off by now she wasn't going to be.

Anyway. Xander was home and patched up, Anya was being all huffy and told-you-so, Giles had lectured all of them about their social lives in the face of the apocalypse. It had been a pretty eventful few days.

Somehow hanging out with Spike had become an occasional thing after training sessions, when there was gear to put away and no one quite as obsessive about it as she was, though Kennedy hadn't had the chance since before the whole deal with his chip acting up.

"So," she remarked as she wiped down a pair of boxing gloves. "Off the high tech leash, huh?"

( Spike glanced over from where he was trying to roll one of the exercise mats tightly enough to stand, surprised she'd asked.  )

[[the usual nfi/nfb, ooc-okay thing. based on bits from btvs 7x13, "the killer in me," and 7x14, "first date." preplayed with the inimitable life_inshadow as followshisblood, and again with the scenes i wish had happened in canon. self-indulgent much? yes, but i have no shame.]]