Summers House, Sunnydale, California, Late April 2003 (Tuesday Fandom Time, Of Course)

It wasn't that Kennedy didn't think Willow could take care of herself or anything. She wasn't worried, exactly, about the fact that Willow had headed out to L.A. for a few days, and she was too busy with the other Potentials and their training now that their nebulous but anticipated doom had taken on a distinctly King of the Bracelets vibe to be pissy about not getting to tag along. They both had their roles in this fledgling Slayer-y army, and that was cool. Plus she got to brag about how her girlfriend was off re-ensouling a vampire, no big... and not have to be too near the heavy mojo. She was better about it now, but she still got a little twitchy. ( Better to stick to where she could be useful. )

***

( 'Uh-hunh... uh-hunh.... Okay.' Dawn's face was pale as she listened, and she nervously toyed with the phone cord. )

***

Having been in the dining room the whole time, Kennedy had been totally privy to the super tension-fraught encounter that started the moment Faith set foot in the house. Given both Buffy and Dawn's reactions when they'd found out that she knew a different Faith, Kennedy guessed she shouldn't be surprised, but...

They already had a vampire, a former "supervillain" who'd murdered his best friend, an erstwhile vengeance demon, and a girl who'd gone evil and tried to end the world living under this roof. How was it any different for Faith? She didn't get that. Maybe she had to have been there.

She waited until Buffy headed upstairs and Dawn stalked off, probably to help Giles scrounge up some bedding from wherever the hell they scrounged it up these days, and boldly strode out into the foyer.

( 'Yo. So you're Faith, huh?' )

[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, ad nauseam. part 1 of 5 today. based on btvs 7x18, "dirty girls." preplayed with the resplendent needsaparrot, the estimable regretiz4suckas as inthekeyofme, and the magnificent angelo_wings as neverfaithful. sorry for the upcoming post spam today, y'all. only one more week of this, promise.]]

Sunnydale, California, Late April 2003 (The Next Day/Tuesday Fandom Time)

There had been some seriously rich irony, or something, in Andrew lecturing all the girls this morning about how dangerous Faith was. Wasn't like he was completely innocent, either... then again, they'd hardly call him dangerous, either. So. Maybe not irony. But something.

Whatever, though; Kennedy was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and most of the Potentials, even the skittish ones, were at the very least intrigued by the arrival of the mysterious "other" Slayer. More receptive to her attempts to get to know them, anyway, but then Faith wasn't the one who was all doom and destruction and uber-serious business at them 24/7. It was a nice change.

Tonight, though, was a different kind of welcome change. Willow was back from the hospital for one, which would have been more of a celebrate-y thing if not for the girl, Shannon, who'd been thoroughly fucked up by their newest addition to the rogues' gallery and was still in the ICU. Conscious, at least, and able to talk, which was a pretty raw deal since their new creepy preacher friend had used her to send a message to Buffy.

"I have something of yours," the message was. Nice and ominous, right? About par for the course these days. Yay.

( So Buffy and Faith went out on a recon stint... )

***
Whatever it was of hers that Caleb claimed he had when he stuck a knife in Shannon's gut and dumped her on the highway, Buffy was intent on getting it back.

( Now, finally, it looked like Kennedy was going to get in on the action. )

[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay. part 2 of 5. adapted from btvs 7x18, "dirty girls," and contains violence, creepy rhetoric couched in religious terms, npc character death, and disfigurement. preplay in this bit thoroughly rocked by annieadderall as stillbaking and angelo_wings as neverfaithful.]]

Sunnydale Memorial Hospital, Sunnydale, California, Late April 2003 (The Same Night/Tuesday FT)

Some of the girls who'd escaped more or less unscathed-- physically, anyway, although Kennedy wouldn't place any bets on any of them being emotionally or mentally okay-- had gone back to the house. Kennedy would have counted herself in that group; she hadn't taken anything more than some superficial cuts from the broken bottles, and the bruising would go away on its own.

She'd definitely gotten off easy. The girls who hadn't made it... even going back to retrieve their bodies was too much of a risk, and nobody was happy about that.

No power on earth was going to keep her away from the hospital tonight, though. She wasn't about to leave the girls who'd taken the worst of it and walked away. Or Shannon, the poor Potential who'd been used by Caleb to send that message to them in the first place.

Or Xander. Maybe it was some lingering doubt from what the First had said to her, but she kept feeling like what had happened to him was partly her fault.

( Willow sat beside Xander's hospital bed... )

[[as per usual, nfi/nfb, ooc-okay. deals with post-fight physical trauma and maiming. adapted from and based on btvs 7x19, "empty places," and preplayed with thanks to the most excellent willbedone and needsaparrot, the latter of whom is to be entirely blamed for the one significant change we made from canon.]]

The Kitchen at Buffy's House, Sunnydale, California, Late April 2003 (The Next Day/Tuesday FT)

For a quiet town, Sunnydale was doing a great job of impersonating Manhattan lately, at least in terms of traffic. They'd bought themselves a little time with Buffy's gambit at the Seal, but not even people who'd lived here their whole lives could turn a blind eye to the weirdness any more. Every school in town had followed Principal Wood's lead and canceled classes, which Kennedy gathered was an unprecedented thing, and now...

Everyone was getting the hell out. Not a bad idea, all things considered. Packing up everything, loading up the cars, and just leaving. Kennedy had taken some of the girls on a run this morning, and they'd nearly choked on the fumes from the idling cars stuck in gridlock on Sunnydale's tiny streets.

The run hadn't done much to soothe everyone's frayed nerves, though. Neither did much of anything else. They'd all thrown themselves into training harder than ever after what had gone down at the vineyard, out of some desperate need to have something to do, but the Potentials who'd survived the fight with Caleb kept shooting uncertain looks at one another, as if to say they knew how impossible this was, they'd seen how easily he'd taken Buffy out with one punch, and what were they going to be able to do? The ones who hadn't gone had gotten a good look at the ones who had-- and knew who hadn't made it back.

( In short, morale had been in the toilet, and someone (oh, probably a guy in a priest's collar) flushed. )

[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, you know by now, right? contains discussion of npc character deaths. part 4 of 5, based on btvs 7x19, "empty places." preplayed with the winsome trigons_child as ready_foraction, and the delightful life_inshadow as cutestripeyhat. i like synonyms.]]

Sunnydale, California, Late April 2003 (Shortly Afterward/Tuesday Fandom Time)

Ugh, to hell with the meeting; all it seemed to be accomplishing so far was exactly what they'd thought. Ubervamps: too strong for them to stake, courtesy of their super-tough skeletons. ("Like driving a stake through solid steel." Thanks for that, Anya.) Caleb: practically untouchable, not to mention still a giant mystery. All of them: still not super-strong, so big whoop.

Okay, finding out that the cot in the basement had just done duty as long-overdue breakup sex place for Anya and Xander had been less with the depressing, but hello, TMI.

Finally Kennedy decided, "screw it," and stalked out of the meeting before she said anything even more bitchy than she already had and got Anya on her ass for it, or made the girls feel even worse. She might get some flak later if anyone noticed Amanda following her lead, but you know what? Screw that, too; she was over trying to play role model for the girls to fall in line when she wasn't even all that sure Buffy was on her game any more.

So they snuck up to the kitchen, hung out with Faith for a while, vented at her for a bit.

That was fun-- ( and then Buffy came home... )

***
( Hours later Buffy still hadn't gotten back... )

***
( Soooooooooooo this was the Bronze, huh? )

***
( Meanwhile, back at the Summers house... )

***
( Oh, there was a fight. There so definitely was. )

***
By the time they got back to the house Giles let them know that Xander had been discharged, and he and Willow were on their way back. All things considered the tension in the room made for a very awkward party atmosphere, but by god they were going to try anyway.

Some of the girls got assigned to the task of making a welcome home banner, using Andrew's dry-erase markers and a big piece of butcher paper they'd scavenged from the now abandoned butcher shop last time someone had to make a blood run for Spike.

( It was all they had time to do before the front door opened. )

[[nfi/nfb, ooc-okay, this is the song that never ends except oh, hey, i'm done for the week. adapted from btvs 7x19, "empty places." the phenomenally awesome npc cast who preplayed this one with me: wesleynotponcy as notagoodwatcher, regretiz4suckas as inthekeyofme, angelo_wings as neverfaithful, and annieadderall as stillbaking. special thanks to angelo_wings for finding npc icons for me.]]