Chapter XL

 

 

Buffy tried to sleep on the plane in an
effort to guard against her nerves. She kept getting distracted by Giles
cursing at his book, or Dawn and Spike’s game of hangman. In the end she
watched the lights come and go outside the window and let the noises wash over
her in their familiarity.

Although Spike being so domestic
wasn’t something she had encountered before. She couldn’t remember
now, what he had been like before. Buffy sighed and closed her eyes.

 

Donovan zipped his suitcase closed and
pulled it out to their car. Sandra had already packed her things, and had begun
loading their equipment as well. Duncan was packing up his computer equipment
and shutting down the robot. Donovan hoped that Willow would let them take her
with them as they had the real Slayer back now, apparently. He wasn’t
going to argue with any of the higher-ups on that one.

The last thing that remained was to collect
Warren Meers. It had taken him half a day to abandon his friends and accept
their offer.

“Duncan,” Donovan called back
up the stairs. “We’re going to collect Meers now.”

“Have fun with that,” he
called.

Donovan grimaced as he closed the door and
turned to face Sandra.

“Shall we,” he offered.

She grimaced, too, but closed the trunk and
climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Have you run a check on this
man?” she asked.

“Don’t need to. We’re
holding him as a secure operative.”

“That means he’d be in prison
if he weren’t working for us, right?”

“That’s right. But he
doesn’t know that. Here we are.”

They pulled up at the address Meers had
given them and stepped cautiously up to the front door. It opened before they
could knock to reveal Warren Meers with an away bag and an evil genius grin.

“This is Special Agent Hall,”
Donovan said. “We’re going to the airport to pick up the Slayer and
her friends. Before we do that we’ll be leaving you with Agents
O’Leary and Matthews and collecting the Slayer’s car. If
you’re ready, we’ll leave now.”

Meers followed them to car, behaving as if
they were his attendants or something. Donovan let him have his way for the
moment, even Sandra seemed more amused by him than irritated.

 

They arrived at the airport just as the
flight was landing. Donovan only a few minutes to prepare himself before being
confronted by the Slayer face to face. The first thing that struck him was how
different she was to the robot made in her image. She was more confident,
older, and looked entirely more trustworthy.

“Good morning, Ms Summers. It’s
a pleasure to meet you,” Donovan said. “My name is Simon
Donovan.”

Buffy smiled and shook his hand, and then
Sandra’s.

“How’s my town?” she
asked.

“I found it a very pleasant place to
stay,” Donovan said.

Buffy snorted in amusement.

“We didn’t find any overt demon
activity.”

“That’s nice. How many vampires
were there?”

Donovan answered her questions on the demon
population and what had happened in the four days since they had arrived, then
on how he had come to fight demons and what his connection to the government was,
and then if he knew anyone called Riley Finn or had heard of the Initiative.

He was feeling a little worn out by the
time they got back to her house. Buffy waited to be allowed back into her home
and he stepped back to talk to Willow.

“We’ll be taking Warren with us
when we leave,” he said.

Willow grinned broadly, delighted and
relieved.

“We’d also like to take the
robot with us. Your work on her is an interesting as Meers’s.”

“Really? Because you know, I just did
what I had to, to make her bearable.”

“Can we have her?” Donovan
asked, cutting off the babble. “Well, actually we’d buy her off
you.”

“You’d have to buy her off
Buffy, I think. I don’t think she’d say no. Spike bought it off
Warren, but she sort of claimed it when we discovered it.”

Spike had taken Buffy’s bags out of
the trunk and followed her up the stairs to her room. Buffy had rolled her
eyes, but seemed pleased. Willow caught Tara’s eye and nodded to them.
That would take a bit of getting used to.

Duncan had packed up everything and was waiting
only to load it into the cars. Ben had taken Meers down the street on the
pretext of running a last check on their basic recording kit so he
wouldn’t be there when the others returned home.

Buffy wandered through the house while
everyone else congregated in the living room.

“Buffy, I think they’re leaving
now,” Dawn called.

Buffy came back, smiling apologetically.
She stopped when she saw the robot standing next to Duncan.

“We’d like her to come with us,
if you don’t mind,” Duncan said.

Buffy grinned. “You’d really
take her? She kind of gets on my nerves.”

“With compensation, of course,”
Donovan said.

“Oh, I don’t care about the
money. Okay, maybe I do. But she’d leave with you now?”

“Agent Donovan says that I will be
very useful to him,” the Buffybot said. “I like being useful.
Although I will have to leave Dawn and Spike.”

“Take her,” Buffy told Donovan.

She held her hand out to the robot.

“Goodbye, Buffy,” she said.
“I’m glad that you’ll be useful.”

“Goodbye Buffy,” the robot
replied. “I’m glad that you are no longer dead.”

“Thanks.”

The Buffy-bot insisted on saying goodbye to
everyone. Then the Agents themselves had to leave in order to get back to LA in
time to debrief their commander there before Donovan flew to Washington to talk
to the President. By the time Xander, Anya, Giles and Spike left it was
approaching dawn.

“I’m definitely sleeping
now,” Buffy said. “You don’t have to go to school tomorrow,
Dawn, we’ll have pancakes for breakfast at lunch time.”

Dawn smiled as she got ready for bed; life
was back the way it was supposed to be and everything was going to be alright.

 

Donovan’s meeting with the President
was squashed between a security briefing and a meeting with the Vice President.
The President welcomed him an obvious relief from an already tiring day.

“How is Sunnydale?” Bartlet
asked.

“Good, sir. There doesn’t
appear to much going on at the moment.”

“And the Slayer was well when she
arrived?”

“She seemed well, if tired, sir.
Certainly comfortable to be home.”

“Very good. She’s had a trying
couple of weeks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything else?”

“We’ve taken Warren Meers as a
secure operative, and we now have a robot that likes to slay vampires.”

The President chuckled.

“Would you like to meet the Slayers
we have here?” he asked. “I’m sure C.J would appreciate the
distraction.”

“It’s okay, sir. I’ve met
enough Slayers to last me a while.”

“Okay, then. Thanks for helping us
out.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Donovan left and the President sighed. It
had been an almost pleasant, and certainly interesting, interlude from the
political concerns that had just crashed on them again. No doubt C.J would kill
some things tonight; the President certainly hoped so.