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The Park, Wednesday Afternoon

So far so quiet, and Kennedy hadn't had to cut her vacation short for any emergencies back home. (Yet.) She'd spent a good chunk of yesterday out on the mainland doing some shopping, taking time out every now and then to field work-related phone calls from various Scoobies and Scooby-adjuncts and this was all weirdly businesslike.

Anyway.

It was weird, just hanging out on a park bench with a mocha (and a slice of pie) and enjoying the day; she'd always been too restless for that sort of thing before, but... well, she guessed it had something to do with actually having a constructive channel for that restless energy now. And just hanging out here was oddly relaxing.

Even if she was half preoccupied with contemplating how quiet the island was compared to home, or to L.A. The contrast was more obvious now. Huh.

[[open, again, though subject to patches of sp.]]

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And lo, guess whose seriously uncoordinated wheelchair tour of Minotaur Lane took him right through the park? You guessed it!

"Bloody -- wheel," Wesley muttered as he tried to round a corner but found his path inhibited by some rock or something that was caught under the chair. "Idiotic--" he added some force to his efforts to push forward -- "piece of -- machinery--"

Oh. There it went. A bit more forcefully than expected, even, which brought him right around the corner he'd been trying to get through in the first place and in the direction Kennedy's bench. Narrowly halting the chair before it could collide with anything, Wesley looked up -- and then promptly blinked a few times, startled. "Oh! Kennedy."

So... hi there.

[[YEP. ALL THE THREADS WITH THESE TWO. I MUST HAVE THEM.]]

Edited 2012-03-14 18:25 (UTC)

"Wes?" Kennedy looked up at the sound of his voice, all eagerness to see him until she caught sight of the wheelchair. "Holy-- what the hell happened to you?"

Wesley paused as he tried to find the most succinct way of summing it up.

"Gunshot," he settled on.

Kennedy had been planning on hugging the hell out of him, but the wheelchair sort of threw that plan out a window; she sucked in a sharp breath and tensed, anger flashing through her eyes for a moment.

"People shooting my friends is not cool," she said through her teeth. "How bad?"

"Ah... week in the hospital," he said, aiming for dismissive and landing... nowhere near that. "Should be just a few weeks in the wheelchair, and then good as new."

Probably.

"You got off lucky, then," Kennedy muttered, but shook it off. "Guess you're off the hook for me complaining about you not being here when I showed up the other day, huh?"

"That is quite the silver lining," Wesley granted thoughtfully, cracking a smile as he steered over to settle the chair opposite her. Without injuring himself or the chair, even! The guy had skills.

"So," he said. "How've you been?"

Color Kennedy impressed with your wheelchair skills, Wes.

"Busier than I expected," she admitted. "You'd think things'd settle down after the world didn't end, but there's been a lot to keep us occupied. It's all good, though. Not like your normal boring kind of day job."

"Oh?" he prompted, leaning forward a little before remembering, oh wait, bad idea. "I think I might be familiar with that, at least. How do you mean?"

"Jesus, be careful," Kennedy admonished, glaring at him mildly. "I'm not wheeling your ass back to the clinic."

Hey, Kennedy, you sort of hadn't let him know what your actual occupation was these days, remember?

"The Slayage biz, duh."

No. No, she didn't remember, clearly.

Wesley was about to say something offhand in response to that when he suddenly remembered the last time he'd referred to Kennedy as being a Slayer. Her reaction had been... fairly sharp.

So...

"What?"

"Oh. Right." Couldn't blame a girl for not remembering spoiler etiquette when she didn't spend that much time on the Internet, could you?

Kennedy grinned sheepishly and leaned back against the bench. "Yeah... that's sort of a new development. Buffy's fine," she added quickly, "and so is Faith. There was a thing."

Yeah, could you tell she'd been spending time around Buffy?

"...I'd kind of have to tell you about the future to explain it."

Wesley's face split into a huge smile. "Kennedy!" he exclaimed. "Congratulations!" Was that the proper way of acknowledging someone's newfound Slayerness? He thought it was. "That's -- that's wonderful. Yes, do go on, how did it happen?" Neeeerd.

"You sure?" She had to ask. It wasn't like it was bad news, and she'd had enough of giving that this week, but hey, if he broke the future it was on him now.

"There was a spell. Big, huge spell." The way she was grinning didn't really leave much doubt as to who'd pulled it off. "'cause what better way to fight an army of ancient supervampires than with an army of Slayers, right?"

"...I suppose that's... one way of approaching it," Wesley said, momentarily stunned. Okay, blinking. Lots of blinking. Maybe that would help him think more clearly?

...nope. Didn't help.

"Who -- did Willow do this? How did she...?"

"There was an ancient mystical thing involved." Come on, Wesley, did you expect Kennedy to know how to explain this technically? She raised her hands. "Hey, don't look at me! I was just there to play anchor. I don't know exactly what it was she did."

She paused, and blew out a breath.

"Just that it was way, way huge mojo." A quick look down at her hands. "Kinda terrifying, actually. Until we knew it worked."

"Terrifying?" Wesley repeated, tilting his head. That was an... odd word to use to describe magic ~~to someone who hadn't exactly gone through Buffy season six~~. "And what do you mean, 'anchor'?"

Wesley. The questions. One at a time, please.

~~Yeah, well, lucky him then, skipping out on that godawful metaphor.~~

"The First," Kennedy explained after a few moments to collect her thoughts, so she could try and make some sense out of her sketchy knowledge of the subject. "When that thing was hanging around the Hellmouth, it tried to get to her every time she did a spell."

Not the entire truth, but she didn't want to get into that ~~stupid S6 metaphor~~ tangled issue.

"And this being the most epic spell ever... kinda risky, you know? Which is where I come in. My thing is keeping her from getting too-- lost in it, I guess."

Wesley paused. Gathered his thoughts.

"So you and Willow," he said, slowly, "are, as a pair, responsible for performing a spell that utterly transformed the very nature of the Slayer system?"

'Cause, you know. He just wanted to be totally clear here.

"Again, so not my doing," Kennedy objected. "Seriously, the most I did was help with the setup. And give pep talks. The whole thing was Buffy's idea."

"Buffy?" Oh dear god. She'd matured, hadn't she?

Blast.

"And how did she get it into her head to do this?"

"I try to stay out of Buffy's head as much as possible," Kennedy said, deadpan. "Also I didn't exactly ask. You should've heard the speech, though. Pretty impressive."

"If it was anything like her speech from when she decided to leave the Council, I don't think I'm terribly sorry I missed it," Wesley commented dryly.

Graduation, his arse.

"Hey. Most of the speeches she gave us were pretty boring and way over the top with the gloomy, but this one was awesome," Kennedy felt compelled to point out. "All about changing the rules and making a choice and sharing our power."

"Buffy said this?" Yeah, sorry, Kennedy, but it took some effort to reconcile that with what Wesley knew of her high school senior self. "Well. I suppose she really is no longer -- how old is she?"

"Old enough to drink legally?" Be more helpful, Kennedy. "Okay, okay. Twenty-two. Look, mostly I was impressed she unclenched that far."

Good thing you were sitting down, Wes.

And right back to that flashback Wesley went.

"You've no idea," he said dryly.

But really, he could bitch about Buffy for hours, so best that he stop now. "However! The -- ah, the Slayer thing is really the important matter. So. Congratulations!"

Yes. You'd said that already, Wes.

"How are you finding it so far?"

Edited 2012-03-15 00:07 (UTC)

"Awesome," Kennedy replied, her face lighting up enough to make it obvious that it really wasn't an exaggeration. "You're actually lucky you're in that thing, though. 'cause I'd have hugged you otherwise, and I'm still having trouble remembering not to do things like kick the front door shut too hard..."

"I'll consider myself fortunate, then," he said, smiling. "So -- you really must tell me what else happened. You mentioned... 'ancient supervampires?'"

"Turok-Han?" Kennedy said after a moment in which she had to make sure she got it right, as opposed to whatever mangled name Buffy could come up with. "Giles said they were only supposed to be myths. Yeah, not so much. Entire army of them under the Hellmouth, surprise."

"Turok-Han?" Wesley repeated, astounded. "Really. That's fascinating. That is to say -- Mr. Giles was correct, they are supposedly a myth of sorts, but -- good lord. I'd no idea that any of them actually existed, let alone were able to be fought, even by Slayers."

Well. Depended on where you were in the season, really.

"Weirdly, they seemed a lot tougher the first few times we saw them," Kennedy admitted. That was weird, huh? Also incredibly convenient. "I can definitely say trying to fight one before we got the shiny power upgrade--" those had been Spike's words, so she had to smile wistfully-- "was a lot harder. Actually probably a little bit impossible. Almost."

She still believed the girls could've collectively taken one of those guys.

"But by the time Willow performed the spell, you were simply able to... defeat them?" Kennedy, Wes had so much respect for you right now. So much. "Good lord. You really... changed the world, didn't you?"

It took some getting used to.

"That's what Will says every time someone says we saved it," Kennedy said with a quick, fond smile. "Although I like to think we did that, too."

The smile faded a bit when she thought of Spike. "It wasn't just the Slayer powers. We had help. Some... mystical amulet thing. Lots of sunshine. Super effective." Also friend-killing. She didn't love it that much.

"A mystical amulet?" Wesley repeated. "You know, I think I'd heard something about Mr. Giles purchasing the magic shop in town. So he just happened to have it on hand, then?"

"Actually..." Oh, now Kennedy looked a touch uncomfortable. "We got it from a different source."

WITH FREAKISHLY CONVENIENT TIMING. HOW ODD.

"...well, who?"

OH, DEAR.

Kennedy coughed and took a sip of her drink. "...Angel?"

"Angel," Wesley repeated.

Paaause.

"Well. Was, er. Was... I... around?"

That was a tad awkward.

"Don't know. I wasn't there. He showed up, gave it to Buffy, and took off again," Kennedy told him, shrugging.

"That does sound like him," Wesley granted. "Well. How, ah. Nice of him to help, I suppose."

Shh, someone was still a touch bitter over the firing.

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The Park, Wednesday Afternoon

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