8x01: "Crossroads"
(commentary by Jet Wolf and Ultrace)
[ Download All Clips :: 18MB ]

[ Download Clip #1 ]

Jet Wolf: Uh ...
Ultrace: Alright. So.
JW: Uhm, I'm ... I am Jet Wolf. And ... my voice is deep, but I am ... a female.
U: She is.
JW: He can verify.
U: I would know. I'm Ultrace. And I'm her husband.
JW: <laugh> And he had to get that out right now. Okay.
U: Don't be fooled. I-I'm also- I'm a man.
JW: <laugh> We just sound funny. We're also not used to doing this. At all. Nor do we really know what we're doing ... at all. So bear with us.
U: I'll- I'll probably be ripping pretty heavily on the commentary with some of the episodes, so I'll be like, you know, "Welcome to the commentary for episode one of The Chosen, 'Crossroads'. I'm Mike Chenoweth, co-writer, and co- ... uh, producer and developer of this..."
JW: I wrote some stuff. Uhm ... I haven't read this episode since about the time it went up, so I'm pretty ... uh, pretty much not wanting to read it at all, because I don't think- I don't think it holds up compared to later stuff. But it's the first one I did, so I guess that's why I'm commenting on it. Uh, so ........ Yeah, so we don't know what we're doing here. We're going to, uhm ... <Ultrace starts laughing> We're gonna make some sound clips and hope that works and you can shut up now. Uh ... Yeah, so we're gonna read, but we'll cut out all the boring "we're reading now" silent stuff, so don't worry.
U: Even though silence is golden.
JW: No it's not.

Teaser

The vampire lifted his victim off the ground, one meaty hand clenched around her throat. She kicked her feet lamely and tried to call out, but the sound died, becoming an inarticulate guttural noise. Her hands scrabbled at the one that was slowly crushing her windpipe, but the motion was ineffectual and its frantic nature only served to drain what little oxygen was left in her lungs. Her struggling became weaker and her arms dropped to her sides, hanging limply as she slowly lost consciousness. With a hungry growl, the vampire bared his fangs and dipped his head towards her exposed neck.

The look of anticipation that crossed his demonic features quickly became one of alarm and disbelief as he crumbled to dust around the stake that had punctured his heart from the rear. The woman tumbled to the ground, coughing as she rested on one elbow and looked up at her savior.

"Willow, you okay?"

The redhead nodded, her throat still too sore to comfortably form words. She massaged the bruised flesh and glared at the spot where the vampire had been just moments before with profound indignity.

"A little help over here!" a voice called out from across the graveyard, and Willow's rescuer immediately ran towards it. Xander was cornered against a large, ornately carved crypt by three more vampires, all female and much less brawny than the first but making up for the lesser physical bulk with speed and agility. Every time Xander would try to duck around one to get into a more favorable position, the vampires would sense his movement and counter it. Every tentative thrust of the longsword he gripped tightly in both hands was met with a dodge and a cruel sneer. The vampires were clearly playing with their food, and it was only a matter of time before they became bored and decided to end the game.

Xander's usually jovial face was marred with fear and concern as his lone eye darted from one vampire to the next and then back again, never resting in one place for long. "I don't suppose you ladies are just looking for a fourth to play Bridge..?" he asked hopefully. An inhuman snarl was his only response. "Didn't think so," Xander said with a grim smile.

[ Download Clip #2 ]

Jet Wolf: This is so embarrassing. It truly is. This is really weird.
Ultrace: I must admit it's- it's, uh, it's interesting.
JW: Oh, what did you do for this one? Did ... you...?
U: I think I gave moral support. <JW laughs>
JW: Uhm ... When I started writing these ... I had no idea what I was doing. At all. Uhm, this was pretty much me sitting down with my brand-new laptop - at the time - uhh, a-a-and just kinda starting to write. I had ... very, very little idea what to do, except I'm like, "I'm going to write a TV show!" Uhm ... So yeah, so this is me not even doing a script format at this point, which became my standard later on. Uh, so this is me writing prose just straight up, and I think it took, like, about five months, which is probably why I stopped doing it that way. Uhm ...
U: I think for this one, I basically just read it and gave feedback.
JW: Did you?
U: I didn't- I didn't do a whole lot here. There wasn't, like, intensive fight scenes, and—
JW: Well you weren't doing the fight scene stuff until later on anyway when I realized that I SUCK at fight scenes and I'm like, "Okay Mike, you can do those."
U: Well you didn't really have much in the way of fight scenes until later on anyway.
JW: Yeah, well, not big ones. But I had them, cuz I was trying real hard to be all Buffy with it, and Buffy has fights. I-I-I don't even ... Looking at it— Looking just at this scene right here, I don't even know what I was trying to do, I have to admit. I mean, I-I'd love to sit here and say, "Thematically, I was going to do this, and this came together in this way," and really, it's kind of like, "I wanna have a vampire!" And that was kinda where I went, I suppose.
U: This is the dream sequence.
JW: Yeah, this is the dream sequence with Dawn. And I don't know- I don't know why it's there. I really don't. I mean—
U: Well bas— What we were trying to do is, we were trying to describe it in such a way where you would assume it was Buffy—
JW: Yeah, you totally— Yeah, that's what we were DOING, but I don't know WHY. I mean, was it just a, "I think this is keen!"?
U: What we were trying to do at this point was we were trying to, uhm, show a parallel between Dawn and Buffy. You had Dawn doing her dream and you wanted to have a heavy contrast where- whereupon you thought Dawn would be like, "Wow, Buffy's livin' up the great life over there in, like, you know ... Holland with the ... Holland people."
JW: <laughs> "Holland with Holland people." We are so international.
U: Silence! But, you know—
JW: Well no, but see, I have that at the end. But- But this whole thing here— Obviously I-I was trying to- to make you think, "Hey, it's really Buffy! It's not Dawn! No, really, trust me!" Uh, but I don't know why. Uhm ... I really don't. I-I mean, straight up. I just dunno why. I-I might've had some grand designs, you know, a year ago? At this stage, I got nothin'. I'm just looking and I'm like, "Oh, look, it's a dream." Uhm ... I WILL say, however, that I was actually- I was actually kind of pleased with myself at the beginning. I-I-I ... I mean, I had written- at this point I had written I think, like, three or four Buffy fanfics before this? I don't remember.
U: Yeah, you had. Yeah.
JW: Like three or four. And- And of all of them, you know ... I- Willow was in, like, all of 'em because, you know, that's my obsession, so. Uhm, but like Xander, I was like scared to death to write Xander. I-I-I was up until a certain point cuz- cuz Xander is really ... funny. And I'm not confident sometimes in my ability to BE funny. Uh, so I-I had some trouble. But I had I think like— It looks really lame now, but at the time I was like really pleased with that Bridge joke. Cuz I'm like, "Oh, that's amusing! That's a Xander line!" So I was so happy when I hit that. And now looking at it, I'm like, "Oh my god, that sucks." <Ultrace laughs> But, uhm ... But at the time it was a huge thing, you know?
U: I don't think it's necessarily BAD, but I do think you've really evolved and- and gotten into much heavier Xander-levels of humor.
JW: Thank you.
U: I think that- that joke's about a Xander Level Two. <JW laughs> But now we're writing at about a Xander Level Four or Five consistently.
JW: Oo, we got our Xander Scale. Uhm ... So yeah. I- I don't know. I don't know what I was doing. I don't.

This seemed to act as some sort of trigger to the trio of vampires, and as one they leapt at the carpenter. Xander just had time to give a short, womanly scream as he swung his sword in a wild, desperate arc. It hit nothing, and one of the vampires batted it out of his hand. As the vampires converged on their prey the sword went flying, sailing through the air and landing solidly in an outstretched palm. Fingers closed around the hilt without missing a beat as the figure strode with absolute confidence towards the vampires, who were attempting to pin down a squirming, struggling Xander.

"Hey!" the figure called out, and the vampires looked up, startled at the interruption. "You skanks feel up to a real challenge, or do you only get off on gang banging weak and defenseless guys?"

"Weak?" came an offended voice from somewhere on the ground. "I had them right where they wanted me."

With an enraged animal yell, the vampires abandoned Xander and leapt at the newcomer. A flash of steel, then a second and a third, and soon three heads hit the ground and bounced, turning to dust along with their now useless bodies. Tossing the sword away, the figure extended a hand towards Xander, easily pulling him to his feet. He brushed off his jeans, smiling his appreciation for the timely rescue. "Was that all of 'em?" he asked.

"Not quite," was the reply. "There's still one more." In a blur of motion, a mini-crossbow appeared in the figure's hands. The trigger was pulled instantly, and a bolt flew several yards before embedding itself with deadly accuracy in the chest of the final vampire. The dust rained down on the blonde who had been just moments away from becoming its midnight snack.

Buffy coughed and patted her clothes, sending clouds of dust flying into the air. "Nice moves, Dawn," she said with great respect and admiration.

Dawn flashed a toothy grin, slinging the crossbow back over her shoulder. "All in a days work," she said nonchalantly. She walked a few paces away from Xander, coming face-to-face with a young man, dressed in tight black leather pants and a thin, filmy white shirt that lay open and flapping in the sudden breeze that sprang up. He was all chiseled jaw and chest, and looked at the girl with burning passion and undying love.

"Oh Dawn," he whispered, bending down and sweeping her into a blazing kiss that seemed to last for days. Finally they broke apart, Dawn's eyes heavy-lidded and unfocused. "Do you want Raisin Bran or Corn Pops?" he asked.

[ Download Clip #3 ]

Jet Wolf: And just- Dawn with her little guy? What the hell was that, oh my god. That's so embarrassing.
<laughter>
Ultrace: A-Although- Although technically I-I must admit that in reading this, I can very much see the, "Do you want Raisin Bran or Corn Pops?"— I could see how you would pull that off, and you know ... I-It's almost a, uhm ... a-a cinematic given where you have like, you know, they're sleeping, and then suddenly you've got the voice that cuts in with, you know—
JW: Well it's the boy. It's the boy saying it, you know? He's like, "Oh, Dawn! Do you want Raisin Bran or Corn Pops?" So I dunno. I can see it. I can see it happening, it's just that- Wow. This episode's really embarrassing to me. <laughs> You know, looking at this, I don't know how we have any readers left. <Ultrace laughs> Cuz they started HERE. How the hell did they follow us?
U: But in any event, I mean i-it's still much better than some of the stuff you've read to me.
JW: <laughs> Ooo. Yeah, I-I dunno. I'm just lookin' at it and I'm just groaning. So.
U: <laughs> "Your Pops are gettin' all mushy."
<laughter>
JW: Uhh ... Yeah, but- but obviously I-I very much wanted— I mean, I think my original outline for this episode – which I think will be included in the bonus features, I-I can't remember off the top of my head—
U: I believe so, yes.
JW: —uhm, is gonna be, you know ... "Buffy- Buffy doesn't have to deal with this stuff" and then, like, the next scene I have Buf— "Cut to Buffy, dealing with this stuff." So I mean, I-I was obviously trying to show Buffy is elsewhere and she's not quite having the time we would think she does, cuz, uh ... Of course we- we figured— We spent a LOT of time trying to- to sort out where everybody was. Uhm, after- after Season 7 ended, where were they gonna be? And we figured that just given just the Buffyness of it all, she probably would do exactly what she did, uhm, which was to- to take off for a little while and go "find herself" and- and do whatever the hell it is she's doing. Uhm—
U: In traditional Buffy fashion, she takes off and then she realizes that she really didn't want to take off at all—
JW: Right.
U: —and the only place she could really find herself is back where she started.
JW: Right, right. And which of course was our big mission statement for the season was getting the Scoobies back together again and- and getting past all the crap that had happened since, you know, Season 6. Uh ... A-And-And that was- that was a big thing. And that was our first major big thing to have happen. So- But in order to have that happen at that point, we had to have Buffy just— Realistically speaking, I-I just can't see her having hung around, cuz you know, she-she's spent seven years up to that point just bitchin' about her destiny and she's finally kind of free of it, so what's the first thing she's gonna do? Apparently, it's go to Europe. Uhm, which I actually had her going to Europe before I found out that she had gone- that Angel had her going to Italy, so I was all like, "Yay for me!"
U: "You will go to Europe. It is your DESTINY."

"Huh?"

Dawn's eyes snapped open and she looked around in confusion. She was lying in her bed, her arms curled around her pillow and her hair tousled.

"Dawnie! Breakfast! C'mon, let's go!" Willow's voice called from downstairs.

"Your Pops are gettin' all mushy!" yelled Xander.

Glancing at her clock, Dawn saw that it read 7:08 AM. With a groan, she grabbed the covers and pulled them over her head. "Buffy's so lucky she doesn't have to deal with stuff like this."

Buffy was jolted awake by the unpleasant stinging slap of a wet sock falling onto her face. With a splutter she sat upright in the tiny bed, her hands clawing at the unknown and rather damp assailant. The offending item in hand, she clenched it tightly and glared up at the girl standing a few feet away who was depositing an armload of equally wet articles of clothing unceremoniously on the bed next to Buffy's. The girl remained oblivious, draping clothes on the radiator, the headboard, the lamp ... any place airy or slightly warm. Buffy rolled her eyes and dropped the sock to the ground where it landed with a sick squelch on the throw rug between the two beds. She laid down again, pulling the covers over her head.

"Crossroads"

Story by: Jet Wolf and Ultrace
Written by: Jet Wolf
Edited by: Novareinna
Original Airdate: Tuesday, 6 April 2004, 8pm EST

[ Download Clip #4 ]

Jet Wolf: Okay, so we are- we are done with the teaser now, which was VERY, VERY embarrassing—
Ultrace: I love the- I-I love the line about the "unpleasant stinging slap of a wet sock" hitting her face. I can practically hear it squelch.
JW: Uhm- <Ultrace laughs> This poster is ALSO really, really embarrassing! Cuz oh my god! Boy, my Photoshop skills got MUCH better. Uhm, okay- I mean, just that sign? That, like, brick sign? What the hell is that? That's just, like .... pfft! "Hi, I'm cut and pasted."
U: I always thought— A-And admittedly, still to this day it looks to me like, you know, vandalism. <JW laughs> Like somebody— I-It's like the vandals are like, "Welcome to TRILLIUM! Our town's already named Trillium, we're just gonna put 'TRILLIUM!' in letters!" And I'm amazed— I don't know if that's an actual font you used—
JW: Yes, it is.
U: —but it must be, because the two "L"s look exactly the same. If you'd done that by hand, that would be a remarkable feat.
JW: Yeah, no, no, I didn't. That's actually a font. I couldn't tell you which one, though, I forgot. Uhm ...
U: It's graffiti font.
JW: But at this- at this point, if you notice, this is the only poster that doesn't have the episode title on it. Uhm, and that's because at this point, I didn't know I was gonna do episode posters. Uhm, this was just like a little promo thing that I threw upon my Blog. Which, of course, was the only place at the time I figured anybody would really give a shit. Frankly. Uhm, a-and so I had, uh, I-I had this whole countdown thing. Like I was all mysterious, if you remember. I had like this little— In like my previous— If you go to my Blog – a-and why wouldn't you, because oh-so fascinating. Uhm, but if you go to my Blog, uhm, the outline, or the design for it now i-is completely different. It was much different at the time I was doing this. And, uhm, it had like this thing off to side where it was like "Current Projects". And that was all the shit I was working on at the time, and it would vary as projects came and went. And- And for this I had, like, "Big Fanfic Project With Mike." And it was just super mysterious. Like, you know, I had all of about, you know, twenty people to go to my Blog regularly, and probably like five of them actually watch Buffy, so I-I don't know WHY I felt compelled to be secretive about it. But I did.
U: Supaa magical fanfic project ekusu!
<laughing>
JW: And, uhm— That was disturbing. Uh. So yeah, so, uhm, so I had this like big big secrety thing, you know, it's like, "Ooo, magic project." Uhm, a-and then a couple months, I guess, before I got ready to- to launch it, I threw out, uhm, this poster, which was just like to be a promo thing. Just like, "Oo, look at my cool thing that I have!" And- And then, like, I thought it was cool. I-I don't know WHY, looking at it, but uhm, I thought the concept was neat. Uhm, so I, uh, from there I decided, "Well, I'll see if I can maybe make one for the next season." Next season – next episode. "I-If I can make one for the next episode and it goes over okay, then hey, maybe I can do this ALL the time." Uhm, so that was kind of what this was. But i-if— Like I said, if you see, it doesn't have the title cuz i-it was just supposed to be a promo thing. But that kind of became my little slogan, which I was always proud of. I was like, "New town. New rules. Same old Hellmouth." Which is kind of funny because, of course, it's NOT the same old Hellmouth. But ... it fit the rhythm, so we're just gonna ignore the fact that that doesn't make sense.
U: I think that what you— I always took it to mean there, where it says "Same Old Hellmouth", it's kind of like "Same Old Thing" with a- with a Hellmouth.
JW: Mm. Mm-hm.
U: You know, it's kind of like, you know, "same old school". Even if you go to a new college, it's the same old thing.
JW: Yeah, I suppose. I just always thought it was funny when I realized that. I'm like, "Oh, wow, you know? It's really NOT the same old Hellmouth, so that doesn't quite apply." But- But it SOUNDS neat, so we're going with that.
U: It was basically better than "Same old bullshit."
JW Yes it was. Yes it was. Uhm, alright. Sooo ...
U: You could've played the credits, but—
JW: No, we're not gonna play the credits. But you- But YOU should play the credits, because the credits are neat. I-I will say I am always proud of my credits. And I actually created the credits long before I wrote anything at all. I'm like, "I'm gonna make credits. It'll be cool." And I created the, uh, the- the credits with, uh, with Amber— I created the- the credits where we added in Tara, like, RIGHT AFTER I created the first ones, so obviously, you know—
U: Well it was decided from the very beginning.
JW: Yeah, well- well Tara was coming back. No lie. I mean, that was just like, heh: "Mission Statement Number One: Reunite the Scoobies. Mission Statement Number Two: Bring Tara back." So, uhm, so that was just—
U: "Mission Statement Number Three: Make sure you do number two!"
JW: <laughs> Alright, so, let me embarrass myself by going back to my reading again.

Act One

Dawn bounced down the stairs and into the dining room, now fully dressed and ready for school. "Hey guys," she said, throwing herself heavily into one of the chairs and grabbing an empty glass and carton of orange juice that sat in the center.

"'Bout time you joined the waking world," Willow said, looking up from her laptop to smile at the teen. "This wake-by-shouting is starting to be a habit, though. We need to getcha an alarm clock."

"Oh, I have an alarm clock," Dawn replied, draining her glass and snatching the toast that was sitting on Willow's plate. "I just, you know ... ignore it."

Her eyes focused on the glowing screen of the laptop, Willow reached blindly towards her plate, her hand grasping at the air where the toast had been just moments before. She felt around the general area with confusion, then glanced up to see the last of her buttery repast disappear into Dawn's mouth. The withering glare was completely lost on Dawn.

"Ahh, selective hearing. I know it well." Xander entered the room with a decent-sized stack of waffles and a bottle of syrup. He placed the plate in front of an empty chair and dusted his hands off on the frilly pink apron he wore tied around his waist. "Mornin' Dawnster," he beamed. "Want some toast? I think I've finally mastered the little knob with the numbers on it and I'm anxious to demonstrate my new culinary skills."

"No thanks, I've already eaten," Dawn replied, ignoring Willow's loud grumbles. "I have to leave to catch the bus in a minute anyway." Dawn got a wistful, far-away glint in her eye. "Catching the bus to school. The dream of every junior girl. Certainly not getting her license and maybe a sweet little convertible paid for by Council funds that have been conveniently redirected to easily accessible accounts by an incredibly loving and generous and wonderful redhead hacker-witch." Her speech complete, she grinned hopefully and turned her huge doe-eyes on Willow.

Willow stared back with an expression that clearly said this ploy wasn't working. At all. "Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I was too busy not eating my toast."

[ Download Clip #5 ]

Ultrace: "I was too busy NOT eating my toast."
Jet Wolf: Hee-hee. Uhh, can I just say that I actually like the, uh ... the image of Xander in a frilly pink apron?
U: <chuckles> Well he is doing the whole "Mr. Mom" thing.
JW: Yes he is.
U: Although the filly pink is kind of, uhm, buffed up somewhat by the eye patch. <JW laughs> It's kind of like, you know, "I'm the pirate wench of the household."
JW: That's a disturbing set of roles for Xander.

Xander snickered and shoveled a huge forkful of syrupy waffle into his mouth.

"Wil-low, c'mon. It's a measly drop in an extremely vast and deep bucket," pleaded Dawn.

"And it's also not what the money is for! We're using it to rebuild the Council from the ground-up, to- to make it actually work for the Slayers instead of just sitting back there all imperious and order-y. It's not for buying personal stuff, Dawn, you know that."

"Like, say, a state of the art, fully-loaded laptop?"

Willow unconsciously curled her arms protectively around the computer in front of her. "That's different. I use it for Council work."

"Plus she lets me log on and play Everquest sometimes," added Xander with a grin that faltered as soon as he caught Willow's look. "I mean ... No convertibles. Convertibles bad."

Dawn sighed the long-suffering sigh of teenagers everywhere. "Fine," she pouted. "Can I at least get my license?"

"Learning to drive first might be a good idea," Xander said around another mouthful of waffle.

Willow nodded. "An' you kinda ... you know ... "

"You drive like Buffy."

Jaw agape, Dawn turned on Xander. "I so do not."

"Yeah, kinda." The only response was a series of inarticulate yet clearly insulted noises. "How many times have I had to fix the mailbox?" asked Xander. Dawn closed her mouth and huffed. "I rest my case."

[ Download Clip #6 ]

Jet Wolf: Yeah, we were gonna go a whole thing I think for a while, with Dawn and driving. That was gonna be like a big thing, it was gonna be like an in-joke we were gonna do for like the duration of the season, but it just fell through. Because I'm like, you know ... I've had my license for so long now, I can't even remember.
Ultrace: I think we mentioned it in episode one and then we mentioned it in "Hard Day's Night".
JW: Yeah, "Hard Day's Night", yeah. But it was funny in "Hard Day's Night".
U: It was, it was, absolutely. I'm just saying, those were about the only two times it gets mentioned. You know what we should've had her do? We should've had a magical car for the final episode that they could drive through, all crazy to the destination.
JW: She just drives over Super Slayers.
<Ultrace laughs>
JW: What are we laughing at?
U: I was laughing at the concept of her driving over Super Slayers, actually.
JW: "Hey, Judith!" *boom*
U: "I-I mean, no! No convertibles. Convertibles bad." Very Xander.
JW: Thank you.
U: Rampin' up to a Three on the Xander Scale.
JW: We're not gonna do this the whole time, are we?
U: No, no, I'll drop it.

"Well how can I ever get better without practice?"

Xander and Willow shared a look for a moment, and then Willow turned to Dawn. "You're right. We'll ... We'll start letting you drive with us. Again. After we stock up on valium."

"God help us all," Xander added softly.

Dawn squealed in delight and leapt to her feet. "You guys are the best! This very nearly makes up for the horrific scars of adolescence that I'll be carrying for the rest of my life by riding the school bus today."

"Just remember that when you write that nasty tell-all book," smirked Willow, kissing Dawn's cheek as the teenager bent down to give her a hug. Dawn moved to Xander, who mirrored Willow's actions.

"And make sure not to leave out the parts where we locked you in a closet for three days and nights with only a crust of bread and a ladle of water after making you scrub the bathroom floors with a toothbrush."

Dawn rolled her eyes but the huge grin on her face sapped away any clinging elements of sarcasm. She gathered her books and headed towards the door. "I'll see you guys later," she said.

"Have a good day at school!" called Willow.

"Learn a lot!" Xander said.

"Good luck on your math test!"

"Don't talk to strangers!"

"Look both ways before crossing the street!"

"God, I'm living with June and Ward Cleaver," Dawn chuckled, closing the door behind her.

[ Download Clip #7 ]

Jet Wolf: Uhm, the purpose of this scene, just basically, as I- I really, I can't read my stuff, it's very, very embarrassing to me, uhm ... The whole purpose of this scene of course was- was purely to set up "this is our little packet of domestic bliss", this- this is life for the Scoobies without Buffy around. A-And as we see, it's actually not too bad, uhm .. but, you know, you've got Willow and Xander kind of at this stage being sort of mother and father to Dawn. Uh, that was really the entire point of this scene. Uh, that and just boatloads of exposition, which, you know, that was really ... that was really the bitch of season- er, episode one, was just trying to fit in— Cuz you know, everything had changed at this point. We'd gone to a new place, we had to say WHY we went there, you know, who had come with us, why were they there, what was their purpose, and- and you have to get all that exposition in in ways that doesn't make it seem like someone's sitting down and saying, "This is exactly what's going on." With the exception of Andrew, as we'll see later.
Ultrace: <chuckles> This is actually kind of like what I would expect, uhm, at the end of Season 5 when Buffy died, except for the fact that not everybody's depressed about the fact that Buffy died, it's just that she abandoned them.
JW: Yeah— <chuckles> Yeah, i-it is kind of reminiscent of the opening of Season 6 now that I think about it.

Xander considered Dawn's parting words carefully before standing up and gathering the dirty dishes from the table. "So which one of us is which?"

With an appraising eye, Willow looked at Xander from head to toe. "Let's just say I don't think Ward would be caught dead in that apron."

With something akin to repulsion, Xander looked down at the lacy pink garment still tied around his waist. "Oh god," he said with horror, quickly heading into the kitchen with the dishes while Willow laughed and shook her head.

"Anything new and fascinating on the World Wide Whatever-it-is?" Xander called from the kitchen over the sound of running water.

"Not a lot," Willow replied. "My e-mail to Oz keeps bouncing. Oo, that's so typical of him! Here I am, all talky, and he's just sittin' back wherever being Mr. Stony Face. Except, of course, they're bouncing ... which I guess means he's not actually seeing them, but I feel my point is still valid. Anyway, last time I heard from him, we were still planning on setting up shop in Cleveland, so I hope he doesn't try to pull another spontaneous doorstep arrival or he'll be bitterly disappointed."

[ Download Clip #8 ]

Jet Wolf: Oh, uhm, here we go. This- This bit with the e-mail to Oz. Uhm, I threw that– I threw that in specifically to make sure that we had— Because I knew I was gonna bring Oz back in an episode, uhm, so I threw that- that mention in now, uh, specifically so that we could- we could make sure that we re-established a connection between Willow and Oz. Because they didn't mention whether or not they kept in touch, you know, when he left in Season 4, you know, up until Season 7. No mention of him from Willow. But, uhm, to me it always seemed to make sense that they would- that they would be in touch. I mean, if nothing else, I think my reasoning was something like, uhm ... Let's assume that Oz heard about the collapse of Sunnydale and he would be wondering, "Okay, is everyone I know dead?" <Ultrace laughs> So the first thing he would do, I-I would presume, is to- to get in touch with Willow, or possibly Giles, possibly Xander. Uhm ... So it- it seemed natural to me that- that he and Willow at this point, you know— Cuz I imagine once Willow heard from him, that the two of them would- would begin an e-mail correspondence. But the-the ultimate, underlying reason for it was because I knew he was going to be coming in at an episode later, and I wanted to make sure that we— That- That way I didn't have to have Willow saying, "Oh, yes, since last time you were around ... Uhm, so, Tara died, I went evil, I tried to kill the world, Sunnydale collapsed..." So we got all that crap out of the way ahead of time.
Ultrace: I just realized, you know, I think that pretty much all the Dingoes Ate My Baby memorabilia is gone now. It was in Sunnydale and it's all collapsed now.
JW: Well, I mean, presuming that Oz didn't take some, or Devon didn't take some or something.
U: That's true. What happened to Devon anyway?
JW: Who knows? When Oz left, we didn't see him again. Last time Devon was mentioned, I think, was when Oz said "I'm gonna see if he's got a place for me to stay" in, uh ... Uh, "New Moon Rising".
U: Fair enough.
JW: So, don't know what happened to Devon.

"How about Buffy, heard from her lately?"

Willow frowned and shook her head, despite Xander not being able to see the motion. "Not a thing, not since she left London." She looked up at Xander as he re-entered the room, now sans apron, and took the seat next to her. "I-I'm kinda worried about her. But she's Buffy, so I probably shouldn't worry. I'm sure she's off livin' the life of Riley." Willow paused and frowned again. "Though probably not with Riley since he's all super secret undercover monster-fighting jungle agent guy. And, you know, married. Plus I don't think there are many jungles in London. ...Do you think she's with Riley, do you think maybe that's why she hasn't called?"

"I doubt she's with Riley," said Xander, "but I'm sure she's okay. She's most likely hanging out in some cozy little British pub, drinking lukewarm beer and desperately trying to figure out the 'bangers' in bangers and mash."

[ Download Clip #9 ]

Ultrace: It's kind of funny, actually. We're talking about Buffy having left London, and Xander's commenting on how she's drinking warm beer and the bangers in bangers and mash, and London is where we end up at the end of the season.
Jet Wolf: Oh, yeah, that's true, we do. I hadn't realized that, it wasn't intentional.
U: Neither did I.
JW: I actually had a bit of a problem, in fact, with the, uhm ... Where they were gonna end up at the end of season. But that— I guess that's something for, uh ... For us to, to talk about later. If we do the commentary on that episode. But yeah. That was really coincidence, though.

The redhead nodded, but her expression became sad as she trailed her finger aimlessly over the touchpad on her laptop. "D'you ... Do you think she misses us?"

Xander reached over and gently squeezed Willow's shoulder. "I know she does. She misses us just as much as we miss her."

"Then why won't she come home?" Willow asked, a hint of anger touching her voice. "She's been gone for nearly two months now, and she doesn't even call to check up on us anymore! I-It's like, now there's a couple hundred Slayers in the world, she's just washed her hands of the whole thing. Like- Like she only ever hung around because there was always some new evil to fight."

"Will." At the gentle tone in Xander's voice, Willow looked up, her eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears of hurt and anger. "Buffy was not just our friend because we helped her take out vampires, banish a Hellgod and beat the crap out of some cybernetic demon Frankenstein who looked like he stepped out of a Picasso painting. Buffy loves us. For us. She just needs this. She's spent the last seven years fighting evil on the Hellmouth and she needs a break. That's all."

[ Download Clip #10 ]

Jet Wolf: I-I honestly at this point, I think ... I-I-I'm doing a lot of dropping, I notice here. I-I'm really doing a lot of, like, you know ... "Oo, I'm gonna mention Oz! Oo, I'm gonna mention Riley! Oo, I'm gonna mention Adam!" I-I, I'm— Glory too, apparently. Uhm—
Ultrace: Well it's a very establishing episode.
JW: Yeah, it is, it is.
U: You've gotta set the tone and the place.
JW: Yeah, but, I'm mean, that's really not necessary, because, I mean, the only people who are gonna be reading a Buffy continuation are people who already know Buffy. You know, so I'm not trying to get in, you know, new Buffy viewers. Uhm, w-which would be what the season would do. So uhm, I-I'm really not entirely sure why I was doing that. It's, you know, it's been a year since I've written this episode, obviously. So uhm ... I'm not sure what I was doing there. I-I was kinda just going with the flow. But the- the dialogue and stuff didn't come as easy at this point as it does now. Now it's very much a case of where I just sorta say, you know, "Okay, character one, you're doing this. Character two, you're doing this. Okay, go." And then I just write down what they say. Uh, at this point, a lot of the stuff was kind of forced, and I think ... I don't know. Was I trying to establish my Buffy street cred at this point? I don't know what I was doing. You know, "No, really guys, see, I read it, I saw Season 4. Look, I'm talking about Adam."
U: "I'm not just somebody who who's seen 'The Wish' and 'The Gift'! I'm a real fan!"
JW: "I'm not lame, read my stuff." Uhm, I don't know what I was doin' there. But I think it comes out okay. It doesn't look too bad. I'm just saying— I'm just looking at all my name dropping going on here.

This did little to placate Willow, and she waved her hand in frustration at Xander's words. "Us too, Xander. You, me, Giles, we all fought on the Hellmouth for the last seven years. We've all felt the pain and we've all made sacrifices. But we're still here. We didn't just decide to up and run to Europe the second we got settled down again."

"I know, but that was our choice. We were volunteers in Buffy's army, and we could've quit any time we wanted to. We still could. Buffy never had that. Now she does, and this is her choice. We've gotta respect that."

Willow sighed heavily and ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, I know. It's just ... I miss her, Xander. I want Buffy to come home."

"Me too, Will. Me too."

[ Download Clip #11 ]

Jet Wolf: Oh, and of course, it was important to- to establish at this stage that, uh, Willow in particular – uhm, less-so for Xander, because I think he's more understanding – but for Willow in particular I wanted to make sure that it was- it was a mixture of her being upset and missing Buffy, and yet at the same time being pissed that Buffy had gone. Uhm, because we wanted to have that conflict. Besides, the fact that I-I just— I think that's the way Will would be. But, uhm, wanted to make sure we got the conflict because, of course, if Buffy came back and everyone was like, "Yay, Buffy's back!" then, you know, where's the drama?

[ Download Clip #12 ]

Ultrace: Aww yeah, Judith.
Jet Wolf: Yup, there we go, Judith comes in. And we did- we did of course know from the very beginning that Judith was going to- to be the bad guy. Uhm, before we actually had her name, in our outlines, she was "Turncoat." Uhm, so we did know from the start, uh, about- about her.
U: Not sure who came up with the name "Judith".
JW: I don't remember either. I don't- I think- I wanna say it was me, but I really don't know.
U: I think it was you, I think- I think I realized afterwards that "Judith" is so close to "Judas"
JW: Yeah, again, one of us made that realization, which I thought was really cool. Uhm, but that wasn't intentional. I think that's actually a question someone asked us that we're passing on to Greg.
U: Ah. Whoops.
JW: Oh well, you got the answer early. Uhm ... So yeah.
U: So we knew from the very beginning she'd be evil, she'd kill Hazel—
JW: Yeah, yeah.
U: Oh yeah.
JW: We- Yeah, we knew .. I-I think that's about all we knew with her.
U: That's about all we knew.

At the sound of the door opening, Giles looked up from the stack of papers on the desk in front of him and smiled broadly. He rose to his feet and quickly strode across the room to greet the young girl who tentatively entered his office. She seemed tall for her age and moved with a gangly awkwardness as she walked forward, tucking a lock of short, jet-black hair behind her ear.

[ Download Clip #13 ]

Jet Wolf: I'm af—
Ultrace: We didn't even know what she looked like.
JW: No, I think we found— Yeah, we got her—
U: Did we have the picture—
JW: No, we got the description first, because one of the things was— One of the real chores with doing this is that, uhm, our character page. <Ultrace chuckles> Where, you know, we have these new characters like, uhm, like I-I'd really like to have a character page for Grip, for example. For all of Dawn's friends, actually, because they appear— O-Our unwritten rule was that if they appeared—
U: Three times.
JW: —more than four times— Yeah, more than three times, then they were going to get, uhm, a character thing. You'll probably notice that- that didn't happen. Uhm, that was largely because we got really lazy and didn't wanna go looking for picture, because it's HARD.
U: <laugh> Oh yes.
JW: You know, it's really tough. Where you're looking for something very specific and you've already pre-described what the person looks like, so you can't just do, like a random- a random casting thing. Like, you know, "Oo, let's look at everybody who fits these parameters and pick the one that looks best." So, you know, by the time we get to that point, we already know what they look like.
U: Even- Even generic images that we haven't described like, you know, currently right now I'm- I'm racking my brain, trying to find a picture that would be a Super Slayer. You know?
JW: Mm-hm.
U: You know, a-and yeah, I can make her eyes glow, but they smile too much, these people on Google. And, you know, they wear frilly dresses, not— They don't look like, you know, Linda Hamilton as a 17-year old. You know?
JW: It's not- It's not simple. So uhm, so with Judith, it was really tough. And if you actually – I-I don't know if anyone in the world noticed this, but if you go and look at Judith's character picture? Uh, which actually, I guess you can't do now because it's gone, but if you ask me, I'll- I'll post it somewhere. But, uhm, if you ever remember to- to look at Judith's picture, uhm, she actually has the Circle's symbol underneath her tanktop. Which I was always really proud of myself for Photoshopping in.
U: You would- You would never notice it until it was actually mentioned in the episode that she had it.
JW: Yeah.
U: Cuz i-it could look like part of her hair, or i-it's not like, "Whoo-hoo, I'm tearin' off my shirt to show you this mark upon my naked chest," but yeah, it is there.
JW: It is there, it is there. Uhm ... So yeah, so that was- that was Judith. Uhm ... I can't think of ... We got lucky with her picture.
U: Yeah.
JW: We found someone were I'm like, "Oh, this could work." And then we got lucky with Hazel's picture too. Uhm ...
U: And unfortunately, Judith's picture we only had one picture to work with.
JW: Right. Oh then this- this is kind of like why I don't know if we're ever gonna have anybody original, like, in the credits, because I don't have the footage. And I have to say, I-I really don't like ... I don't like it when, uhm, famous stars are cast in, like, parts. Which I-I've seen a couple of times. Cuz when I was first starting to do this, I-I popped around to a bunch of different virtual seasons to see if I could try and get a feel for how the site should be laid out, or if there were any- any features that I should possibly do that I hadn't yet. Uhm, and I saw a lot of with, you know, uhh .. "Anthony Hopkins cast as this!" and I just- I don't know why, that just bugs me.
U: As cool as Antonio Banderas as a Spanish vampire might be cool, it's just not Buffy.
JW: It's very, uhm ... It's very Anne Rice, actually.
U: You know, a-and honestly speaking— I mean, I'm not the huge star buff that you are, but I think the only person- I mean ... None of the people on Buffy were mega-stars before Buffy. Sarah Michelle Gellar, and you know ...
JW: Tony.
U: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Tony Head had done things before, but none of them were on the level of, like, Clint Eastwood, and Anthony Hopkins, and, you know, Robert Redford as, you know, "The Mysterious Man from the West!" You know, so it's- You know, it's best to get unknowns.
JW: Well it basically just bugs me, because I think that when you do that, you kinda already have the-the ... the actor, if you will, carries into the role. Which if you're filming is a good thing, you want that, but if you're doing it all-text, to me, it just establishes some sort of, like, rigidity that- that you can't- you can't allow someone to break out of because that image that they have, I think is going to overlay whatever it is you're going to- to be trying to show for, you know, your own characters. So, uhm ... So yeah, not fond of that. So that makes it a real bitch to try and find what someone looks like. So we're on Google like, you know, searching for, like, "teenage girl", and BOY is that not a search you want to put into Google.
U: You know, Super Slayers? If they'd all been naked? Man. I— Well some of our readership probably would've increased. But it probably would've been so easy to make a poster full of naked Super Slayers. Just by putting in "girl" or "brunette" or whatever.
JW: But I tell ya, you know, places where they have really good pictures of women that aren't actually naked? Russian bride sites.
U: Exactly. Russian bride sites.

"Mr. Giles, this is Judith. Judith, this is Mr. Giles." Andrew leaned towards the girl and lowered his voice to what he thought was a conspiratorial whisper. "He seems really intimidating and stuff, but it's really just the accent."

Giles shot Andrew a look that managed to be intimidating without a word being spoken, and the young man immediately went rigid and stepped away from Judith's side. "Uhm, tea! I bet you'd like some tea, right Mr. Giles? Would you like some tea, Judith? I just picked up an exciting variety pack of Twinings for a very reasonable price. I believe a cup of English breakfast tea would help you relax after your flight. Although it's not really breakfast time anymore, is it? Can you have English breakfast tea for lunch, Mr. Giles?"

Andrew looked expectantly at Giles, his tangent having dispelled any lingering tension. Giles for his part had removed his glasses and was massaging the bridge of his nose as Andrew's tension found its new home. "That sounds lovely, Andrew, two cups please," he sighed, ignoring the question.

"Okey-dokey," said Andrew cheerily, and he left the office, closing the door behind him.

[ Download Clip #14 ]

Jet Wolf: Let's see ... So this was me attempting to use Andrew as well, which we notice, uhm, STOPPED. <Ultrace laughs> Stopped later. Uhm, Andrew was NEVER gonna be a huge part of this.
Ultrace: But we loooove Andrew, he's so ...
JW: Yeeeah. Uhm, I-I-I have- I have ISSUES with Andrew and his predominance in Season 7, so I actually— I might not have included him at all, except for in my brain, I couldn't- I could not see him leaving. I mean, unless they physically DROVE him away and said, "No, you cannot come with us," he would not leave. Uhm, so as a result, I-I threw him in here and just left him to menial crap. Uhm, he actually- he's not used too bad, I think, in the first three or four episodes.
U: We don't abuse him, no.
JW: No, no, I mean, he actually, like, he has some good stuff.
U: Yeah.
JW: Like that thing in, uh ... "Name of the Game", I think it is, where he's with the ouija board with Willow and the skeleton key. If I remember that correctly.
U: Yeah.
JW: That was actually kind of cute.
U: It was funny.
JW: It was funny and I liked it but just, you know, by the time we hit "Fringes", we were startin' to kick our, uhm ... our-our stuff into gear. Buffy had come back, too, so these guys were handy because we didn't have Buffy back either.
U: Yeah.
JW: But, uh, by the time we hit, like, season- er, episode four, i-it was just, you know ... or episode five, I guess. Uhm, I just ... I lost interest.

Giles readjusted his glasses and smiled warmly at the girl standing in front of him. "I do apologize for Andrew. His ... enthusiasm is often less than infectious, but he means well." He gestured to one of the plush, comfortable-looking chairs arranged in front of his desk and moved around to his own. Judith took the offered seat and visibly tried to relax.

"Yeah, I kinda gathered that." She looked around the room, her eyes taking in the piles of boxes and assorted books that littered every available square inch of surface, including most of the floor.

"Please excuse the mess. I'm afraid we're still in the moving-in process." Judith nodded shyly and continued to examine the volumes with their strange and ornate covers, before moving to the tapestries and photographs lining the walls. Her eyes finally came to rest on the scythe mounted on the wall behind Giles' desk.

Judith tried not to openly gape, but she couldn't completely help herself. "Is that..?" she started to ask. Giles followed her gaze and smiled at her reaction.

"I see Faith actually went through the part about the Slayer history this time," he said, obviously pleased.

Judith smirked at that and looked at Giles. "Well, she said something like, 'Red worked the mojo on this big-ass Slayer axe that unlocked all the newbie potentials. That's why you can punch a hole through a brick wall and have the stamina of a racehorse.' Then she told me I should 'get my butt to Pennsylvania' and gave me your business card."

Giles removed his glasses and began polishing them on the handkerchief that he'd whipped out of his pants pocket. "Yes, well, not quite the speech we'd written for her, but I suppose it gets the message across."

"Mr. Giles, this is all so ... " Judith took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts. "Strange. I mean, one second I'm lying on my bed feeling exhausted from a long day at school, and the next I feel like I could run ten miles and still have energy left over. I know puberty brings some changes, but this seems kinda much."

[ Download Clip #15 ]

Ultrace: It's kind of funny when you, uh ... Looking back on this now with the whole Judith thing ... I'm reading over the bit now where she's like, you know, "Strange. I mean, one second I'm lying on my bed feeling exhausted...", and there's so much that— Looking back on it, you can see that obviously, in many instances, she was just fishing for info.
Jet Wolf: Yeah, she really is. She does that later, too. Uhm, a lot of— And this was actually very handy, this works twofold. It works, number one, because we had, uhm, Judith asking questions, which of course what Judith would be doing, because she's there to get information. Uhm, and- and number two, it served the purpose because it allowed- it allowed Giles to do exposition.
U: Yeah.
JW: To say, "This is what's going on, and this is where you are, and this is what's happening here with all the other Slayers in the world." Because these are huge questions you've gotta answer. Season 7 really left me with a bunch of- a bunch of crap to- to try and tie up and make sense of. Uhm, a-and so this was handy for two- for those twofold reasons. Uhm ... I-I don't know if anyone ever remembers, but the scythe is actually on the back of Giles' uhm ... Giles' desk. So Giles has it hanging up in his office. I don't make mention of it a lot, but it's there. Which I always think is kind of cool.

He chuckled and leaned forward, clasping his hands together and resting them on the desktop. "I can only imagine." Giles' face became earnest as he locked eyes with the girl in front of him. "But that's why we're here, Judith. That's why you're here. There are great evils in the world, dark forces that would conspire to destroy all that we hold dear. For millennia, there was only one girl who stood alone against those forces, a lone girl who would fight, and die, for the safety of the world. Now there are many, each gifted with supernatural speed, strength, senses and ability. My compatriots and I are working to bring these girls together, to train them, teach them how to use their abilities. I won't lie to you, Judith. The life of a Slayer is violent and dangerous. You will be out there, directly battling those forces. I cannot guarantee you safety, nor can I guarantee you a life free from pain. I can, however, guarantee you the absolute best training in the control and use of your powers, and the fact that unlike the Slayers before you, you will never have to face evil alone."

Giles leaned back in his chair, judging from the look on Judith's face that she had heard, and fully understood what he was telling her. "I can also guarantee you something that no Slayer before you has ever had – a choice. You can walk out of here right now and not look back, and you will never hear from us again. Or, you can decide to embrace the powers that have been given to you, stay here with the Council and help us protect the world. The choice is yours, Judith."

The door opened, and Judith jumped as she turned. Andrew entered, carrying an old-time silver tea tray with a teapot, two cups and a plate of cookies much like the one that was half dangling out of Andrew's mouth. He placed the tray on the clear spot Giles had made and smiled at the girl as he chewed a bite of the cookie. "Jaffa cakes," he explained. "Mr. Giles gets them on order from England. They're scrumdidlyumptious."

"What a delightful word. I'm going to assume it's a compliment," said Giles dryly, pouring tea first for Judith and then himself.

Andrew "mmm"'d in agreement and regarded Judith, who was blowing tentatively on her cup of tea. "So, what's the verdict? You planning on living up to your womanly potential and embracing your destiny as a Slayer of Vampyres?"

The girl considered this question carefully, looking first at Andrew and then at Giles. Whereas Andrew was only barely able to contain his desire to root for the home team, Giles met Judith's gaze calmly and without a hint of pressure as he sipped his tea. "I think..." said Judith, glancing up at the scythe and then back to Giles. "I think I'd like to learn to be a Slayer."

"Yes!" Andrew exclaimed enthusiastically. "Oh, you'll love it here, Judith. Slayer Central has the most awesome rec room. Xander – I can't wait 'til you meet Xander, he's just the coolest guy in the entire world – built us a custom entertainment center with a wide-screen hi-definition TV, progressive scan DVD player, and a space for my Xbox. I'm currently on my fifth game of 'Knights of the Old Republic'. Do you like Star Wars? I can't wait for Episode Three ..."

As Andrew babbled to a slightly overwhelmed Judith, Giles continued to sip his tea and smile happily.

[ Download Clip #16 ]

Jet Wolf: So after that scene ... Uhm, we've got Faith.
Ultrace: Oh yeah.
JW: This was the very first time I ever wrote Faith at all. Uhm, she had not appeared in any of my previous fanfics. So, uhm .. She actually came out easier than I thought she would. I thought she— I-I found Faith, generally speaking, really pretty easy to write, which- which surprised me. I thought she was gonna be a lot of trouble. Uhm ... it's just, it's really what it looks like, which is Faith driving to go check out Hazel.
U: Yeah.

The roar of the motorcycle shattered the idyllic peace of the quiet neighborhood as it rounded a corner at a speed considerably above that of the posted 20 MPH limit. An elderly lady looked up from her gardening to glare at the rider as the bike tore down the street, but the vehicle neither sped up nor slowed down. With pursed lips, the woman turned back to her pogonias, muttering under her breath about the lack of respect in the youth of today.

At a four-way intersection, the rider brought the motorcycle to a stop. Faith inspected the street sign and flicked her eyes to one side, trying to remember which direction she was supposed to go next. The street names not ringing any bells, she took stock of her surroundings as though searching for some clue that would point her the right way. Instead she found herself examining the rows of bright, clean, cookie-cutter houses that lined both sides of the street; each with a perfectly manicured lawn, two car garage, and absolutely no character whatsoever.

"Check out the American dream," she said to herself with no small amount of disdain. Faith stuck her hand into the pocket of her tight leather jacket and pulled out a folded and slightly crumpled piece of paper. She smoothed the page, tracing her finger down the list of directions until finally coming to a stop at the bottom. Double-checking the street signs, Faith seemed satisfied that she knew where to go and quickly folded the paper, shoving it back into her pocket. Settling down in the seat once more, she revved the engine and turned right, startling a squirrel who ran up one of the many trees that lined the street. The thunder of the engine echoed long after the bike had disappeared from view.

[ Download Clip #17 ]

Jet Wolf: Uhm, very first time I'd ever written Kennedy. Uh, Kennedy – NOT so easy. <Ultrace chuckles> This Kennedy, very different, I think, from the Kennedy you're gonna- that you see later on. At this point, I-I made a mention of this on the forum ... A-At this point, DID NOT have Kennedy in my head, at all.
Ultrace: Right now, she's basically Season 7-and-a-half Kennedy.
JW: No, right now? She's Faith. She's Faith-LITE, is who she is.
U: Well ... Faith isn't all, like, you know ... "Gimme fifty, maggot!"
JW: No no, well no, but I mean, it's— If you look at how she speaks? Her speech pattern is entirely Faith. It's completely Faith. I-I mean Kenn- Kennedy doesn't SPEAK the way Faith does, but at this point, in my brain, it was the only thing I could equate her to. She's just, like, Faith-lite. Uhm ...
U: Very light, actually. If I may say so in your defense. Cuz, you know, Faith is all throwin' out with the- with the slang terms and with the apostrophes at the end of her sentences ...
JW: But Kennedy has that. That's what I'm saying. She drops- I have her dropping her 'g's and stuff like that.
U: That's true.
JW: Cuz I just— Like I said, I just didn't have ... I just didn't have her voice, bottom line. Uhm, so, I— And I had nothing for Kennedy to do. I-I ... I had to fight- Every Kennedy scene in these earlier episodes, I had to fight for it.
U: It's because you wanted her to be more than just training and just makin' out with Willow.
JW: <laughs> I didn't want her there at ALL, that was the problem. I didn't want Kennedy there at all, so I was sorta like, "I gotta try and find something for her to do." Uhm, of course, you know, my- my great success story with The Chosen is the fact that I came to really, really, really like Kennedy. And I think she's MY Kennedy at this point, the one that I have is different from the one that was on the show, just by necessity. But yeah, so, uh ... So this Kennedy is really, really tricky. Couple of Super Slayers—
<Ultrace laughs>
U: Sorry. I'm laughing at Nate. <laughs again>
JW: Oh god, Nate. Uhm, yeah ... Nate, the storyline that didn't wanna happen.
U: Nope.
JW: We-We- We were creating- We created Nate for ... To be ... I mean, Nate is a caricature too. Nate is Wesley. I mean, for christ sake, he's a blond Wesley.
U: Yup.
JW: Uhm ... Cuz again, I had to fight- I was fighting for anything to give Kennedy.
U: He's not quite a pretentious twit like Wesley was, but he's- he's so British and he's so stuffy. He's like Giles without any sense of humor or decency whatsoever.
JW: So, I-I mean, poor Nate. I think Nate, like— I think the last time we see Nate is like when Kennedy beats him at like ... <laughing> Like, the bo-staff, and then she walks out the room and we never see him again.
U: Well there's a cut scene where he hands in his resignation to Giles. <JW laughs>
JW: Uhm, yeah, so we- we had this whole thing we were gonna do with, like, Kennedy and her Watcher and ... and it would not come.
U: Nope.
JW: It just— Kennedy- Kennedy made it QUITE clear. She was like, "You may not know me yet, but I am telling you right now, I don't wanna go down that way." Uhm, so that- that whole Kennedy/Nathaniel thing just got totally scrapped. A-And didn't get scrapped gracefully, either, it just kind of drifted off into oblivion.
U: But the good thing is, I don't think anybody missed Nate.
JW: No, I don't think so, he- he— Cuz he made no impression, there was no reason to miss him. He- He made no impression whatsoever.

"Forty-seven! Forty-eight! Forty-nine! Fifty!" Kennedy's voice rang out and reverberated around the gymnasium. She watched the group of fifteen girls complete their jumping jacks, her arms crossed over her chest as she marched back and forth in front of them. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that swished around her face whenever she spun on her heel and her mouth was set in a hard line. Kennedy was all business.

"Alright, pair off! We're practicing the Korfec maneuver. Alternate roles between attacker and attackee. You're not leaving here today until you complete it successfully on me. Lynn, up front; we'll start with you."

A girl about six inches taller than Kennedy stepped forward from the group. Her hair was a light brown and her eyes a pale blue, which only served to further the contrast between the two. Kennedy smirked and looked up at Lynn, clearly feeling no intimidation whatsoever at the height difference. As for Lynn, her face was a mask of intense concentration as she narrowed her eyes and tensed her muscles, sinking further into the mats that covered the gymnasium floor. The tension between the pair of combatants grew, but they simply continued to stare at each other.

The only forewarning Kennedy had for Lynn's attack was a slight shift in her weight, but it was enough. The younger girl's fist never had a chance to connect with its intended target as Kennedy's arm swung around and deflected the blow rushing towards the side of her head. Lynn had focused all of her strength behind the punch, so she was severely thrown off balance when it missed and she stumbled. Kennedy didn't, and immediately dropped to the ground. Executing a perfect leg sweep, she knocked Lynn into the air. Continuing the momentum from her move, Kennedy leapt to her feet and shot her hand out to wrap it around Lynn's neck. Forcefully, but not severe enough to cause any damage outside of some external bruising, Kennedy drove the girl flat on her back into the mat. Lynn grunted as the air was forced from her body and she blinked rapidly, her eyes struggling to focus. The first thing they saw was Kennedy leaning over, her hand still wrapped firmly around the girl's throat and the smirk that hadn't once wavered continuing to curl her lips.

Kennedy released her grip and stood up, offering her hand. The girl accepted and was pulled to her feet, rubbing unconsciously at her neck. "Sloppy," Kennedy appraised. "Don't put everything you've got behind a move that'll leave you so exposed, especially when you telegraph it from a mile away. My gran'ma would've seen that coming, and she's been blind since '96." Lynn nodded, still massaging her throat and trying hard to regain some of the dignity she'd left behind on the mat.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Kennedy's attention was drawn to a well-groomed man in a three-piece suit standing off to the side observing the training class with rapt attention. He saw Kennedy notice him and smiled, nodding his head with approval and encouraging her to continue. Instead she frowned and looked back at Lynn. "Go join Xue and Martha," she said, "I'll be back in a few."

Trusting that her commands were being followed, Kennedy devoted her entire attention to the man in front of her as she strode purposely towards him.

"Kennedy," he greeted warmly, the faintest touch of a British accent coming through in his speech. "Most impressive maneuver out there. The class is coming along well?"

"What're you doing here?" she replied, crossing her arms again and glaring.

"Uhm, watching?"

"Guess I walked into that one. What else would a Watcher do?" asked Kennedy mostly to herself.

The Watcher's face split in a genuine, if somewhat goofy-looking grin and he barked out a laugh. "Yes, I suppose that was to be expected."

Kennedy rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide her disdain for the conversation, and walked briskly past the man towards a stack of mats against the wall. She grabbed a towel that was tossed on top of the stack, wiping her face and draping it around her neck as she fished out a bottle of water from the nearby ice chest. She turned around again to find the Watcher standing directly behind her.

"Personal space, Nate. It's a bold new concept. Look into it."

"Nathaniel, please," he corrected, watching Kennedy move a few feet away and lean against the wall. "And I'm sorry that you feel my presence here is an intrusion, but—"

"I feel like it's an intrusion because it is an intrusion," Kennedy interrupted. "Look, I know you're just doing your job..." She looked the man up and down with a critically appraising eye. "...Whatever the hell that may be. But the bottom line is, I know what I'm doing. I don't need a babysitter standing over my shoulder telling me which end of a sword is the pointy one."

Nathaniel visibly bristled at Kennedy's words, but when he spoke, it was with a calm and even voice. "You're quite talented, true. Nobody is saying otherwise. But you are a new Slayer, Kennedy. You have had your powers for the exact same length of time as the rest of these girls." He held his hand up to cut off the Slayer's protests before they could be given voice. "I know you've had training. I know you've had a Watcher. But the very fact that you feel you have learned all you need to know only further proves that you have not."

Kennedy stopped drinking and paused, the bottle still tilted to her lips. After a moment she lowered it and looked at Nathaniel, her eyes narrowing. "And you think you're the one to teach me."

If he felt intimidated by the look, he never let it show. "I believe that we have a lot to teach each other, if you will only give us a chance."

The two held a locked gaze for several heartbeats, neither willing to be the first to look away. Then Kennedy's face shifted and her entire stance changed. She shrugged nonchalantly and took a final quick sip from the water bottle before capping it and tossing it on top of the mats. "Ah what the hell," she resigned, "it could be good for a few laughs."

Nathaniel blinked in surprise, clearly thrown off by the drastic turn-around but recovering quickly. "Splendid! This should be a highly enriching experience for us both."

"We're just training, Nate, don't get all excited. Besides, I'm taken..." Kennedy marched back towards the group of Slayers who were still attacking each other with gusto. Nathaniel quickly followed and she cast a look over her shoulder at him as she walked across the gym. "...And you're really not my type."

Any possible reply was cut off by Kennedy's return to the group. "Alright, listen up maggots!" she shouted, demanding everyone's full attention. "Switch partners and get ready to come up here and show me what you've got."

As the Slayers rearranged themselves, Kennedy turned to Nathaniel. "So, what's up first for you and me?"

"I was thinking we might address your, uhm ... People skills," the Watcher replied. "'Maggot'?" he repeated, incredulously.

"Oh yeah, this Watcher thing's gonna be real enriching."

[ Download Clip #18 ]

Jet Wolf: Okay, alright, we got Dawn's friends in this one. A couple of- A couple. Jackie and Brenda, in this one. And I have to say that Brenda, in my brain, for whatever reason, looks like Amanda from Season 7. The Potential. She just— That's- That's to me, that's how she looks, and that's almost how she speaks. Uhm, I- I kinda got away from that. I actually gave Brenda her own personality to my mind, but in these early bits, she was very, like- a very toned down Amanda. And I KNEW I was doing it, so I intentionally tried to get away from it. But that's still how she looks to me.
Ultrace: Honestly ... I like Dawn's friends, and I love the scenes where they're around, but I have no idea who they are. I actually can't keep them separate myself, apart from the fact that, you know, Virginia likes Xander, and I think Jackie's like a spaz or something, I don't know.
JW: That's Ginny. Ginny's the spaz. Ginny, of course, like, completely took over. When I created her, she just— Ginny took on a whole life of her own. Which is cool. Uhm, but yeah, no, Jackie's like the bitchy one, and the bitchy- And Brenda's like- Brenda's the- the kinda sedate, smart one ...
U: And then you got Megan.
JW: And Megan's- Megan's like the- the big kinda tomboy, uhm ... tomboy one. But, ah, yeah. Like, creating original characters, not my strong point at this stage. I think I've gotten better.
U: Yeah.
JW: I've gotten better at it. Uhm, but at this point, I was, like, "She needs some friends, so okay, here."
U: So we're not- we're creating like a multitude of friends for people at one time. Now when we create new characters, we're creating singular characters. We created, like, several new characters immediately at the beginning of this episode—
JW: That's true.
U: —now it's a gradual thing, so we can take a lot of time to develop a new character, and that's a- that's a big advantage.
JW: Yeah, that is- that is very true. Yeah, cuz at this point, we had to come in, like, already having happened.
U: Yeah. Heck, we have practically as many NEW characters in the first episode as old characters.
JW: Yeah, we do. We do. Uhm ... So yeah, so this— So the purpose of that scene, entirely just to show Dawn already with her ... you know, "how do I stack up to everybody else?" thing, which is- which is Dawn's arc for this season. It was very much, you know, coming into her own. Uh, kinda Dawn coming of age, of sorts, which- which Dawn, to my mind, never really got in the season- in the actual series. You know, she's- she's the Key, she's the, you know, abandoned little girl, and then she's the ... I don't know, uh, substitute for Willow until Willow comes back, and then she's ... uhhh, she does books. You know, she reads Sumerian. <Ultrace laughs> That was about as much as Dawn got. Oh, and she's not a Slayer. So that was all Dawn's characterization in Season 7, so this was very much ... you know, trying to- to ... to make Dawn her own person. A-And- And I think we did good. I-I'm quite proud with Dawn's arc.
U: Yeah.
JW: In Season 8. I think we did good.

The sound of the lunch bell continued to ring in the distance, drowned out by the loud laughter and chatter of Trillium High School's student body. Dawn and two other girls broke away from the crowd and made their way to one of the park benches dotting the front lawn, unslinging their backpacks and dropping their books on the tabletop.

"So I was, like, 'Pharmaceuticals? Like I want to be a glorified drug pusher for the rest of my life'," Jackie complained, a sneer twisting her features. She shook her head, tossing red hair that was obviously from a bottle out of her eyes as she searched for something in her backpack. "I mean, seriously, can you see me stuck in a lab coat selling Xanex and Viagra every day? Nooo thank you."

Brenda finished unwrapping a sandwich and looked up. "My parents haven't really started yet," she said in her usual quiet voice, "but my mother's bringing home those postcards for college catalogues and stuff, so I figure I'm due for the talk any day now."

Popping the top of her Coke, Dawn nodded in understanding. "I'm not sure what I want to do either. I mean, the obvious answer is research, but—" She broke off when she noticed the other two staring at her, disbelief etched on their faces.

"It sounds really boring, I know, but you'd be surprised," Dawn clarified. "Some of the texts I've seen would make you ... Well, let's just say that Stephen King could write fifty books this year on just one of the volumes Giles has," she added with a hint of amusement.

Her friends didn't share in the humor. "Research? Eww," shuddered Jackie. "I thought the point of getting a degree was to get away from school, not consign yourself to a hell of perpetual homework."

"Honestly, it's not that bad," countered Dawn, trying to persuade her friends without obviously trying to persuade them. A separate thought occurred to her and she rolled her eyes slightly with no small amount of contempt. "Besides, it's better than my slacker older sister. She dropped out to go wander around Europe for god knows how long."

"Europe? That is so cool!" Brenda exclaimed with great enthusiasm as Dawn blinked at her with surprise.

Jackie echoed that statement with gusto. "Totally! Christina's brother did the same thing. He was gone for like half a year or something and when he came back he was all rugged and had tons of stories and all these interesting friends from all over the world. It's real-life stuff, you know? That's what I'm talking about." She poked a Cheeto towards her friends for emphasis. "Life isn't all about school and surrounding yourself with a bunch of boring facts and dusty old books that nobody gives a crap about anymore. It's about living." She took a swig of Dawn's Coke, feeling very proud of herself for having made such an important declaration.

"Maybe we should do that after graduation," Brenda suggested.

"Yeah, maybe!" Jackie looked up, her eyes sparkling with excitement, but she calmed again quickly as a thought occurred to her. "Can you see me telling my dad that, though? I think his head would explode. Then he'd prescribe me some Paxil or something." She rolled her eyes at the ceaseless lack of understanding inherent in all parents.

Her friends agreed with much sympathy. Brenda took another bite of sandwich and glanced next to her at the mountain of stuff Dawn had pulled out of her backpack during her quest for lunch. Her eyes were pulled to a small black velvet pouch, drawn closed tightly with a red string. "Hey Dawn, what's this?" she asked, gesturing at the pouch.

Dawn glanced over, leaning to one side to peer around a pile of books blocking her view. "Oh, that's just something my..." She trailed off, looking for a word to properly describe her relationship with the witch. She gave up with a small shrug when nothing came to mind. "Something Willow gave me. It's for protection and stuff."

"Protection?" queried Jackie, raising her eyebrows in interest.

"Yeah. Some herbs, a bit of—" Dawn wiggled her fingers. "Nothing major, just a little ward," she added with an almost bored tone.

Brenda's eyes widened and she scooted closer to Dawn, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Magic?"

Dawn shrugged again. "Something like that. It's really more herbally earthy goodness, though." She turned back to her lunch, dismissing the pouch without much of a second thought, not finding anything particularly compelling about it.

Her friends clearly didn't share her nonchalance. "Wow," sighed Brenda, full of awe as she sat back.

Jackie took it much more in stride, but was also clearly impressed. "Magic. I swear, Dawn, you have the coolest family ever." She glanced at Dawn seriously. "How did you wind up wanting to do boring stuff like research when you have all these awesome people around you?"

The girl shook her head, expressing her utter incomprehension of Dawn's choices as she stole another drink of Coke. Dawn looked at Jackie for a moment before dropping her gaze, suddenly finding her peanut butter sandwich fascinating.

"I'll have the grilled salmon with baked potato," Robin Wood said, folding his menu and handing it to the waitress.

Giles followed suit with his menu. "Fish and chips, please." He glanced over at Wood's amused look and added, "I feel it's my duty to live up to the stereotype."

"So long as you can do it without eating some internal organ that was never meant to be eaten, I support you," responded Wood with a grin.

As the waitress left to place the order, the two sat in companionable silence, unwrapping their silverware and straightening out the napkin. Giles took a sip of water, wetting his throat.

"How was the flight?" he finally asked.

"Cramped, bumpy and devoid of peanuts. I won't mind sleeping for a few days in my actual bed, let me tell you." Giles nodded in understanding. "But the trip was good," Wood continued. "I think she'll join us."

"Most excellent." Both men looked up and thanked the waitress as she delivered a basket of breadsticks to the table. Giles reached for one and placed it on his plate, but abandoned it there as he returned to the conversation. "Our Watcher to Slayer ratio is in desperate need of balancing. We've already had to double up most Watchers. Some even have three Slayers, which is far from ideal." He removed his glasses and polished them on the handkerchief he had produced from his jacket pocket. "I-I'm not sure what we'll do if we don't get more Watchers soon."

Wood tore the end off of his own breadstick and looked at Giles. "Sorta makes you wish Willow could've unlocked some Watcher potentials while she was busy changing the world, huh? You know, awakened that deep, spiritual need to train, organize and drink tea that exists somewhere deep in the hearts of the chosen few." He smirked as he popped the piece of bread into his mouth.

"Ahh yes, my life's role reduced to a few choice verbs," remarked Giles. He checked his glasses one final time before putting them back on. "I sincerely hope you used a less concentrated version when talking to Ms. Newbury."

The nod he received was enthusiastic. "Don't worry. I stressed the death and danger aspects too."

"I'm sure they'll be flocking to our doors," Giles said with no small amount of sarcasm.

"Well you do offer a nice dental plan."

Reaching for the glass of water in front of him, the Watcher traced a finger around the rim. "How were things otherwise?" he finally asked. "Anything else of interest?"

"Not especially. It was a pretty average town," replied Wood easily. He then gave Giles' question more thought, and frowned slightly. "Were you expecting something else?"

Giles shook his head, but his face was worried. "No, no, not as such. Just that..." There was a pause as Giles sorted out his thoughts. "The magicks Willow harnessed to unlock the power of the scythe were far greater than any seen in this world for centuries. That kind of power simply does not pass without notice. And with Slayers awakening around the world... There are just so many of them now, relatively speaking." His face became gravely serious. "A veritable army of Slayers. Few could stand against them."

Wood pushed back slightly from Giles, having leaned closer as the conversation sobered. "Which is good, right? I mean I know that I feel safer battling evil with a platoon of Slayers at my back," he added hopefully.

"Provided that we were able to convince every Slayer in the world to join our cause, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. However experience has shown us that not every Slayer is called with a sense of altruism." Giles ran a hand through his hair and his eyes took on a far-away look. "I wonder ... how long can it be before someone else realizes that?"

[ Download Clip #19 ]

Ultrace: Let's see, lunch with Robin Wood.
Jet Wolf: Robin Wood, the most maligned character we have in there. Uhm, yeah ... Wood got ... I- I tried, too. You can tell in these earlier episodes, I was trying real hard to integrate Wood and Andrew. And- And it just, it fell away. I just— I-I got bored with them, I guess.
U: Well I think- I think part of the problem ... I didn't get bored with Andrew, I think part of the problem with Wood is that he doesn't have much in the way of personality. You know, on- on the show, he was, "Yeah, I'm a principal. Oh, I had a mother who was a Slayer who was killed and I've been searching for that vampire— Oh, I found the vampire. Oh, I can't kill him. Uhh, what do I do now? Well I guess I'll hang around for the ride." You know? "Oh, yeah, and I screwed Faith." <JW laughs> You know, but there— Apart from that, he just didn't seem to— There just wasn't any ... that zing. It wasn't there. So. And trying to give him that zing, I ... I couldn't be bothered, to be honest.
JW: Yeah, like I said, he- he bored me. Uhm, but we could've done it. There's potential there. There's potential with any character, really. Honestly. Uhm, but with Wood, it just— I-It meant ... The problem with- The main problem with these characters like Wood and Andrew is, they don't have enough— They already have- They already come in with enough personality to where you can't just start from the beginning with them. You gotta start with, you know, what they've given you, what the writers before you have given them. Uhm, and I don't want to take the time to devote to them cuz I'm busy focusing on, you know ... Giles, Willow, Xander, Buffy. I'm busy focusing on the characters I want to focus on. I mean, one of my big problems with Season 7 was – suddenly we have like, you know, someone opened up this- this big ol' bag of new characters and just dumped it all over the place. And you've gotta try and deal with them, and they take away time from people I actually give a crap about.
U: Yeah. You find yourself WANTING the newbies to be killed. <JW laughs>
JW: So. Bu-But Wood is handy. Wood was very handy here because I could send him away to get exposition. <Ultrace laughs> No, that was his purpose. So Giles wanted to know something, but I wanted Giles around, so it's like, "Okay Wood, you just go off for three episodes, and then come back with information for us." So—
U: So in lesser words, Wood is Giles' bitch.
JW: Wood is Giles' bitch. Yes he is. Uhm, and of course, the end of this scene is entirely setting up what will become, of course, the main focus of the season, which was, you know ... "Hey, we've got a whole bunch of Slayers out there, I wonder how long before someone targets them for their own purposes." Which was, of course, the point.
U: In retrospect, very heavy-handed.
JW: What, that we put this in here?
U: Yes.
JW: But no one picked up on it.
U: Yeah that- that is true.
JW: So, I mean, it-it's, you know ... No more heavy-handed than some of the shit that Joss pulls.
U: Yeah, that's true.
JW: "I said that the cafeteria lady was trying to kill us all!" You know? I mean, that's what he does, so I'm not really worried about it.
U: "Mom's aneurysm will be funny when it happens!"
JW: Uhm, so I- so I'm not— That doesn't bother me. That's okay. But, uhm ... Really, really, really did not want to deal with all this crap, I must say. Uhm, I don't- I don't actually, personally, like the idea of a whole bunch of Slayers everywhere. I understand why it was done, and I understand its purpose, but in terms of telling stories – pain in the ass. Buffy's much more interesting when she's, like, on her own and- and whining about it, I suppose. But uhm ... But I didn't wanna deal with it, but we had to. There was no way to get around it, we've got all these- these Slayers out there, you gotta deal with it. So the first- the first storyline for Season 8 was specifically about, "Okay, so now suddenly there's an influx of Slayers, so now what the hell do we do? What's everyone else gonna do about it?"
U: Yeah.

Act Two

[ Download Clip #20 ]

Jet Wolf: Okay, so, moving on to Act Two.
Ultrace: Back to Faith.
JW: Yes, back to Faith.
U: And now the SECOND thing you've written with Faith.
JW: Yeah. She speaks a lot more in this one.
U: And also Hazel!
JW: Yes, our first appearance of Hazel, who was, of course, destined to die from moment one. Uh ... I think we had her in outlines, she was called "Cannon Fodder".
U: Yup. Quite a contrast to Judith.
JW: Yes. Which was, of course, intentional. Uhm, I have to say that of all the little characters that I created early on, Hazel's probably my favourite. I- I ... She clicked with me early on. Maybe cuz I was gonna kill 'er, I dunno.
U: But she was also, in many respects, kinda like us, you know ... Fan of comic books—
JW: Yeah. I didn't mean for the comic book thing to come up- come into effect. It's just like, the best way I can think to describe it was like Professor X and the X-Men, so ... That's me bein' the comic book geek. Uhm, yeah ... I- I don't actually know what I can say about Hazel, to be completely honest.
U: I miss her.
JW: Well except for like from really- from really early on, Mike was almost constantly, like, "We don't HAVE to kill her..." and I'm, "No, no, we ... we have to kill her."
U: We can bring her back.
JW: No, no, no. Hazel's gone. Sorry. Hazel's gone. I liked her scene with Faith here, though.
U: I like most of her scenes with Faith.
JW: Well that's- that's true.
U: They gel very well. It's a good contrast.
JW: I do- I do, uh ... I did ... It was sad when Hazel died. But, of course, was always known. It was always known that she would die, and it was always known that- the impact that would have on Faith. So, she was, I guess, in that respect, she was kind of plot device. But, uh, she kinda took on a life of her own at the same time.
U: She did.
JW: She was- She was a good'un.

Faith pulled her motorcycle up to the front of a house that looked different from the others around it in only the most superficial of ways – light blue siding instead of cream, the door to the right of the window instead of to the left. It was all so generically lacking character that Faith couldn't help but roll her eyes. She turned off the bike's engine and lowered the kickstand, stretching as she stood to work out some of the kinks in her back. With one final glance at the paper in her hand to make sure she had the right house number, Faith strode to the door and rang the doorbell. She didn't recognize the overly elaborate tune that she heard playing inside. That fact didn't bother her.

The door opened tentatively to reveal a pair of large blue eyes and a face framed by shoulder-length light brown hair that looked as though it was perpetually messy. The girl blinked at Faith, seemingly taken aback by the Slayer's predominantly leather outfit, which seemed out of place in the middle of the suburban wasteland.

"Hazel MacFadden?" Faith asked, her voice rough and gravelly from the road.

Hazel's eyes widened even further. "Yes?"

"Hey. I'm Faith. I spoke to you on the phone last night."

Recognition suddenly dawned on Hazel's face, and any trace of nervous suspicion fled. "Yeah!" she exclaimed with obvious excitement. "Yeah, hi! Hi. Uhm ... Hi," she finished lamely.

"I think we covered that," smirked Faith, highly amused. "Can I come in?"

"Oh god! Yeah, come in." Hazel jumped back out of the doorway and gestured for Faith to come inside. She rolled her eyes at herself and shook her head. "Sorry. I'm just ... This is so freaky. I've been jitters since you called." Closing the door behind them, Hazel led Faith into the living room, swinging her arms back and forth as though unsure what else to do with them.

"I get that a lot," Faith said, shrugging. She looked around the room, admiring the huge vault ceilings and the spaciousness. "Nice place," she complimented.

Hazel glanced around as well. "Thanks. I've lived here all my life." The girl's expression softened as she examined it more closely. "I love this house. I feel so safe and protected here. Like nothing out there can ever get in, you know?" A dark look clouded Hazel's face and she wrapped her arms around herself as though she'd caught a sudden chill. "It used to feel safe. Doesn't feel safe anymore."

"When'd it change?" Faith asked gently.

She didn't answer immediately, instead rubbing her hands up and down her arms. "When I ripped my bedroom door off its hinges," whispered Hazel in a voice so low that Faith might not have caught it if not for Slayer hearing.

Faith watched Hazel for a moment then seemed to reach a decision. "I never had a safe place myself," she said conversationally, moving around the room. "Didn't like to get tied down to one place too long." The Slayer paused and glanced towards Hazel. "Kinda findin' a place now, though. It's a good place." She stopped in the center of the room, catching Hazel's eyes. "For people like you and me."

A moment of understanding passed between them and Hazel lowered her arms. "When you called, that stuff you said..." she began. "How did you know? I mean, no one knows. Not even my parents."

"How'd you explain the door?"

Hazel shuffled her feet, clearly embarrassed. "I told them I tripped and fell into it. They- They thought it was weird, but didn't really ask." She grinned at Faith's chuckle, but quickly became serious again. "But you know. About ... the strength and the speed. And the fact that I'm hungry all the time."

"Oh yeah, you'll be livin' off Wendy's 99-cent menu, lemme tell you," advised Faith, examining a little ceramic knick-knack over the fireplace. She paused and turned back to Hazel, "I know there's some seriously out there stuff goin' on with you right now. I know, cuz I been there."

The girl frowned at Faith, her face etched with confusion.

"You an' me, Haze? We're super-heroes."

Hazel blinked at Faith.

"Huh?"

[ Download Clip #21 ]

Ultrace: Ahh yes. Depressed Xander.
Jet Wolf: We, uh ... We had a loooong talk about what Xander would be going through. And- And whether he would even ... If he would even stay. We have him talking about leaving at the end of this scene, I think it is ... May not be the end of this scene. It's comin' up sometime ... Okay. Well end of this act then, I think it is. We had talked about having Xander go. Uhm, not- not out of any great need for him to, you know, feel he was being useless, necessarily, but it's as Willow calls it – at the end of episode two, I think it is. Where she like, there's nothing for him here; he doesn't feel connected to things. But ultimately we decided that— obviously, I mean, I want to play with Xander, I want him around. Uhm, but you know, Xander going off on his own would be no good for him.
U: Really.
JW: I mean, he would just spiral into further depression. Uh, but this was- this was very much, uhm ... us dealing with Anya, because the show, of course, never got to. Which was one of the things that ... I thought was the great- a great tragedy. I understand why they didn't have the time, but the fact that, you know, Xander kinda says, you know, "Oh, Anya. She's doing the stupid thing, that's my girl," then the next second he's joking about Starbucks and Toys R Us. So it always felt kinda ... I-In my mind, Xander actually goes back on the bus, crawls into a back seat and is, like, in tears. You know, later on. One would hope.
U: Wasn't quite the happy ending I think they wanted to put on the end of the series.
JW: No, well, they couldn't have Xander crying, which is, you know, I understand that. A-As with many things, I understand WHY they do it, but that doesn't mean that I agree with it being done.
U: On the other hand, they didn't have to kill Anya.
JW: No, no. There is that.

With an energetic bounce, Willow came down the stairs, turning right at the bottom and heading down the hall towards the living room. "Hey, Xander?" she called out before actually seeing her friend, knowing from the sounds of the television where he would be. Which he was, slumped down listlessly in one of the chairs with an open bottle in one hand and the remote control in the other.

"I'm goin' bonkers all cooped up inside. I was thinkin' about hitting the mall, so I could ... be all cooped up inside ... there." Willow frowned at her lack of logic, but broke into an excited grin as her mind forged a new path of justification. "Oh! But they have skylights and trees, so it's like an artificial outside inside!" She beamed at Xander.

He didn't even glance at her. "Nah, I think I'm just gonna stay here."

Willow moved in front of Xander, not quite blocking the TV but coming close. "Oh, come on! It'll be fun! There's a big squishy pretzel in it for you!" she enticed in a singsong voice. "We can even get some of that way-too-orange faux cheese sauce that one can only find in mall food courts."

Xander finally tore his eye away from the television and smiled at Willow fondly, though he remained slouched in chair looking very dispirited. "Tempting though my colon may find that offer, I think I'll pass. Oprah's got Dr. Phil on, and you know what a rare televisual treat that is."

The redhead gasped at Xander with mock dismay. "You're spurning me for daytime talk shows?" She touched her heart dramatically. "The second you choose Jerry Springer over me, I'm leaving you."

"Aww Will, you know I'll always love you more than the transsexual nazi prostitutes." His tone was teasing but flat, and with a brief, sad smile he returned his full attention to the television.

All traces of humor vanished from Willow's face to be replaced with concern. "C'mon Xander. You need to get out more. You spend practically all day sitting here in front of the TV," she said, gesturing behind her to the object in question. "Even 24/7 Discovery Channel isn't good for you."

"Yeah, but I could now tell you absolutely anything you ever wanted to know about building a car from the husk of a Mercedes with only a single blowtorch, a lawn mower and a synthesizer keyboard," he quipped on automatic.

She reached out and touched his arm. Xander glanced at her, his lone eye connecting with hers for just a moment before looking away again towards the pictures on the screen but staring straight through them.

"I know you've felt kinda ... out of sorts since Sunnydale, but—"

"'Out of sorts' doesn't really begin to cover it," he replied with a touch of bitterness, taking a drink from the bottle clenched tightly in his left hand.

"I-I know, and I understand, I really do," said Willow gently. "But you can't just spend the rest of your life wasting away here. It hurts, but you have people who love you, who want to help you. Do you think Anya would want—"

"Hey, while you're at the mall, do you think you could stop by Suncoast and pick up Bulletproof Monk for me? I got it on pre-order and I think it should be in by now." Xander's voice was lively, sounding much more like his regular self. Neither one of them were fooled.

[ Download Clip #22 ]

Jet Wolf: I particularly remember going through a lot of crap to figure out what movie Xander should have Willow pick up.
Ultrace: Yes.
JW: Bulletproof Monk. I must— Cuz- Cuz my timeline, of course— This is supposed to be occurring in August of 2003, is when it's set, although I'm writing in April 2004— Or I think at this point it's actually March or February actually is when I'm writing it. So, I had to go, like, digging up to see what new releases were coming out, uhh ... a-at the appropriate time period to- to have a movie—
U: Always tricky to have to match up modern culture with the writings on this.
JW: Well it's even more irritating because we're not too far away. But you can be a couple months off. You- You kind of remember, "Oh! This was kinda big, thereabouts," but you might be a month or two ahead of time, so it makes- makes your grabbing of things kind of irritating.

Willow sighed deeply, but backed away, letting the matter drop. For the moment. "Okay," she said, touching Xander's arm again. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"And this," Andrew announced in an all-important voice, sweeping his arms in a grand flourish, "is my domain. The kitchen." Following Andrew into the room, Judith did her best to appear fascinated. She didn't quite pull it off, but Andrew was so engrossed he didn't notice. "I am Lord and Master over—"

Spying an open jar of peanut butter sitting on the counter, all pretenses vanished. "Hey!" he whined, bringing his hands down with an audible slap to his thighs. He grabbed the jar and brought it up to eye level, shaking it as though it were personally to blame. "I ask for one thing, one tiny thing. Just clean up after yourselves. Like I don't have better things to do with my time!"

Andrew paused while screwing the lid back on the jar and glanced to one side. "Okay, maybe I don't, but I hardly think that's the point, do you?" he asked Judith.

"So ... you're the cook?" she inquired instead, wanting nothing to do with the previous conversation.

Nodding with unabashed pride, Andrew returned the peanut butter to its proper place in one of the many cupboards lining the walls. "Meal preparation is but one of my many duties in our ongoing battle against evil," explained to the blond purposely. "I also ... uhm, I sometimes help Xander build stuff."

Judith raised her eyebrows in interest.

"...When he doesn't chase me away with the power saw," Andrew added half under his breath.

The interest turned to a confused frown.

He continued with greater conviction. "And I help Mr. Giles keep organized with appointments and things like that. Oh, and I also make tea." Andrew grabbed the aforementioned box of Twinings, smiling broadly as he ran his hand underneath and to the sides of the box "Price is Right" style.

"Certain to be the deciding factor on Judgment Day," smirked Judith.

Andrew's smile remained fixed. Then it fell slightly as he puzzled over her words. He eventually decided on a weaker version somewhere in-between.

The new Slayer looked around the kitchen, settling on the large window that dominated the far wall. Outside was any generic peaceful, sunny afternoon. "Trillium though, huh?" she finally asked. "This seems like such a sleepy little town. I can't imagine there being much evil to fight here."

Putting the box down on the counter, Andrew patted Judith's shoulder condescendingly. "Tsk. Young, naοve Padawan," he sighed wistfully, shaking his head. "You have much to learn."

Andrew steepled his fingers together and began to pace slowly around the kitchen, paying no attention to the look Judith was shooting at him. When he spoke, it was with a voice to rival all the best documentary filmmakers. At least in his mind.

"Trillium is actually a fascinating place. You see it's nestled snug in the exact center of a three-Hellmouth triangle. After that unfortunate incident with the Dale of the Sun, our intrepid band of stalwart adventurers had planned to relocate home base to Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland was, next to Sunnydale, the city with the largest active Hellmouth. But when Buffy led her core group of trusted generals to the—" he made quotation marks with his fingers "—'Mistake on the Lake', her recently redeemed lesbian witch Willow detected a flow of energy away from that Hellmouth."

Andrew paused for dramatic effect. Judith blinked at him. He held the pause for another beat, then spun on his heel and continued.

"The fearless heroes pressed onwards, following the dark power until they arrived here in Trillium. They discovered that the energy from the Cleveland Hellmouth was being drawn by and mingling with the power from two more nearby Hellmouths, both of which had grown mightily since the destruction of Sunnydale – one in Syracuse, New York, and the other in Washington DC."

She had been busy twirling a wooden mixing spoon between her fingers, but upon hearing that, Judith stopped and looked at Andrew with genuine surprise. "DC is on a Hellmouth?"

"You have to admit, it makes a sort of sense," replied Andrew matter-of-factly.

Judith considered this for a moment, and then nodded in a conciliatory gesture.

He continued pacing as though he had never been interrupted. "Realizing that this nexus of energies had the potential to become even more volatile than any singular Hellmouth, Buffy and Company decided to make Trillium their new headquarters. It's only four hours or so away from each of the three nearby Hellmouths, which makes it easy to monitor them and dispatch Slayers as needed. There are decent schools here for the new Slayers to continue their education, including a branch of Penn State. Plus," he grinned, "the constant influx of dark energies really keeps the property values down so we could buy up all this land for Slayer Central."

"So," began Judith, putting it all into her own words, "this is sort of a Bermuda Triangle of evil."

Andrew clapped his hands once and beamed at the girl. "Exactly!"

"Uh oh. You've related to him on some level. He's never going to leave you alone now," Kennedy cautioned, striding into the kitchen and ignoring Andrew's gaping and wounded look. She peered at the countertops, scowling. "Hey, where'd my peanut butter go?"

His jaw moved up and down soundlessly, but Andrew was unable to articulate any words. If Kennedy saw him, she didn't acknowledge it as she hopped upon the counter and reached behind her to retrieve the jar and a tube of crackers from the cupboard. She twisted the top off and tossed it carelessly to one side, fishing out a cracker and using it to scoop peanut butter directly from the container. Andrew's eyes bulged.

"So," Kennedy said, gesturing the cracker in Judith's general direction before popping it into her mouth, "you're new."

"Yeah, I just arrived today. Judith." She offered her hand to Kennedy, who shook it once and grabbed another cracker. "Andrew was giving me the grand tour," Judith smiled at Andrew, who was torn between wanting to smile back at the new Slayer and continue glaring at the old one. He resulted in doing both rather unsuccessfully.

Kennedy snorted. "Poor thing." She munched on another cracker. "Have you done the rec room yet?"

With a glance at Andrew, Judith smirked, "No, but I've already heard so much about it."

As though she had just reached a decision, Kennedy put her snack to the side. "I'll take you," she announced. "If you go with Andy, you might be tempted to impale yourself on a pool cue just to escape the pain."

"Hey!" yelped Andrew indignantly, finally finding his voice.

"Besides," Kennedy muttered, mostly to herself without regard for Andrew's outburst, "I apparently have 'people skills' issues I need to work on. Whatever the hell that's about." She jumped down off the counter, brushing the cracker crumbs from her jeans and t-shirt into the floor without a passing thought and headed towards the exit.

Andrew began to turn an interesting shade of red as he looked from the floor to the abandoned mess on the countertop to Kennedy and back again.

[ Download Clip #23 ]

Ultrace: Ahh yes. Andrew and, I think, Kennedy shows up in here.
Jet Wolf: Yeah, Kennedy shows up and irritates Andrew.
U: Not that anybody really DOESN'T irritate Andrew. This is one of those scenes were I read it and- and I really did not like Kennedy early on when we were writing this. I mean ... It's good that I didn't write this episode, because I probably would've cut Kennedy out of a great deal of it. You know, cuz, things like this really irritate me with Kennedy.
JW: What, where she comes in and just starts eating peanut butter?
U: Yeah. I mean, I'm no big Andrew fan, I'm not all, you know, like, you know, "Yes, he SHOULD be the lord of his domain! Yes, every cracker SHOULD be in a row!" You know, he's like the Robespierre of the kitchen, but to just be all, you know, "Ha-ha! I can do it just because I can, and I would snap all your fingers if you tried to mess with me"...
JW: I-I didn't have a problem— Well, I mean, I WROTE it, so of course I didn't have a problem with it, that's stupid to say. But, uh, I was okay with it. It was just, uhm ... I mean, the main purpose of this scene was to have— This is what I mentioned earlier with Andrew, is that Andrew's great for exposition, because that's, like, that's his nature. H-He will- He will give you exposition if you let him, so he was the one who was able to tell us all about why we're in Trillium, what's its- what's its purpose, why are we NOT in Cleveland, which was the logical pointer. Uhm, and a-as I've mentioned ... somewhere, I didn't want- I didn't want the gang in Cleveland— We-We started off with them in Cleveland, actually.
U: Yeah. We were gonna have them be in Cleveland, and I think you ... I think so many fanfics have put them in Cleveland, that we really wanted something different, and we thought about it and- and it was just too ...
JW: The reason I didn't put them in Cleveland was strictly because I don't know Cleveland. I mean, bottom line. I was gonna do it because it made sense, but- but I didn't want write— I was spending so much time trying to do research on Cleveland to see what was around— It was when we were trying to figure out the Vortex. That was when I finally decided, "This sucks." It's taking me like, you know, three HOURS just to try and find—
U: A club.
JW: A club. An appropriate place for a club to be, where in the town would it be?
U: With a cool name.
JW: With a cool name. I mean, I didn't want to pattern it after a real club, but I wanted it to be like, you know ... You don't wanna have, you know, the idea of a nightclub – a busy nightclub – being in the middle of suburbia. You know? And I don't know the town, so I was just like, "Man, this would be so much easier if I didn't have to deal with that crap, if I just had my own town." And from there I was like, "Oo! My own town! That's the answer."
U: Well, you know, it worked for Mutant Enemy.
JW: It DID work for Mutant Enemy. A-And that's- that's the right thing to do. It's the better thing to do, you know?
U: But in some ways we're better, because we're not portraying our town as a two— a one Starbucks town, that has a military base, and an airport, and docks, and ...
JW: Well, Sunnydale grew, I suppose. It's a Hellmouth thing.
U: How could it grow? People DIE there, like—
JW: IT'S A HELLMOUTH THING. So that was the purpose of this. And Trillium, of course, came out of that. Trillium meanings "threes", and we have the three-Hellmouths that it siphons energy from. That's the entire reason it's called that.
U: Also a kind of flower. Bit of trivia.
JW: Is it?
U: Yes. When we were looking over the names, I, uh ... I checked on the Internet to see whether Trillium really matched up with anything else, and it is a, uh- a variety of flower.
JW: Huh. Did not know that.
U: I think it may actually be found in the northeast, so hey. Go for that.
JW: Huh. Well. Learn something new every day.
U: But as far as cities and stuff go, it doesn't seem to match up with anything.
JW: Ah, well, that's good. And, of course, I'm starting the connection here now between Judith and Kennedy. Which, I will admit, I never got to take as far as I wanted to. I wanted it to be a REAL big thing between Kennedy and Judith. Not- Not thing, not like, ahead of time, I meant like after, when Judith—
U: Like personal training and stuff like that?
JW: Yeah, well, I wanted to- to more ... I wanted to develop their bond more, so that Kennedy would feel a greater sense of betrayal when Judith left. And I think I was able to get enough of a sense of betrayal out of it, you know, but- but it was so grossly overshadowed by Faith, honestly.
U: Faith and Hazel, yeah.
JW: But not their relationship, I mean- I mean the anger. We didn't bring Judith back enough to have Kennedy's reaction be strong enough. I mean, the first time our guys figure out Judith is alive, is when she comes in and then she kills Hazel. Uhm, so I don't know if I had been planning to stretch out Judith's appearance before that point, but I had planned to do more with Kennedy's feelings of- of betrayal in particular, toward Judith. But by the time our guys figured out that Judith was still alive, Hazel was dead, and Faith just completely overshadowed anything that Kennedy had.
U: That's a good point, yeah.
JW: Uhm, but that was part- that was part of my plan. That was like, plotline number two that fell through for Kennedy.

The new Slayer remained rooted to the spot, clearly unsure who she should follow.

Kennedy stood in the doorway and looked back to Judith. "C'mon," she said, gesturing towards the other room with her head. "Unless you want to hear all about why Star Trek V is underrated."

"It is!" Andrew exclaimed waving the dishtowel he was holding for emphasis. "Kirk facing off against God was a brilliant metaphor for hard science replacing blind faith, and Sybok—"

"Coming," Judith told Kennedy without hesitation. As she followed Kennedy out of the room, she turned to Andrew and flashed a smile at him. "Thanks for the tour. I learned a lot."

Andrew stood by the counter and watched them leave. "I didn't say it was better than Wrath of Khan, geez," he complained to an empty room. With a sigh, he began to wipe off the counter top and once more returned the peanut butter to the cupboard.

Hazel shook her head at Faith and stepped forward, as though proximity would bring sudden clarity. "What? Super-heroes? You mean, like, the X-Men or the Fantastic Four?"

"I dunno nothin' about that," answered Faith, "you'd have to ask Xander or somethin'. But yeah, real-live, honest-to-god super-heroes."

Eyes shining, Hazel lowered her voice to a secretive level. "Do we have costumes and codenames and stuff?"

"Hell no," the Slayer responded with a sneer.

Hazel's face fell. "Oh," she said with obvious disappointment.

"But there's this whole thing where we kick evil's ass, and that doesn't suck."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hazel with some of her earlier enthusiasm.

"An' that's why I'm here," continued Faith, capitalizing on the momentum. "See, there used to be just one of us." She paused, reconsidering. "Well, two of us, only one was all prima donna and everyone's little perfect angel and generally a pain in the—" Faith caught herself quickly, waving her hand as though literally cutting off that line of thought. "Anyway, there used to be two, and now there's a whole bunch runnin' around with no clue what the hell's happened to 'em. So we've set up this place where you can come and learn and live and train to kill vamps and demons and stuff."

"See, this is like the X-Men with—" Hazel did a double take. "Wait, kill what?"

"Vamps and demons and stuff," repeated Faith casually. Hazel continued to merely gaze, her expression blank. "Vampires?" she drug out slowly, expecting Hazel to catch on at any moment.

The girl crossed her arms and stared at Faith. "Get out," she said in disbelief.

"No, really."

"Vampires." Hazel watched Faith closely for any sign that this was all some hugely elaborate joke at her expense. "Fangy, blood-sucking, garlic-hating, Anne Rice-inspiring vampires."

Taking it all in stride, Faith simply said, "Yeah."

"Get out," she restated in the exact same tone.

Faith was amazed. "What's the big? You accept you're a super-hero. You know you can rip sections of your house apart with your bare hands. Why's it so hard to believe you got your powers so you can turn a goth girl's wet dream to dust?"

Her arms still crossed, Hazel shrugged. "I suppose you gotta draw the line somewhere. For some, it was Crystal Pepsi. For others, it's was when Rachel slept with Ross." She shrugged again. "I guess for me it's the thought of turning into a seventeen-year old female Van Helsing."

With an exasperated sigh, Faith began talking to herself. "It's always this part where I lose 'em. I need to start travelin' with demo vamps or somethin'."

She turned to Hazel, pointing at the girl with both hands. "Okay, you don't believe me. That's your choice, I respect that. But I got somethin' to show you. Might just make you see the world a bit different."

Hazel cocked her eyebrow and gave the older woman a wary look. "Okaaaay...?" she drawled.

"Tonight," said Faith. "I'll come back by here, 'bout eight? Be ready."

"Ready for what?"

Faith leveled an intense gaze at Hazel, completely serious.

"Your life to change."

[ Download Clip #24 ]

Ultrace: <laughing> "Do we have costumes and codenames and stuff?" "Hell no."
Jet Wolf: This conversation was one of the easier to write. The one between the two of them. Like I said, Hazel came very easily, I didn't have to do a lot of work with her. A-And interestingly enough, as a result, Faith came very easily also. <Ultrace laughs> What?
U: I'm sorry, I'm just reading, you know. "Where you can come and learn how to kill vamps and demons and stuff." "See, this IS like the X-Men with— Wait, kill what?" <JW laughs> "Get out!" And you know, it's so funny, to- to, uhm ... It-It's like going back to square one in this new thing. To actually find somebody who doesn't know about vampires and evil. You know, it's like in Sunnydale, you know ... From the time you were six-years old – or six-months old, practically – you know, you either fought a vampire, or you'd had to run from some sort of a demon ...
JW: But you know, to be fair, Willow and Xander lived their entire lives in Sunnydale, and they sure as hell looked surprised when Buffy came in.
U: I dunno, I can't ... I don't know how to explain that. Maybe they just— They were used to PCP, gang-related incidents, but it's just ...
JW: See how Hazel there makes fun of Crystal Pepsi? And I actually used the— I had Xander do the exact same thing, like, fifteen episodes later. I-I caught it before it went up, but—
U: There's really not enough fun that you can make of Crystal Pepsi. You should've been, like, twice as often.
JW: No no no, I was just, I had him do the same joke, and I'm like, "Wait, have I used this joke before, because I can't believe I HAVEN'T." So luckily I was able to do a search and found it, because I-I really- I really hate repeating jokes. So, but Xan-Xander was also gonna make some- some joke about Crystal Pepsi failing miserably. I can't remember what I replaced it with.
U: You know, it's always funny, you know. It's like, Faith is all like, "Okay, you don't believe me, that's your choice. I respect that. I got somethin' to show you." Well she already tore her door down by banging into it—
JW: No she didn't! ...oh, oh, Hazel.
U: Yeah, Hazel.
JW: Oh, okay.
U: You know, Hazel's obviously super-powered, why can't she buy the vamps thing?
JW: I don't know, I guess it's selective memory.
U: Yeah. "Your life to change."
JW: Dun-dun-dun.
U: "I am your mother."
JW: That's, like, twice you've done something like that.
U: I don't know.
JW: He's a big dork.

The door to the Scoobies' house swung open and Willow entered, several bags swinging from her hands. She kicked the door closed and spoke loudly into the air, despite not seeing anyone. "That's so much better. Nothing like contributing to our nation's ongoing quest for just the right combination of material goods that equals true happiness."

Following the sounds of the television, Willow made her way into the living room. She found Xander still slumped in the chair in the exact same position she left him. Glancing around, she focused on the collection of empty beer bottles scattered on the nearby table and frowned in concern. Her eyes flicked to Xander, who hadn't acknowledged her return in the slightest. With a deep breath, Willow reset her expression to one of near normality.

"I got your movie," she said, pulling the DVD from one of the bags and offering it to Xander. When he made no move to take it, Willow pulled it back and examined the cover with intense interest. "I have it on good authority that Chow Yun-Fat fights people in this one, so that should be exciting and new. It's good that they're giving him so much range."

[ Download Clip #25 ]

Jet Wolf: "I have it on good authority that Chow Yun-Fat fights people in this one, so that should be exciting and new." <Ultrace laughs> I think I'd just, like, watched Crouching Tiger or something at the time I did this, so I was very disenchanted.
Ultrace: Hee-hee. "It's good that they're giving him so much range."

She glanced hopefully at Xander. He did nothing but continue to stare straight ahead at the television. She reached into the bag and pulled out another DVD. "I also picked up Dracula 2000 cuz I figured, you know, who can resist a comedy?"

Another expectant peek at Xander. Nothing. Willow's face fell, but soon became determined. "Then," she said, her voice taking on an alluring tone, "I stopped off at Victoria's Secret and picked up a couple of shiny, slinky things for me and Kennedy. Wanna see?"

Willow watched Xander intently for signs of life. Getting none, she dropped to her knees at Xander's side, the packages discarded and forgotten. She reached out and removed the remote from where it was resting limply in his palm. Putting it to one side, she took his hand in both of hers.

"Xander." Willow squeezed his hand tightly, peering at him until Xander finally looked over at her, his face slack with such sadness that Willow felt her eyes tearing up in sympathy. "Xander," she repeated, "I know how much you hurt. And I wanna help." Willow squeezed his hand again and looked at him imploringly. "Please. These mood swings, with the TV and the drinking and ... I'm worried about you. This can't go on."

Xander looked at Willow for a long time, searching her face. Finally, he took a deep, shuddering breath and closed his eye tightly. "You're right. It can't."

In response, Willow tightened her grip reassuringly, relief flooding her features.

He opened his eye and met hers, decisively. "That's why I'm leaving."

All signs of relief vanished in an instant.

[ Download Clip #26 ]

Jet Wolf: Yeah, we got- we got Xander out of his depression pretty fast. I kinda ... I kinda half-wish we'd- we'd kept him there for a while. A little bit longer.
Ultrace: Yeah.
JW: I mean, he doesn't really start pickin' up and doing okay until later on in the season, but I mean, by about five, I think it is, he's pretty much back to normal Xander. Uhm, I kinda wish we'd had him mopey for a while. But the problem with this sort of thing is ... I mean, besides the fact that you have weeks inbetween the episodes—
U: Yeah.
JW: —so, I mean, you've gotta imagine, "Okay, so he's been mopey," and you can imagine that he didn't start NOW, either. So he was, you know, mopey for a month or whatever or more before we started seeing this, and then there was a month- you know, a week between episodes one and then two, and then two and then three ... Uhm, you know, so you can't really— It's- It's boring. But I-I kinda wish we'd had more depression.
U: Also, really not healthy.
JW: Yeah.
U: Considering he was knockin' back the booze like his old man.
JW: Yeah, yeah.
U: Y'know, given five episodes of that, was that— You know, even a week between each, and you're steadily on the road toward alcoholism.
JW: Yeah, no, totally.
U: And- And ... And Buffy, you know, the series, has dealt with, you know ... Uh ... brain tumors, and people being sliced in half with swords, and snapped necks where vampires leave them in beds, but alcoholism is just a little too real, I think. We didn't- I didn't really ... I-I personally didn't want us really to go there, because ... Buffy is all about ... I-It's surreal, practically. You've got vampires and stuff like that, but, you know, to deal with the real-life issues in between, it's like you know ... It's like a repeat of Season 6.
JW: Mm-hm.
U: I don't want life to be the Big Bad during one of our season.
JW: Yeah, I understand. It's something I just kinda wish that we'd spent a little more time on. But, on reflection, I wish we couldn't, but I'm not quite sure how we could have without having, like ... having the point just hammered home.
U: Yeah.
JW: It'd be like, "Okay, he's depressed, I get it."
U: Yeah.
JW: You know, so it's ... You gotta- You gotta make a balance sometimes between what you'd like to do and what realistically you can show.
U: Yeah. I imagine ... I realize we're only on the first episode, but I imagine the bit where he says, "That's why I'm leaving", you know, was probably the first big *gasp* for our readers.
JW: Maybe so, I don't know. It's real ... it's real hard for me to say. I mean, it was designed that way. Obviously, you were supposed to be, "Oh my god, Xander, no, you can't leave!"
U: I mean, obviously we'd already set up the fact that Buffy had left.
JW: Yeah.
U: You know, and anything was possible when you get rid of the titular character.
JW: Mm-hm.
U: You know, it's just like ... I was like, "Whoa, dude! If Xander left, it'd be just, like, Willow and Giles and Faith and—"
JW: Dawn.
U: "—and Dawn and Kennedy and that'd be WEIRD. It'd be like, Xander and the All-Woman Power Hour."
JW: Like it's not now?
U: I-I'm sorry, Giles.
JW: Ah.
U: I meant to say, "Giles and the All-Woman Power Hour." Cuz, you know, there'd be no guys. ....well I guess Wood would be around, but he'd just be, like, making snide remarks and makin' out with Faith, I know.

Act Three

"You're what?" Willow's voice was riddled with so many emotions that it was difficult to tell which was taking precedence.

Xander sighed and pulled his hand away. "I've given this a lot of thought," he began, looking down. "Being here, remembering ... It's too much."

Her eyes bored into Xander. "So ... So you'd rather be somewhere else remembering? Because the remembering? Takes more than a change of scenery to stop."

"I just—"

The opening of the front door broke into Xander's explanation and they both looked up, startled.

"Hello?" called Giles.

Realizing who it was, Willow stood up and walked towards the room's entrance, catching Giles' attention. He smiled as he saw her and came forward, also smiling a greeting at Xander when he spied the young man still seated on the couch.

"Giles!" Xander exclaimed with great enthusiasm and no trace of his previous somber mood. "What remarkable timing! I applaud your entrance like you were our wacky British neighbor!" He paused for just a moment before adding, "Oh, hey, you are!"

"Yes, I expect to have the laugh track installed any day now," responded Giles offhandedly.

Willow couldn't keep from staring at Xander, wide-eyed and worried. She turned to Giles, keen to bring somebody else into her world of concern. "Xander was just—"

Leaping immediately to his feet, Xander interrupted, "I was telling Willow about how I was thinkin' of customizing my eye patch. Maybe gettin' a whole line of 'em." He gestured towards his missing eye vaguely. "You know, with the days of the week, or hey, maybe a smiley face?" Xander nodded to himself, liking the idea. "Mood patch. Could be the next big thing for the disfigured among us."

Willow wasn't sure her eyes could get wider, but they somehow managed it. She boggled at Xander, unsure of what to say when he shot her a pleading look that clearly indicated 'not now'. With a frown, Willow nodded reluctantly.

Their exchange went completely unnoticed by Giles, who was struggling with the appropriate response to Xander's comments. "Well, I-if you wanted a ... variety of-of eye patches, we could certainly, uhm, look into some design patterns and-and—"

Xander jumped in, saving Giles from the awkward situation. "Be at peace, British man," he said with a warm smile. "For the moment, I'll stick with basic black. Simple, yet elegant."

[ Download Clip #27 ]

Jet Wolf: This is one of those scenes where we first started, uh ... getting more of a connection between Giles and, uh ... and Xander, actually. Which has kinda come and gone throughout the season. But I think it's probably- probably a little bit stronger than it's been in a while. Uhm, Giles and Xander have a very strange relationship. And, uh we- we were kind of at this point, trying to make it a- a little- a little stronger. Having Giles have a little more insight into what may be going on, ah, with Xander and- and— I mean, Willow, of course, he's- he's always pretty- pretty keyed into what Willow's going through, but ...
Ultrace: It's funny, his line about having the laugh track installed any day now, it's one of those that you wrote and— Well you wrote most of these lines, actually, but it's one of those lines that you wrote, and every time I read it, I can actually HEAR Anthony Stewart Head's voice saying it, you know: "Yes, I expect to have the laugh track installed any day now."
JW: Well I think that's important. If you can't ... If you can't read these lines and hear the actor saying them, you're doing something wrong.
U: Yeah, I agree with that, I'm just saying, some of them really stand out. You know, just in the arrangement of the words.
JW: Mm-hm. Which is how, when I- when I write them, that's how I hear them. I just— Really, all I do is just, I write down what they say. And I can hear them in- in their voices saying it, so.
U: All told, in spite of the depression, this is a very funny scene. Xander's musing about the eye patch, with the designs on it, and Giles is being flustered, you know? "If you wanted a variety of eye patches, we could certainly look into some design patterns." "Be at peace, British man." I can just see his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. It's like, "Chill. I was only kiddin'."
JW: Yeah, this one came out pretty well. And of course this- this was the first scene where I had three of the Core Four interacting, uhm, as well, which is actually ... I think it may have been the first— No, I'd written a 'fic between Buffy, Willow and Xander, so it wasn't. But, uh ... Well it was early, anyway. That's the point.
U: Yeah.

It appeared for a minute as though Giles was going to pursue the odd conversation, troubled over Xander’s glibness, but turned to Willow instead as he remembered the reason for his visit.

"I wanted to stop by and confirm our training session next week?" he queried.

"Yup," confirmed Willow brightly. "I'll be there with bells and whistles. Only, you know, not literally cuz ... noisy."

The Watcher seemed troubled by her joke. "It's extremely important that we resume a regular schedule," he persuaded. "Your power levels are still uncharted and, shall we say, unpredictable? We still don't know the full range of effects that empowering all the Slayers has had on you. It's vital that we—"

"Giles, I know," Willow broke through calmly, understanding what was at the heart of his mini-tirade. "I'm Serious Gal about this. Now with 110% more Serious. I've made a big red check in the 'Understand and Control Your Powers' column. I'm on board," she assured him.

[ Download Clip #28 ]

Ultrace: "Your power levels are still uncharted and, shall we say, unpredictable?" Shall we?
Jet Wolf: Hee-hee. Yeah this was, ah ... This was us getting, uhm ... Sort of- Sort of setting up where Willow was, power-wise. Cuz, of course, she'd gone through ... a LOT. And of course they leave you in Season 7 with just, like, big flashy lights and what does this mean? And- And Slayers awoken everywhere.
U: Hee-hee.
JW: So we had to, ah ... It was— We had a lot of debate about that too, I think. Uhm, about what was up with Willow. Cuz ... You know, really powerful, so you kinda need to figure out where she is, and what she can do, and what she CAN'T do, and- and you gotta ... Willow is really hard sometimes, cuz she's so powerful.
U: They didn't make it easier in Season 7, really.
JW: NO. No, they did not.
U: They had her, like, spontaneously with telepathic powers—
JW: Well they had that in 5, but ...
U: Yeah, but, you know, she was probably trying to stay away from that stuff with her whole magic thing now. Then her whole, "I can feel them!" as she unleashed all the Slayers. And it's just like ...
JW: Yeah. Yup. So, uh, they- they- they really left Will kind of ambiguous. A-And I've seen a couple of interpretations too where, you know, Kennedy says, "You're a goddess," I've actually seen some interpretations where people are LITERALLY saying, now she's a goddess. You know, which is not something I personally subscribe to. Uhm, IF for no other reason than the fact that it would be Even. Harder. To write. Will- Will's pretty powerful – you start putting her on goddess-level, and yeeee-ah. Not good.
U: Yeah, what- what kind of a Big Bad do you have to have to compete with a goddess? I mean, where does everybody else fit in? You know, Xander can joke while Willow proceeds to smack him with a Godly Fist of Doom.
JW: It's so, yeah. Will-Willow is really hard. You gotta— Part- Part of this, too, was with her— Us putting in there where she was, uh ... Power levels goin' all wonky half the time was, uhm ... Was us putting some restrictions on her, cuz you gotta watch out for Will. She just— There's- There's little— If you don't put any restrictions on her, there's very precious little she can't do. And it makes it real hard to not have Willow come in every day and- and just, like, wave her fingers and, problem solved!

He contemplated Willow for a moment before throwing her an embarrassed and apologetic glance. "Sorry. I seem to communicate mostly in dramatic speeches these days."

"Maybe Buffy was contagious," Xander theorized.

Giles was horrified. "Good lord. If I ever become that bad, you have my permission to beat me soundly about the head."

The response was instantaneous and filled with the hope of being able to do just that, often and in the very near future. "Could I get that in writing?" asked Xander with delight.

A flash of warning was his only answer, but behind it, Giles smiled. The comfortable familiarity of their teasing settled into the room. "How are things here? No problems?" he inquired.

Willow's eyes immediately darted to Xander, who affixed her with the same desperate expression from earlier. "Nothing we can't handle," she finally responded.

Having noticed their wordless exchange, Giles looked from one to the other, seeking further clarification but finding none. "Excellent," he said, displaying no indication that he noticed anything amiss. "And Dawn?"

"She's back on the license thing again," sighed Willow.

Giles suddenly seemed much paler.

"It's times like this that I'm thankful for my lack of depth perception. I hereby declare myself unfit for Dawnster Driving Duty," Xander announced.

"That hardly seems fair," protested Giles.

"Talk to the patch."

The Watcher rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, I suppose we'll deal with that budding apocalypse when it happens. Until then, I must be off. We brought in a new Slayer today, I want to make sure things are moving along smoothly."

Willow flapped her hands in the air at Giles, unable to contain her excitement. "Oh! Oh! Did you use the 'You have a choice' speech?" she asked, dropping her voice announcer-style. Her face was split in a thousand-watt grin. "That one's my favorite."

[ Download Clip #29 ]

Ultrace: "Oh! Oh! Did you use the 'You have a choice' speech?' That one's my favorite." <laugh> The bit here where they make fun of Giles is extremely, extremely funny, and brings to mind fond memories of, uhm ... That one episode where they're making fun of Anya with chicken's feet.
Jet Wolf: Ohh, yeah, when they're clutching their chicken feet by the fire?
U: Painting their little toes. And Giles snickers, and you can just see the same kind of thing goin' on between- between Willow and Xander here.
JW: I-I-It was, it was good. This was a good scene. I like that one. It came out- It came out much how I wanted it to.

"Erm, yes," replied Giles quickly, feeling embarrassed all over again. Which Xander immediately recognized and capitalized on.

"I liked it better when you played the stirring music in the background. I still think you should have kept that," he smirked.

"If you're quite done mocking me..." began Giles.

Xander waved his hand in dismissal. "Oh, we'll never be done mocking you."

Giles treated Xander to his usual look of patience on the verge of being pushed too far and said his goodbyes. Willow and Xander waved happily, stopping only when the front door closed with an audible click. Immediately, Willow rounded on Xander, resolve face firmly set.

"You. Me. Talking. Now."

As the two women walked into the entrance hall of the facility, Kennedy threw her arms open to encompass all they had seen. "...Which brings us back to the foyer," she concluded. "Was it everything you hoped for?"

"And so much more," chuckled Judith with the required amount of sarcasm.

Kennedy grinned with genuine amusement. "I know it's a lot to take in," she sympathized.

"Well it's certainly not where I expected to be this time last week," Judith conceded. "I'm impressed, though. What's happened to me—to us—is so ... chaotic. But coming here, it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Slayers, Watchers," she motioned towards the room, "this place. It all feels so together."

[ Download Clip #30 ]

Jet Wolf: Now back to, uh ... Back to, uh, Judith and Kennedy at this point. And as we can see, this is, uh ... This is Judith siphoning Kennedy for information. Uhm, and I actually have a very telling line in here ... Right here. Where she says, "What happened to me, to us, is so chaotic." You know, it's- it's, that's me kind of, ah, prompting ahead of time with Judith and being part of Robespierre's group, which is, of course, all about order. Uhm, so that was a little thing ahead of time. Which no one got, which no one was SUPPOSED to, because they didn't know what going on, but you know, see, retrospect. See what you can learn?
Ultrace: But yes, every question Judith asks has to be looked at with a different light.
JW: Mm-hm. She's, uh ... She's diggin' for the info. But, at the same time, of course, providing much necessary exposition.

She raised her eyebrows at Kennedy's low snigger. "Yeah, we put on a good show."

"Show?"

The senior Slayer was surprised that she'd spoken aloud. "Oh, well ... " she hesitated, uncertain of whether or not to continue, but soon shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah. I mean we got the basics down." Kennedy ticked them off on her fingers. "Place to train, place to sleep, food to eat. Giles has been working his ass off for the past few months gettin' everything semi-presentable. But there's a lot under the surface," she admitted. "Rules and stuff, boring pencil pushin' crap. I dunno, I don't bother with it all that much. I just know what Willow tells me; Giles has got her working almost as hard as him." Her face clouded briefly, but the moment passed as quickly as it had arrived. "I don't follow a lot of it, it being really dull and all, but I know they stress. Will worries a lot that it bleeds through to the newbies, so she'll be happy to hear that it doesn't."

"Willow, she's...?" prompted Judith.

Kennedy's face lit up. "She's my girl."

"Oh!" Judith exclaimed, momentarily taken aback, but quickly regaining her composure. "That's cool," she affirmed. "Is she a Watcher like Giles?"

"You'd think," the other woman grumbled, then brightened again. "But no, Willow's our resident witchy power. You have her to thank for your new lifetime of off-hours sleeping," she added with a smirk.

Judith was suitably impressed. "One person did all this?" Kennedy nodded with unabashed pride. "She must be some girl."

"That she is," Kennedy preened on Willow's behalf.

"Where's her room?" asked Judith, looking around. "Maybe I can meet her?"

"She's not here in the dorms," she explained. "We live in a house not too far from here with Xander, Dawn and, technically, Buffy. Her schedule's packed kinda tight at the moment and she's going back to school in a few days, but she'd love to meet you. I'll let her know to come find you."

"Cool," Judith remarked, collecting her thoughts. After a moment, she posed another question. "So, what's up with the Watchers? Will I be getting one?"

Kennedy leaned against a nearby doorframe, getting comfortable. "Yeah, you'll be assigned to one within a few days. You may have to share, though. There aren't enough Watchers to go around right now, but they're working on that." A short, humorless laugh escaped. "And if that doesn't work, you can always have mine."

An eyebrow snaked its way back into Judith's hairline, and she regarded Kennedy with astonishment. "You have a Watcher?"

"And I'm real thrilled about it," Kennedy replied, sarcasm unmistakable.

"But I thought you were a trainer yourself?" puzzled the younger girl.

The previous sarcasm turned quickly into bitterness. "Yeah," smirked Kennedy. "Funny how that works, huh?"

"Do the other Slayer trainers have Watchers?"

Kennedy shook her head, tossing her wild mane of hair over her shoulder. "The only other permanent trainer is Faith. And she is decidedly lacking in the Big Brother department."

"That hardly seems fair."

"Again, funny, huh?" Kennedy shifted her weight to the other foot and huffed. "Something about Faith being a Slayer for years while I've only been active for three months, yadda yadda. Whatever," she grumbled angrily.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kennedy seemed to be having an internal conversation. She soon opened them again with a single shake of her head and smiled, her previous irritation dissipated.

"And listen to me; I'm being a brat again. I have 'get my way' issues," she explained, "in that I pretty much get like this when I don't." She shrugged, not dwelling on it too deeply. "It's a thing. I'm workin' on it." Obviously wishing to drop the whole matter, Kennedy grinned at Judith with child-like glee. "How about you and me head to the weapons room and play with lots of sharp, deadly toys?"

The other Slayer's reply was an equally delighted expression.

[ Download Clip #31 ]

Jet Wolf: Yeah, I-I can ... There's traces. There's traces of Kennedy's voice in there. It's- It's- It's there. It's mixed in with a bunch of other stuff, but it's startin' to get there.
Ultrace: She's fighting to get her way out.
JW: Yeah. She's tryin' real hard.
U: There was so much going on when this episode was going up that ... You know, you were so nervous about getting everything just right and so, that it's hard to ... to even consider how things could've gone or what voice a character is and isn't using. I mean, looking back on it now, it's kind of like, crazy to ... I can't even remember when we were working on this episode. There've been so many episodes and so many pages and pages of stuff since then—
JW: Yeah.
U: —so it isn't really surprising that, you know Kennedy's voice is a little bit off.
JW: Well and—
U: We were juggling TWELVE voices at once.
JW: Well I mean, and plus- plus I just- just cuz I- I didn't want her there.
U: Yeah.
JW: I mean, just bottom line. I-I did not wanna use Kennedy. You know, I DID, but it certainly wasn't, you know, due to any great desire on my part to have Kennedy be part of, uh, be part of the group. I just couldn't realistically have her not be there. Uhm, so I mean, it doesn't surprise me that I didn't get her at this point, because I really wasn't trying hard. You know, it was— I mean, I tried, just ... That makes it sound like I didn't- didn't give a shit, and I DID. It was just, uh, comparatively speaking, you know ... Of- Of all the characters that interested me, Kennedy was way down the bottom of the list.
U: We could've had her, like, run over by the bus ...
JW: No no. No no. No.

"It looks ... sharp," Jackie observed.

"And quite possibly deadly," said Dawn.

Brenda considered the subject carefully. "I think it's cute," she declared. Her friends affixed her with a look that promised the need for much therapy. Brenda ducked her head to escape their eyes.

"Well I do," she added, quietly but defensively.

Three sets of eyes returned to the matter at hand. Across the hallway from the lockers they were leaning against stood a group of boys, fellow students. One in particular attracted their attention. Tall and sinewy, in the way of most adolescent males, he was dressed ultra-casual in a pair of baggy, low-slung jeans, dark t-shirt and bright, unbuttoned over shirt. But what was particularly eye-catching was his hair – dyed a bright blue and gelled into a series of short spikes.

[ Download Clip #32 ]

Jet Wolf: Oh, I forgot we had Grip in this episode.
Ultrace: Very early on.
JW: Yeah. I forgot that, huh.
U: "He has hair like a Crayola!"
JW: Ha! I, uhm ... Gosh, why did I write ... Why did I write a guy in this scene at all? I wasn't- He wasn't intended to be Dawn's boyfriend. Why was- Why did I include him in there?
U: Well ...
JW: I think I was just showin' ... Just, like, Dawn and her- and her desire for a normal life. Was all I think I was really going for in this one. But I actually- I actually brought Grip in later because I liked his name. Uhm, I was just really pleased with "Agrippa". Cuz I- I have, like a whole- I have a big Greek and Roman history- Ancient Greece and Rome, like, two of my big things, so I was really, really pleased with "Agrippa", and the nickname "Grip". I thought it was really cool. So when it became time to ... uhm, have someone defend Xander and Dawn in "Refrain", I think it was, or "Ex Post Facto" maybe. I forget which one. Uh, whichever episode it was where Grip shows up again, I-I-I brought him in because, again, I-I'm like, "His name was just so cool. I just- I wanna use that name again." So I brought him in, and then it just- it just really went off from there.
U: Mm-hm.
JW: Uhm ... I don't know if we even planned for Dawn to have herself a little boyfriend at this point.
U: Not at this point, no. We knew that it was going to happen, and she might actually meet someone this season, but we didn't expect it to go the way it did. You know. We didn't expect it— Definitely, in the future she was gonna have a love interest, because she IS growing up.
JW: Yeah.
U: You know. I mean, and it's like, you know ... Heck. By this point, Buffy would already, you know, like ... had sex, and had, like three different boyfriends, and it was all, like, you know ...
JW: <chuckling> "You kill things and have sex that's rough, I can't compete with you!"
U: <laughing> Was that an actual line?
JW: Dawn says that.
U: In our series?
JW: Nooo no no. But that's really funny, I wish I HAD written that.

"You have to admit it's different," said Brenda, looking for the bright side.

Dawn scoffed, feeling she didn't have to admit anything at all. "He looks like a Smurf."

Her eyes not wavering from the target, Jackie inclined her head towards her friends. "Would you go out with him?"

"Oh yes," replied Brenda without hesitation.

"He has hair like a Crayola!" exclaimed Dawn incredulously, turning to Brenda with wide, 'what the hell is wrong with you?' eyes.

But Brenda was now lost in her own world. "Yeah, but have you seen him skateboard?" she asked dreamily.

Jackie and Dawn smirked at their smitten friend and rolled their eyes at the hopelessness of the situation.

The sound of the bell ringing shook all three out of their reverie, and Jackie turned to her locker, fishing out a textbook from deep within its depths. She slammed the door shut and turned back, just in time to see the boy in question walking past. All three girls followed his movement, something that didn't fail to escape his notice. He smirked slightly to himself and nodded at them congenially.

"Hey," he said, calm and cool.

"Hey," the girls echoed, just as cool. They remained aloof and disinterested until he was safely out of range. Then all three moved, as one, to lean further into the hall and watch his departure. When he was completely out of sight, they snapped back into action, as though never having been distracted.

"And 'Grip'," Dawn spat with a disgusted tone. "What kind of name is 'Grip'?" She spun on her heel and walked in the opposite direction, Jackie and Brenda following.

Brenda explained. "It's short for 'Agrippa'. His father's like a big Roman history professor at Penn State."

Dawn wouldn't be placated. "It's a verb. That's just wrong."

"Yeah, we can't all be named after a time of day," noted Jackie.

Dawn glared.

"Plus," added Brenda, "your sister's name is 'Buffy'. I hardly think you're in a position to judge."

"Well whatever," Dawn quickly dismissed. "He just seems weird, that's all I'm saying."

Her friend's eyebrow twitched. "UH-huh," drawled Jackie knowingly, causing Dawn to once again roll her eyes dramatically.

Brenda glanced nervously from one to the next. "So," she cut in with great exuberance before things could escalate, "you guys wanna come over to my place for dinner tonight?"

"I'm in," Jackie agreed without much consideration. "My mom's on this weird sauerkraut kick. Very disturbing. I'm anxious for any chance to escape."

Dawn nodded to Brenda. "Sounds good. Lemme just check in."

The three friends stopped outside one of the buildings as Dawn reached into her purse for her cell phone. She moved a few paces away from Brenda and Jackie, who were chatting, and called up a number on speed dial. She put the phone to her ear and waited a few seconds for someone to pick up.

"Hey, Willow? Brenda invited me and Jackie over for dinner, can I go?" Dawn paused for a minute, listening. "Hang on a sec," she replied, and then turned back to her friends. "Can one of you guys drive me home after?" Jackie nodded and Dawn flashed her a grateful smile before returning to the phone. "Yeah, Jackie'll bring me home. She actually has her license," Dawn couldn't help adding with amusement. She listened for another moment and then laughed. "Okay, okay, observe me stopping." Another pause. "Cool, thanks. I'll see you guys later tonight. Love you."

"Love you too," Willow said into the phone. She returned it to its cradle and focused on Xander, now seated on one end of the couch. "That was Dawn," she explained, sitting next to him. "She's going to Brenda's for dinner."

"And here I was all ready to finally reveal the 'surprise' in my tuna surprise," remarked Xander with a rueful shake of his head. "Ahh well, ya schmooze, ya lose."

The tone in Willow's voice was unmistakable. "Xander..." she warned.

It worked. Xander was instantly the very picture of seriousness. "I don't know what else to say, Will. I know it seems sudden—"

Willow immediately became agitated. "Seems sudden? One minute we're discussing the finer points of daytime television, then I leave for a little bit and when I come back you say you're going away!"

"—but it's really not," he finished as though she had never interrupted. "I've been thinking about this for a while now." Xander paused, trying to find the words. "There's nothing here for me," he finally added.

[ Download Clip #33 ]

Jet Wolf: And this, of course, was huge establishing scene for, uh, for Xander ... Uhm, and where he is at this point which, like I said, we had to go into some detail with that because of the whole, you know, Anya thing happening without any sort of real reaction from- from Xander at all. And when you get right down to it, this is ultimately what's going on here, is about Anya. It's not JUST that. It's dealing with Anya, and the loss of his eye, you know, and the loss of something that he was actually GOOD at. Uhm, it really doesn't have anything to do with, you know ... "I can't, you know ... go out and fight the evil," because really when you get right down to it, our guys have kinda moved beyond that point. Uhm, really, none of them are needed any more. Not even Buffy is needed in her own way, because there's so many Slayers out there that, you know, their worth – to my mind – is not- is no longer, SHOULD no longer be determined by their effectiveness in fighting vampires. Uhm, the whole group has moved beyond that stage, which is why Xander doesn't, I don't think – he shouldn't, anyway – uhm, make any kind of response about how, like, "Oh, I, you know, I lack depth perception, so I can't stake vamps any more." That's not the point. The point being that, you know, he can- he can't get a job doing what he was good at. Which was like one of the things- one of the few things Xander FELT he was good at, and now he- he's bein' barred from that particular avenue. And that was just- it's just one more thing on top of- on top of losing Anya.
<long pause>
Ultrace: I agree. <JW laughs> But, but on a separate tangent, I'd like to point out that I LOVE how you dropped the, uh, the subtle Captain America reference in, uh ...
JW: Where's that?
U: Uhm ...
JW: Oh, the Super Soldiers?
U: "I can't effectively train our platoon of Super Soldiers." Which is what Captain America himself was referred to, was a Super Soldier.
JW: Thank you, thank you. Marvel geek.
U: You know, always good with the subtle pop culture references, and for Xander to drop it – very effective.
JW: Thank you.

Becoming alarmed as Willow’s face crumpled, he realized what he'd just said. He reached out and took one of her hands, holding it gently between both of his own.

"I didn't mean it like that. I mean ... You and Giles, you're doin' the really important work – all the hard bureaucratic stuff that puts me to sleep within seconds." He let Willow's hand go and gestured vaguely over his shoulder. "I can't effectively train our platoon of Super Soldiers like Kennedy and Faith. My aversion to tweed rules me out as a Watcher. I can't be a recruiter because I'm so damned bitter that all I want to tell these girls is to run for their lives and never look back. Hell, even Andrew contributes more to the workings of this place than I do." He peered at the redhead intently, heavily emphasizing his words. "I'm less useful than Andrew. Say it to yourself and feel the pathetic."

"You are not pathetic," defended Willow vehemently. "I-If it weren't for you, we'd still be up to our eyeballs in hairy, flabby construction guys. And, ew? Huge 'ew' factor. But-but you stepped right up and whipped 'em all into shape and now look at how big and pretty and to-code Slayer Central is." When Xander failed to look convinced, she continued. "Plus, you build stuff and fix stuff and do all those impressive things with tools with intimidating names like- like 'nibbler' and 'lathe' and ... 'hammer'." She frowned at the last one, but soon regained her momentum. "I mean, you said it yourself this morning, how many times have you had to save the mailbox from a Dawn-related disaster?"

"I'm handy with a glue gun, sure," Xander relented, waving it away contemptuously, "but I don't do anything that nobody else could do by reading a safety booklet. You could go out there, get married to any generic man, and he could do what I do." He stopped, noticing Willow's 'I don't think so' look. "You know, if you wanted," he amended before adding as an afterthought, "I suppose Kennedy could count. I can see her wearing my tool belt."

Xander shook his head as his mood darkened again. "But it's not just that. Everything here feels so ..." He gazed at Willow, wanting desperately for her to understand. "There's no connection. Don't you feel it?"

Willow smiled sadly as she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I kinda do. I mean we grew up in Sunnydale. We spent our whole lives there. To everyone else, it was just another place. But to us, it was home."

"Be it ever so Hellmouthy."

"No more Bronze. No more Expresso Pump. No more Stevenson Hall."

"No more Alpert crypt. No more Sunnydale High, not even charred. No more Revello Drive."

The two best friends sat in comfortable silence for a while, each lost in their thoughts. When Willow spoke again, it was softly and with sad understanding.

"What sparked it off?" she asked Xander.

His head dropped as he looked away, seeming just a little angry with himself. "It was the stupidest thing. I was flippin' channels and CNN had a commercial for 'Moneyline'." He paused and turned to Willow, his face full of remorse. "She never missed it," he reflected, his voice hoarse. "Even with all the fear and the dying and the όbervamps, she never missed a single episode."

[ Download Clip #34 ]

Jet Wolf: And this was sort of my, uhm—
Ultrace: <laughs> No more Alpert Crypt.
JW: No more what?
U: Alpert Crypt. That—
JW: Oh, the crypt! The damned crypt, yeah.
U: The crypt that always showed up in, like, every graveyard scene, would be the Alpert Crypt.
JW: It was one of the guys on the crew, I forget which one. But, uh ... But yeah, this was- this was very much sort of my ... This was me being nostalgic at this point. This was me sort of being like, "Aww, man, Sunnydale's not around any more," you know? Because of all the places you wanna play, Sunnydale would be an awesome place to play. You know, and I'm just thinkin', "Man, I can't- I can't have Sunnydale High anymore, I can't have Revello Drive," you know? All these places that you know so well, and they're all gone. And- And to me ... To me that's just one of those things that just would really hit you. Later. You know, at first you're just like, "Yay, not dead!" But, uhm, later on, it's just sort of like, "I can't go to these places." Which is- Which is why, uhm, Willow in particular starts talkin' about how the graves are gone. Uh, in the next episode. Which was one of my— Was to my— Which was one of my favourite scenes and still kinda remains one of my favourite scenes, where she's talkin' about how she was gonna— When things settled down when they moved, she was gonna go visit Tara's grave, and she realized she couldn't. And that just- That, that hit me when *I* realized it as something like ... wow. That would just kill me. You know, this realization that of everything else you lost, you lost that too. And ... And that was kind of a- a big driving force behind the Xander and Willow discussion in this episode and in "Human Nature" was just me thinking, "What would I be going through if I had lost what they lost?"
U: Yeah. I think it's great when we, uh ... When we mention- Xander mentions it was "Moneyline" that got him all triggered off. And it's a real shame, cuz in Season 7 I think we only get one indication that Anya's really still materialistic, and that's when Willow burns her rug.
JW: <chuckling> Yeah.
U: But all the other times, there's never a mention of money, no mention of, like, material goods. It's all about, "I'm a Vengeance Demon and I'm not happy about it, and I'm occasionally gonna boink Xander." You know, but ... but they really took away a lot of the- the human side of Anya, almost as if she was trying to excise it away.
JW: Frankly, I- I think it's bad writing. Just really. Anya had no point.
U: Mmm, that's true.
JW: But I agree, it's kind of a nice tie-back to the Anya of old.
U: Yeah.
JW: Uhm ... When we do finally get to use Anya – our one very brief time in "The Wren" ... and ... we're doing commentary on "The Wren," aren't we?
U: We are.
JW: Okay. Hold that thought, I'll talk about it when we talk about "The Wren".

"The smells get me the hardest," commiserated Willow. "When I least expect it, there'll be just this right combination of scents. Like ... like rain and jasmine and magick."

Another silence blanketed the room, sadder but filled with mutual understanding.

"There's no connection here, you're right," Willow reluctantly agreed, "but I think there can be if we let it. But that's gonna take time. You have to give it time," she implored Xander.

He didn't answer straight away. "Will it ever stop hurting?" he eventually managed to get out, unable to look at Willow directly.

She considered his question very carefully. "Completely? I hope not. I think the day that happens is the day they're gone forever. But one day ... maybe not today or tomorrow or the day after ... but one day you'll wake up, remember the good times, and smile instead of cry."

Xander was finally able to meet her gaze, his eye shining with unshed tears. Willow swallowed her own before continuing, her voice strong and sincere.

"When I was at my darkest, you were there. All I wanted was to curl up and die. And, yeah, bring the rest of the world with me, but let's face it, I was projecting. The point is, you were there and you wouldn't let me. You didn't just save the world, Xander, you saved me." The corners of her lips twitched upwards, almost managing a smile. "Now stop being such a schmuck about it and let me return the favor."

A ghost of a smile flickered across Xander's face as his friend's words sunk in. He looked at Willow with undisguised affection. "I dunno about tomorrow or the day after. I can't promise the long-term. But for today?" The smile was weak, but he managed to make it stick. "Consider me unschmucked."

Willow's face brightened and she engulfed Xander in a tight embrace while he clung to her like a lifeline.

Hazel wandered through the cemetery, closely following behind Faith. It was dark and foreboding, as cemeteries often are, and the cool glow from the moon shining in a cloudless sky only seemed to heighten her tension.

"I have to say," Hazel muttered, her voice barely above a whisper as though unsure what volume level was appropriate for the situation, "I've snuck out of my house to go to some weird places before, but this?" She cast her gaze around her. "This is new."

A few paces in front, Faith shrugged. Her own voice was conversational, neither loud nor soft. "You get used to it real quick. It's almost ... comforting," she added.

"Wandering through a cemetery in the middle of the night is comforting?" asked Hazel, not bothering to disguise the skepticism in her voice.

"Well, feels a bit early for me. My prime time doesn't kick in until about midnight. But otherwise ... yeah." Faith glanced over her shoulder at Hazel for a moment before continuing to sweep the area around them while she explained. "Graveyards for the most part are predictable. You got your perfectly mowed grass, your neat little rows of tombstones. Don't matter where you go in the world, the cemeteries are all basically the same. And yet, there's still the question. What's really buried under there? What's in the shadows just waitin' for you to let your guard down? Gives it a kick," she balled her fingers into a fist which she used to punctuate her words. "Makes you feel alive."

Not for the first time, Hazel regarded Faith as though she might be just a little bit insane. "Hangin' with the dead after-hours makes you feel alive," she intoned, not making it a question. Faith nodded and shrugged. "Oh yeah, totally looking forward to understanding that one."

"Give it a while. A few patrols, you'll know what I mean."

"Goodie," replied Hazel, super-sizing the sarcasm.

They continued to move through the cemetery. Faith's posture was completely at ease, although her eyes never stopped their search of the shadows surrounding them. Hazel was considerably less comfortable, and she shivered – either from the atmosphere or the breeze that just blew past them – and she pulled her jacket closer. As the silence drug on, she fidgeted nervously, finally giving in to the urge to break it.

"So, uhm ... You've been doing this for a while, huh?" she asked, unsure what was an appropriate social topic for this particular situation.

Faith didn't look back as she answered. "Little over five years now. Took some time off for a while, though. Needed to get my head on straight."

"And you like it?"

For the first time, Faith stopped, her whole face becoming animated as she considered Hazel. "I love it. There's nothin' in the world like Slaying." She paused, lost in thought for a moment. "I like it a little too much sometimes, but hey. We all got our quirks, right? Keeps us human," she grinned.

The younger girl wasn't able to muster the same enthusiasm. "I'm not sure I could get to like it that much. I mean," she looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers. "I'm starting to enjoy how good all this power makes me feel, but ... " Her hand dropped to the side and she turned to Faith. "I dunno. It almost feels like it's too much. Like, if I don't watch it, it could get ... bigger than me. I still feel in control, you know? But only just." Hazel gave a frustrated sigh. "I don't think I'm explaining this well."

"No, it's cool." Faith reached out and touched Hazel's arm briefly as a show of support. "I know what you mean. And it's good." At Hazel's confused look, she clarified, "I mean it's good that you're pickin' up on that." Suddenly Faith laughed, a short, acerbic sound. "Takes some of us a whole lot longer to come around."

Hazel's brow furrowed and she opened her mouth. Faith anticipated the question and spun on her heel, heading further into the cemetery. Hazel rushed to keep up, her words forgotten. "You seem like a smart kid, Haze," Faith continued. "That's good too. That'll keep you alive longer than anything else."

"If I'm so smart, how come I'm wandering around a graveyard at night with someone I just met?" chuckled Hazel.

The pair came to a stop in front of a fresh grave. Faith looked it for a moment and then smirked at Hazel, "My natural charms. You just couldn't say no." Hazel snickered, genuinely amused. "Plus don't forget," added Faith, "you needed something."

"What could I possibly need that we're going to find all the way out here?"

The girl jumped back and gasped as a hand suddenly broke through the freshly turned earth at her feet.

Faith regarded the hand with indifference while Hazel's jaw opened and closed of its own accord, her eyes wide. The Slayer turned to Hazel.

"Proof."

Act Four

[ Download Clip #35 ]

Ultrace: <laughs> Ahh yes.
Jet Wolf: What's that?
U: The bit with Hazel and the, uh ... Hazel and the first vamp.
JW: Yup. This is, uhm ... Even- Even Ultrace and Novareinna didn't get this, but this is very, uhm ... The scenes with Hazel and Faith I del— I very deliberately parroted in "Aid & Abet". Uhm, if you go and take a look, you'll see the scene where- where Hazel and Faith are walking through a cemetary and Hazel gets attacked – a vampire comes out of nowhere and attacks her. And Faith tosses her a stake and she stakes the vampire, all very smooth, very fluid. That was an inten— That was intentionally going back to THIS scene where, uhm, we see Hazel meeting her first vampire and, of course, the fact that she just completely doesn't know what do to. An-And Faith just stands back and watches – as she does in "Aid & Abet", but of course Hazel's grown so much that she's- she takes it all in stride. But no one else got that but me, but that was okay.
U: Always gotta have a little inside track.

A strangled scream clawed its way out of Hazel's throat as she backed away from the boiling earth, gaping at the monstrosity pulling itself from the grave at her feet.

"Wha—What the hell is that?!" she managed to get out, her voice tight and shrill.

"Vampire," Faith remarked simply. "Weren't you listening earlier?"

"Bu-Bu-Bu…" stuttered Hazel, her mind and mouth not yet able to get in sync.

"I think your record's stuck," said Faith. "Here." Faith produced a decent-sized wooden stake and tossed it to Hazel. The younger girl reached out and snatched it from the air automatically, and then inspected it as though she had never seen anything quite like it before. Her attention was torn between the item in her hand and the vampire who was nearly free from his grave.

Her confusion etched into every feature, Hazel held the stake towards Faith. "Wha—?" she articulated.

Faith had moved to one side, leaning casually against a nearby crypt. "Stake," she explained. "Slayers Union weapon of choice. Sharp end goes in him." She gestured with her head towards the newly emerged vampire, who was looking around trying to get his bearings. His cold, yellow eyes focused on Hazel. Hazel seemed unable to do anything but blink stupidly from Faith to the stake to the vampire and back again.

[ Download Clip #36 ]

Ultrace: "Slayer's Union weapon of choice." We actually make a joke later on in "Hard Day's Night" about whether or not the Slayers have a union.
Jet Wolf: Yeah. Must've had unions on the mind. This was a fun scene. I-I always enjoyed it in Buffy when they had these vampires that were just ... just ... I don't even have a word for it, where they're just so, like, irreverent.
U: Human. They were human. They- They really had such humor or something going on, they weren't just animals that were attacking, they had personality to them. Which we rarely saw in vampires that were gonna get staked right away
JW: Yeah.
U: You know, basically, we had, like, I dunno ... You had Angel and Spike and Drusilla, obviously. But, you know, vampires otherwise were either psychotic, if they were gonna show up in a single episode, or you had, I guess, Sunday and that's it.
JW: <laughs> So I liked that. And- And I have to say I particularly liked the visual of Hazel with her eyes closed, just staking madly at the air, you know. And the vampire's just like, "What's up with the uhh..."
U: "Well I ... Are you making fun of me?"
JW: "No! No, I-I'm not— Well yeah, okay, little bit."
U: You know, looking back on this, it-it's actually kind of similar to what we did in "Hard Day's Night" with that guy who summons the demon. You know, the mage is all like, "What happened to 'AARRGG'?" And later he's like, "Are you making fun of me?" I guess I must've been mocking— Uh, parodying you.
JW: There you go.
U: And of course, we had to have the lame vampire comeback.
JW: Yeah, yeah.
U: "Don't play with your food." He's not Buffy, I'll admit that.
JW: No. Well he— <laughs> Well BUFFY is no Buffy by the time I'm done with her in these. I'm- I was not- I mean, arguably, I'm not good with them NOW, but in the beginning? NOT good with the fight puns. They're not easy. But you know, that's why I have Buffy specifically make fun of her OWN puns and say she's out of practice.
U: This is true.
JW: It's cover for me, because I SUCK.

"Looks like our boy's ready to party," grinned Faith, settling in to watch the show.

Hazel's brain was still processing. "Ready to … Union … " She gave Faith a sharp look as something clicked. "What?"

A feral snarl cut into any possible answer as the vampire sprung into action and lunged for Hazel. The girl screamed again and reacted instinctively, bringing her leg up between them and kicking the vampire away from her. Faith continued to lounge on the sidelines, watching intently but making no move to intercede.

Recovering quickly, the vampire regrouped and attacked again, connecting with Hazel's jaw and sending the girl stumbling backwards. Faith winced, gritting her teeth in sympathetic pain. Hazel regained her balance and raised the stake firmly gripped in her right hand. Her eyes clenched tightly shut, she started jabbing the air in repeated, haphazard motions.

The vampire paused several feet away from the girl, well out of striking distance and simply watched her for a long moment. Hazel's stabbing never once slowed, despite her complete failure to connect with anything solid.

"What're you doing?" the vampire finally asked.

The stake began to slow, making tentative slices through the air as Hazel cracked one eye open and peered at the vampire. All she could say was, "Huh?"

"I mean, what's with the…?" The vampire pantomimed the jabbing motions and then shrugged. "I gotta say, not too intimidating."

Hazel straightened and looked at the stake in her hand. "Well I … I'm … " She suddenly frowned and glared at the vampire. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No!" he protested, holding his hands up defensively. "No, I'm … Okay, yeah, a little bit. I mean, come on." His laugh was more than a tad patronizing. "You should see yourself."

Eyes flashing, Hazel's previous fear completely evaporated, leaving behind only indignant anger. "Oh, like you're such a vision," she spat, giving the vampire a once-over. "I know I've never seen a vampire before, but I was expecting something a bit more … I dunno, Brad Pitt-ish?" The vampire looked down at himself, offended. Hazel was on a roll now, and crossed her arms as her gaze became more critical. "And what's with that suit? Did your mother pick that out for you?"

The vampire considered this for a moment. "Yeah, probably," he concluded.

"Oh," Hazel responded weakly, the full implication behind that detail suddenly hitting her.

With a sigh, the vampire said wistfully, "Good ol' Mom. I should stop by for dinner. But I'm thinking first of something she always used to tell me."

"What's that?"

"Don't play with your food."

Faster than her eye could follow, the vampire closed the distance between them and knocked the stake out of Hazel's grasp, sending it flying across the cemetery. Hazel gaped at her now empty hand and then back to the vampire, just in time to take a powerful left hook that spun her around and sent her to the ground in a sprawling heap. A loud, hungry growl filled the air as the vampire flipped Hazel onto her back, pinning her helplessly. The girl struggled valiantly, but she simply couldn't attain any leverage to shake off the monster. Realizing this, the vampire grinned, full of malice, and took his time lowering his bared fangs to her throat, savoring the moment.

"No!" Hazel protested, desperate to stave off the inevitable.

The vampire chuckled and continued his descent, and then suddenly jolted upright in utter astonishment. Hazel watched in complete disbelief as the vampire began to turn to dust, beginning at his heart where the point of a wooden stake had embedded itself. She watched as first his skin crumbled away, leaving only a skeleton until that, too, disintegrated and scattered in the breeze to reveal a smirking Faith.

"Don'tcha hate guys who won't take 'no' for an answer?"

Tossing the stake over her shoulder, Faith extended her hand to Hazel, who had regressed back to her 'I have no idea what's going on' state of mind. The Slayer pulled the other girl to her feet and began patting her jacket to free it from its coating of vampire dust. Hazel simply stood there and let Faith clean her up, her hand moving subconsciously to the side of her neck where the vampire had nearly attached himself just moments before.

"He … He was gonna kill me!" she exclaimed as though this were a very important new discovery.

"Yeah, well, it's pretty much what they do," replied Faith offhandedly. "Don't take it personally."

Her eyes full of wonder, Hazel turned to Faith. "You saved me!" she fawned.

[ Download Clip #37 ]

Ultrace: "He was gonna kill me! You saved me!" Awww.
Jet Wolf: Aww.
U: Already we can see the ... the bond ... forming ... <breaks down into dramatic tears>
JW: It's okay.
U: She died!
JW: It's all right.

"Well that's pretty much what I do." She paused before adding, "You can take that part personally if you want."

Hazel chose to do just that, flinging her arms around Faith's neck in a bone-crunching hug. Faith jumped, startled by the girl's sudden proximity. She looked around, wondering what to do before patting Hazel on the back exactly two times, very stiff and robotic.

"Thank you!" Hazel cried, very close to tears.

"S'no big," remarked Faith, clearly meaning it literally and not just modestly.

However Hazel was insistent. "No, it is! You saved my life!" She tightened her hug. "I don't know how to thank you!"

"No need to thank. We're five by five."

[ Download Clip #38 ]

Jet Wolf: And- And had to very specifically get Faith's "five by five" in this scene, because I needed Hazel to make reference to it at the end of this scene, specifically so that Hazel could name her "Fiver" before we were all done. Which was- A-And actually that's how we got Hazel's name. Ha- Hazel is named— It was a very round-about process. <Ultrace laughs> Because I wanted Hazel to have a nickname for Faith. The best one I could think of was "Fiver", which I thought was cool, and I STILL think is cool.
Ultrace: Yeah.
JW: And I was like, "Okay, but that's great, what the hell does it MEAN? Where- How can I tie it in?", and of course, being the big fan of Watership Down, that came out because, of course, of Hazel and Fiver. So—
U: And the circularity of it, I think, is, uhm, increased even more because I think the reason why we needed to have a nickname was just so Judith could call Faith that after she absorbs Hazel.
JW: Yeah, yeah.
U: So it's kinda like, "We need Judith to call some- to call Faith something that Hazel had called Faith, so we have to have Hazel have a nickname for Faith, and we have to this, this, this, who swallowed the spider, who swallowed the fly ..."

Hazel still refused to move, beaming with gratitude and relief. Faith tried to simply let the girl get it out of her system. That lasted about two seconds before her discomfort got the better of her and she started to fidget. Still Hazel refused to let go.

"And hey," Faith piped up, "I was the one who brought you out here to the vamp in the first place, remember."

That did it. Hazel backed away from Faith with a frown. "Oh yeah."

Faith's sigh was deep and full of relief.

The girl seemed to come back to herself, the reality of the situation sinking in. She looked down at the ground where she'd just had such a close call. "Wow," she breathed. "That was really a vampire."

"Finally, she catches up," joked Faith.

This new revelation settled. "So demons and other stuff?" Hazel asked, turning to Faith. "That's all real too?"

"Every bit."

"And they're all over the world?"

Faith nodded. "Yeah. Some places more than others. It's a Hellmouth thing." Hazel's face became confused again, but Faith brushed it aside. "You can learn about that later. But it's all true. Every horror movie you've ever seen, alive – kinda – and in living color."

She paused as Hazel chewed over this information. It was clear that a million thoughts were running through the girl's head, but it was impossible to tell exactly what they might be.

"So," Faith finally said, shattering Hazel's thoughts and bringing her back to reality, "now you know. What're you gonna do about it?"

The girl appeared lost and confused. "I … I don't know," she admitted quietly.

"Way I see it, you're at a crossroads." Faith gestured towards the cemetery exit. "You can go back to your safe little house in your perfect little neighborhood and pretend none of this happened. You can keep laughin' at the idea of vamps and demons comin' out at night. Maybe one day you'll even convince yourself that this was all some whacked out dream. You could do that." Faith challenged, standing tall. "Or, you can step up and embrace that power you got, an' come fight with us."

[ Download Clip #39 ]

Jet Wolf: Mm, and this is actually kind of an important moment, cuz this is where Faith sets down the theme for the entire series— The entire season, I should say, actually. Faith- Faith and her "You're at a crossroads" speech. Uhm, this is – for better or worse – and I'm not ENTIRELY convinced I pulled it off the way I wanted to, because I-I think- I think I ... I think I got better working with themes as I got later on into the episodes, but all told, the theme for this season was, of course, choices. And crossroads. Each of the characters has choices that they have to make, and these are the choices that will help to dictate where they go from this point forward. Uhm, and this is Faith saying— Laying out the theme for the season for you right here. Where she's like, "You can pretend it doesn't- didn't happen, you can go about your life, or you can chose to do something about it." Uhm ... So I- I don't know if anyone picked that up. I wouldn't be surprised if you DIDN'T. Uhm, like I said, I get better, trust me. I get better thematically as we go on, but uh ...
Ultrace: It was also kind of subtle.
JW: It was, it was.
U: It wasn't real slap you in the face.
JW: And it wasn't supposed to be, so that's cool. But yeah, okay. So if anyone was wondering what the season theme was, in my mind, the season theme was "choices" – being at crossroads.

Hazel seemed torn. She glanced at Faith and then over her shoulder towards the exit. She suddenly seemed very small, a young girl with a terribly big decision to make and no obvious right or wrong answer.

Faith was sympathetic. "You don't gotta decide now," she said, not unkindly. "We're not goin' nowhere." Reaching into one of the pockets of her jacket, she fished out a business card and handed it to Hazel. The girl took it and stared, not really reading it. "When you decide, or if you just want more info, call this number. Giles'll hook you up."

Continuing to stare at the card, Hazel said nothing.

"C'mon," began Faith, taking the girl by the elbow and leading her out of the graveyard. "Let's get you back home. Been a big day."

Hazel allowed Faith to guide her, attention still fixated on the small piece of paper in her hands. They walked like that for short distance, neither saying anything until Hazel glanced up at Faith.

She frowned. "Five by five?"

"In-progress" would probably be the best way to describe the loft. Much like its office counterpart, Giles' home was a mess, boxes strewn about in seemingly random fashion; some still sealed, others open as though they'd been lived out of for several weeks. Despite the clutter, there was still plenty of room, allowing the loft to retain its spacious, open quality.

A coffee table surrounded by a couch and several chairs were the prevalent pieces of furniture, situated in a section of the floor plan that had obviously been designated as the living room. All available seats were filled with extremely prim and proper individuals, each one appearing very professional. This included the man sitting in a beanbag chair, looking every bit as though he had never experienced such a thing in his life, nor was he planning to repeat it any time soon.

[ Download Clip #40 ]

Jet Wolf: Ah! And, uh, next up we got a scene with Giles, and that's- that's an important scene because, of course, it helps to show, uhm ... how the new Council is drastically different from the old Council and, in its own way, some of the penalties Giles is paying for that difference. As we specifically mention, there are some old Council members that they can't get back because they're not interested in the way Giles is running things. And this at the same time, of course, helps to, uhm ... uh, foreshadow the Assemblage, who will come in later who are, in their own way, you know ... very extreme, but the opposite side of how the Council could be.
Ultrace: They make the old Council look kinda, you know, lazy and you know ...
JW: Like long-haired hippies.
U: Yeah.
JW: And I just wanna point out that I think it's hilarious that they're having a Council meeting where someone's sitting in a beanbag. I just think that's a wonderful image.

Giles appeared somewhat out of place in his jeans and casual shirt, but the other attendees didn't pay any outward attention to their differences, regarding the man and his space with respect. He paced back and forth in front of a series of massive windows that dominated one wall, sipping his tea as he listened to a woman with long brown hair.

"I spoke with a representative earlier today and the paperwork should be complete by the end of next week," she reported.

A man sinking into a plush chair to her left smiled. "That'll make it a little easier on the Slayers who choose to keep their gifts a secret. We'll be able to help out more girls this way."

"Good job, keep on them," Giles said, raising his cup in a small congratulatory gesture. "It'll be a while yet before we're able to build the Council's presence in this area. Until then, I'm afraid the red tape remains … extensive. And quite irritating," he added, taking a sip.

A second man jumped in, eagerly shuffling the stack of papers in his lap. "My team has begun filing preliminary reports on locations for the next branch of the Council of Watchers. As of now, a return to England may be our best option." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "As you know, relations in the past between the Council and the Covens in that area have been strained at best. We could do a lot of good together if we were able to forge an alliance with them." Sitting back, he shuffled through the papers until he finally found what he was looking for and scanned it quickly to confirm. "Regardless of what location we choose, however, we are currently on schedule to have the new facility operational by this time next year."

"I think we learned our lesson about keeping all our eggs in one basket, so to speak," said the man in the beanbag. "Also, international branches will help us monitor Hellmouths all over the world, rather than ignoring all but the most potent." He somehow managed to say all of this without losing his prudish air, despite nearly slipping out of the beanbag twice.

Jumping back in, the second man added with great pride, "Should things continue, we could have a branch on every major continent before the decade is out."

Giles smiled, amused. "If all goes well, we'll soon be more prolific than Starbucks." The others merely stared at him, not comprehending. "Yes, you're right," he amended, intentionally misinterpreting their silence, "nothing is more prolific than Starbucks." At the complete lack of any outward reaction, Giles turned to the blonde woman seated in a separate chair who had been scribbling on a legal pad throughout the meeting. "Make a note: we need to incorporate a module on 'humor' into the training curriculum."

"Speaking of," the man in the plush chair segued, "we've about exhausted our options as far as Council members who were outside of headquarters goes. We're bringing in all that we can but most … " He trailed off, searching for diplomatic phrasing. "Well, they seem less than enthusiastic about our new direction."

"Good riddance then," Giles said immediately and with great passion. "The days of looking at the Slayer as nothing more than a tool are over. A complete restructuring of the Council as an ally of the Slayer, rather than a puppet master, has been a long time in coming. We can well do without those who insist on clinging to the past."

The gathered Council members glanced at each other, uncertain of how to react to Giles' vehemence. Beanbag spoke first, his tone courteous but inquisitive. "Though it does beg the question, where else can we turn? We're all in agreement that more Watchers, whatever their role, will be vital in working with so many Slayers."

Giles indulged in another sip of his tea, unconcerned. "New blood for a new Council," he said simply. "They're out there. All we have to do is find them."

A knock at the door caused Giles to start, and he quickly set his cup down. "Ah! Excuse me, but my next appointment has arrived. Very important, quite unavoidable," he stated, leaving no room for discussion.

The Council members immediately began gathering together their assorted papers, tucking them away in briefcases and folders without question. Giles escorted them to the door, smiling and acknowledging the goodbyes. As they filed out of the loft, each paused to look at the appointment in question, most turning to give Giles a largely unreadable look of surprise but none saying anything.

As the last departed, Giles greeted the man at the door with thinly veiled excitement. "Please come in," he held the door open wide.

"Sorry we had to make this for so late, Mr. Giles," the man replied. He was dressed in a pair of well-worn jeans and black t-shirt with florescent pink lettering that proclaimed him to be Tony from the "Delicate Sound of Thunder" audio store. He backed into the loft, pulling a dolly loaded with equipment and a toolbox.

[ Download Clip #41 ]

Jet Wolf: And then we have in the guy from "Delicate Sound of Thunder", which again, uhm, that just me being a Floyd freak. Uhm, but uhm ... The point of this scene, of course, being again to further demonstrate how differently Giles is from anybody else who- who's run the Council ahead of time. I mean, I can see Travers doing many things, but I cannot see him interrupting and dispatching Watchers from their official meeting so that he can get a stereo system installed.
Ultrace: No.
JW: Uhm, a-and- and of course that's why I had the- the Watchers when they file out are kinda lookin' at him like, "Oookaaaay, this is a new kinda guy." Uh, it's also why I had Giles in casual clothing. Uh, like he's just in a pair of jeans and like a- an Eddie Bauer shirt or something at the beginning. You know, again – just very specifically saying "This is not your- This is not your grandad's Council." <Ultrace chuckles> And, uh ... And of course Tony, uh ... serving further exposition as they're talking about everything else, to say how the world perceived what happened in Sunnydale as being an earthquake. Just an earthquake the sucked up the town. And Giles, uhm, sort of reflecting on what- on everything they have lost. And you'll notice that I try and make very ... I try very hard to make sure that all the characters that have been lost over- over the years are not forgotten. Uhm, I-I have— I frequently will attempt – I try my best – to make reference to Joyce and Tara and Anya, uhm, just because I don't want them ... I-I ... think it's wrong to just have, like, a character was there, and then it's as though the character never made- never made any impact or never had a purpose for being there at all. And that's just wrong.
U: I agree.

"Not at all," Giles replied.

He directed Tony to an alcove close to the living room where a recessed entertainment center had been built. It was already partially filled with assorted parts and copious wires. Next to the entertainment center, also imbedded in the wall, were a series of shelves loaded to the brim with hundreds of CDs. Tony immediately got to work unloading and unboxing, pausing only briefly to glance at the CDs.

"That's an impressive collection you got going there," he admired. "And I say that with no small amount of envy."

Giles' smile was broad. "Thank you. It's amazing what one can find on the, uhm, online … net web … places these days," he fumbled, uncertain of the correct phraseology.

"I hear ya. I live for Amazon," grinned Tony, pulling a shiny black component free and kicking its empty box aside. He inclined his head towards the shelves, "So all these new?"

"Yes. My record collection was-was lost in a, uh … an earthquake a few months ago." An expression of intense mourning suddenly flashed across his face. "I had an original release 'Sgt. Pepper' and everything."

"Earthquake, huh? California then?" Giles nodded. "Huh … " The installer suddenly looked up, his eyes wide. "Hey, it wasn't that big quake that took out that whole town, was it?"

Giles shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, that was it," he replied reluctantly.

In his excitement, Tony didn't notice the change in Giles' demeanor. "Damn, that was somethin'," he said, full of wonder before shaking himself out of it and returning to work. "I mean, quakes and stuff don't usually make it on the news all the way over here, but wow. Saw some aerial footage. It looked like the whole damn town had just been swallowed up!"

"What an amusingly appropriate choice of words," commented Giles drolly.

Tony wasn't really listening, having half-disappeared behind some of the equipment. "I can't believe you were there. How the hell did you get out?"

With a pause to consider the best answer, Giles finally replied, "A lot of luck and a surprisingly fast school bus."

"Huh," grunted Tony, not really understanding but not pursuing further. "Lost your vinyl though?"

The Watcher's eyes flicked to the side and focused on a small collection of photographs hanging on the wall. Their presence was particularly noticeable, given the otherwise Spartan and impersonal appearance of the loft. He settled on one in particular, several years old now; a large grouping of smiling faces. His eyes touched briefly on three in particular: Joyce, Tara and Anya. Giles hovered on the picture for a moment. "And a great deal more," he finally replied with great sadness.

"Well this should help," Tony said brightly, anxious to dispel the tension of an obviously personal moment. "Albums have a certain … old-fashioned charm to 'em and all, but why keep living in the stereophonic stone age?" As he was intently focused on a cluster of wires, he failed to notice Giles' offended look.

"Well I dare say if it was good enough for the dinosaurs, it's good enough for me. Anyway," he continued, eyeing his new collection with something close to disdain, "I find that-that these 'compact discs' are utterly lacking i-i-in the appeal and … and character of an LP." Giles reached out and plucked one at random from the shelf, turning it over in his hand and regarding it as though it were a dead animal. "They're so cold, impersonal and—"

A sudden blast of music interrupted his diatribe, and Giles looked up at the speakers surrounding that he'd had installed earlier. They were situated in such a way that there was a section which became a "hot spot", a perfect nexus of sound that just happened to be exactly where Giles was standing. The passionate chords of "Sweet Jane" echoed around him, and he raptly absorbed every note.

[ Download Clip #42 ]

Jet Wolf: Aaaand we've got ... Yeah, we've got, uh, GIles listening to- to "Sweet Jane". And that actually took me a good thirty minutes to figure out what song to have him listen to, cuz this is the kind of detail stuff that I just obsess about, because I'm a Virgo and that's what I do. Uhm, a-and "Sweet Jane" was specifically selected because it was, like— I-I did— I read a whole bunch of reviews on the, uhm, the album that Oz pulls out in Giles' apartment when he's- when—
Ultrace: Velvet Underground Railroad?
JW: Vel— No, just Velvet Underground. When- When ... I forget the episode, it's Season 4. An-And Oz pulls— Giles says something like, "There's more important things to worry about than albums," and Oz says, "Even this one?" And then Giles says, "An argument can be made for this one." And, uh, it was- it was ... I forget the name of the album now, but it was Velvet Underground, and that was, like, after reading like fifteen reviews on the album, everyone seemed to be of the consensus that was the song. Like that was THE song from that album, so that's why I have Giles listening to that.
U: I'd never even heard of that song.
<laughter>

"Cold and impersonal," he repeated. "And very, very pretty."

Tony grinned broadly. Another satisfied customer.

Dawn flung the front door open, dropping her bookbag by the entrance and hanging up her jacket. Unable to see anybody, she headed into the living room. Xander was back in his chair, the same empty expression on his face, but as soon as he noticed Dawn it was replaced with his trademark grin.

"Our prodigal stomach returns," he joked. "How was dinner?"

"Mmmmm," murmured Dawn appreciatively. "I think Brenda's mom was gonna make this casserole thing, but when she heard we were coming over, Mr. Ridens decided to be all manly about it and made us cheese steak sandwiches instead." She threw herself onto the couch, bouncing slightly. "Cheese steak? So much better than some lame casserole. What'd you guys have?"

Xander smirked. "Some lame casserole."

With a slight grimace, she tried to cover. "Uhh, yeah, so there's not a whole lot, food-wise, this place has going for it. I mean, they think Taco Bell is the height of Mexican cuisine," she sneered contemptuously at the notion. "But I'm not hatin' the cheese steak."

[ Download Clip #43 ]

Ultrace: <laughing> "Gonna make this casserole thing." You know. "So much better than some lame casserole. What'd you guys have?" "Some lame casserole."
Jet Wolf: Hee-hee. And I picked up on Dawn's thing with the Mexican here, because it seemed as though, to me, half the time when Dawn would mention food in Buffy? It always had- It always led back somehow or another to Mexican. You know, she's making her banana and peanut butter quesadillas, and she's goin' over to Janice's house cuz her mom's gonna show her how to make real tortillas. And I figure they're in southern California, so ... You know, the Mexican thing would be an influence.
U: Cal-Mex.
JW: Yeah.

Xander nodded his agreement. "Gotta love a meal that's all about smothering strips of fried cow in more cheese than the human body can safely digest."

"My thoughts exactly," Dawn said cheerfully. "Only more with the 'mmmm'." She paused for a moment, changing directions. "Hey, Xander?" she asked tentatively.

"Yeah?"

Dawn squirmed uncomfortably, twisting her hands in her lap. "D'you think that…? I mean, am I…?" She sighed and tried again. "Do I come off as…?"

At her third false start, Xander tried to lighten the mood. "I sense there's a question in there somewhere, struggling valiantly to swim through the cheese steaky goodness and be heard."

"Do you think I'm boring?" she managed to spit out.

Whatever Xander was expecting, it wasn't this. "Boring? What? Dawn you're a mystical Key older than recorded history. I'm pretty sure If you looked up 'boring' in the dictionary, the definition would not be 'a mystical Key older than recorded history'." He tilted his head, regarding Dawn carefully. "Where'd this come from?"

"It's just … I mean, the stuff I like to do. Books, computers, organizing my sock drawer by color and length—"

"Organizing your…? Dawn, we can't even get you to clean your room," said Xander.

"Well okay, maybe not the last one. But the other stuff. I like school … at least on principle. I don't go out drinking—" At Xander's look, she quickly added, "—nor will I, because I'm far, far too young for that kind of behavior." She sighed, irritated with herself. "I don't like blue-haired skateboarders, I don't slay vampires, I can't do magick. I just feel so boring."

"You're not boring," Xander assured her. "Trust me. I know boring. Boring makes for Sleepy Xander." He pointed at himself. "See? Wide Awake Xander. No trace of sleepy. Only possible conclusion: Dawn not boring."

Dawn giggled and smacked him lightly on the arm. "Goof."

"And hey, even if you were boring, I'd love ya anyway," he gestured at Dawn. "I'd just have to stock up on No-Doze."

She giggled again and rolled her eyes in the universal teenage way reserved specifically for adults. She hopped to her feet and headed out of the room, but turned back before she left.

"Thanks, Xander," she said gratefully. "You know, nobody can cheer me up better than you." She paused for a moment. "I'm really glad you're here."

She threw him a bright smile and exited. Xander watched her go for a moment, then his face shadowed again and he turned back to the TV.

[ Download Clip #44 ]

Ultrace: Very poignant, how we have Dawn being all, "Nobody can cheer me up better than you, I'm glad you're here," and then he's like, you know, "I'm bummed again. I drink beer."
<JW laughs>

"I'm really worried about Xander."

At Willow's words, Kennedy looked up from polishing her broadsword. The redhead was lying across the bed, a stack of papers spread out in front of her. They were forgotten for the moment, though, as she regarded Kennedy with a plaintive expression.

[ Download Clip #45 ]

Jet Wolf: Here we have our very first Kennedy and Willow scene, and I am going to guess that that was not— That was probably a subconscious thing on my part, to where I kept Kennedy and Willow apart as long as I could, since, ah ... Yeah, not a big fan of the Kennedy and Willow thing, I must admit. But I- But I-I tried. I did my best.
Ultrace: That is true.
JW: But I mean, I KNEW, obviously. I mean, goin' into this, they weren't gonna last.
U: Yeah.
JW: It's ... It was foretold.
U: Reading that first sentence of the second paragraph there, it's a good thing Kennedy's a woman. You know?
JW: <laughing> Kennedy polishing her broadsword?
U: Yeah. I'm like- I'm like, wow. You talk about the, uh, the innuendo.
JW: Well she IS kinda butch.
U: You know: "The redhead was lying across the bed, a stack of papers SPREAD out in front of her."
JW: You are just perverted, that's your problem.
U: I'm just saying.
JW: Yeah, I KNOW what you're just saying.

"What's wrong with him?" the Slayer asked, only absently cleaning her weapon now, focusing on her girlfriend.

"You mean besides the obvious?" Kennedy looked confused, unsure what Willow considered to be 'the obvious'. "Anya," Willow clarified. "It's like … I don't think it's really hit him yet, you know? I know he knows she's gone and not coming back, but … i-it's like he won't let himself feel it. Like he's in a holding pattern or something." She frowned darkly. "It's not good for him."

"Everyone deals with grief their own way, Will," replied Kennedy, giving her sword a vigorous rub and examining it closely. "Maybe he just needs some time."

Willow shook her head firmly, convinced it wasn't that simple. "But you don't get to see him like I do. With everyone else, he's all 'la la la, all's well in Xander Land!' But it's not. I mean—" An example sprung to her mind, and Willow sat up on the bed, leaning forward. "Okay, today? I'm trying to get some sort of reaction out of him, something. So I told him I went to Victoria's Secret and bought some stuff for us. And what'd he do?" She paused for dramatic effect before flinging her hands in the air. "Nothing. Zero, zip, zilch. Not even a hint of a ghost of a leer." Her eyebrows knitted together with concern and she shook her head. "That's just not Xander."

"You got some stuff at Victoria's Secret?" Kennedy asked, still stuck a few sentences back.

[ Download Clip #46 ]

Jet Wolf: So of course, I've got, like, my two things for Kennedy are like: being bossy and being really, really horny all the time. Those are apparently my- my two key character points for, uh, for Kennedy here.
Ultrace: How- However with, you know ... In your defense, that's pretty what they established in Season 7.
JW: That is true.
U: She's bossy and she's horny. Sometimes at the same time.
JW: Yeah, very true. But I was- I was trying real hard, though. I didn't ... I-I didn't ... I got better. I probably started kicking it up a little bit in season four. Uh, season four? I wish I'd quit DOING that. EPISODE four.

"Noooo," Willow drug out with mild irritation. "I just said that to get a response."

"I got a response for ya," grinned Kennedy mischievously.

Willow's face held no trace of amusement. "Kenn, I'm being serious. I'm really worried."

The Slayer looked apologetic and she put her sword down, devoting her full attention to Willow. "Okay, you're right. I'm sorry. You know him way better than I do, so if you say there's something to worry about, there's something to worry about. So what can we do to fix it?" she asked, wanting to move straight to the heart of the matter.

[ Download Clip #47 ]

Ultrace: "...replied Kennedy, giving her sword a vigorous rub and examining it closely."
Jet Wolf: You are a pervert. You are hereby forbidden from being perverted in any further commentaries.

"About Anya? Not much," Willow admitted. "Just let him know we're here for him and we care. Try to keep him from gettin' too lost in it. Plus," she added somewhat sadly, "he's feelin' kinda … useless. I was thinking, maybe you guys could include him in the training? Show him we're interested in him for more than his tool skills."

Kennedy smirked. "And you know the last thing I'm interested in is a guy's skills with his tool." She grinned wider as she managed to get an amused look out of Willow, despite herself. Turning back to the topic at hand, she readily agreed. "Sure thing. The girls could use live target practice. In an entirely safe way, of course," she quickly amended before the witch could protest. "I'll talk to Faith as soon as she gets back."

"Thanks," smiled Willow gratefully. "We just need to remind Xander about all the good stuff he has here. Show him that he's loved and of the essence and crazy for spending even one nanosecond thinking about leaving. There will be no more scary talk of leaving," she proclaimed, making it clear the matter was closed in her mind. She turned to Kennedy, her voice adamant. "He has to know. We have to remind him, Kenn."

"Then we will," Kennedy assured, "starting first thing tomorrow." Willow visibly relaxed, Kennedy's easy confidence being infectious. The Slayer moved to sit next to Willow, pulling her close for a brief, one-armed hug. "But we have a whole bunch of hours between now and tomorrow. What'd you wanna do with 'em?"

"Scrabble?"

Her face screwed up as Kennedy rejected the idea. "Not quite what I had in mind. Not that I don't enjoy being reminded every few minutes that my vocabulary is limited to words like 'cat' and 'be' while you're throwin' down 'conjunctiva' and 'ziggurat'." She thought about it for a moment. "Actually, I don't enjoy that at all."

"I just had a couple of really lucky hands," Willow weakly justified.

"We can go dancing?" offered Kennedy. "Maybe it'll be 'Hey, We Finally Got a Band that Doesn't Suck' night at The Vortex."

Willow quickly shook her head. "Ooo, no, not so much in a mood for epilepsy and deafness. I'm more stay in-y."

[ Download Clip #48 ]

Jet Wolf: And of course, this being the beginning, as you can see very clearly, of the two of them having nothing in common, which was- which was one of the many reasons why they, uh, they- they eventually broke up. But, uh ... Just the two of them are just being complete opposites, so. And it was, admittedly— it was one of the easier reasons I was going with. I actually must admit that I was— I was quite satisfied in the end with how I had it be done, it was just- It was just really one of many things.
Ultrace: The other being that we didn't like Kennedy.
JW: Well ...
U: And we were bringing Tara back.
JW: Yeah, yeah.
U: I mean, it was- it was a given. I mean, there ... I think for a brief few seconds I considered a threesome—
JW: <laughs> Well *I* sure never did.
U: I brought it up once, and I think you, like, hit me with something.
JW: Quite possibly. That would not surprise me. But, uhm, yeah, to my mind, it's just ... You know, it's my goddamn series, so I'm gonna do what I want, and I wanted Tara back and I wanted her with Willow. So. But by the same token, I- I wanted to earn it. And ... I really ... I-I wanted Willow and Kennedy to have been broken up and to have been LONG broken up by the time Tara came back.
U: Yes.
JW: So I knew, uhm, that I had to have that happen in enough time for there to have been plenty of time in between, you know, uh- uh, that- that event and the second event.
U: So for that to work, you had to plant it early on.
JW: Yeah, well, and I mean, and I- I would think, in my mind honestly, just- just Kennedy and Willow ... I mean, Kennedy was a rebound, to my way of thinking. Which we've debated muchly on the forum – and if you'd like to join us on the forum to continue that debate, please feel free – uhm, so to me, you know, it was just- it was just a given. So this was really just one of the many ways in which this was occurring.
U: Totally.
JW: But yeah, havin' to get that started up pretty soon.

A quiet moment passed, neither girl being able to think of something to do that would be acceptable to the other. They searched the room desperately for an idea, looking everywhere but at each other. As the minutes stretched, Kennedy finally glanced down at where they were sitting and grinned.

"Well, there's always my personal favorite reason for staying home," she purred, sliding closer to Willow. "And it would be such a shame to waste all those Victoria's Secret-induced mental images."

"Oh, hey, and look," said Willow with cheerful innocence as she patted the bed. "No moving required."

"Oh, I think there'll be plenty of moving."

Downstairs, lost in his own thoughts, Xander slouched in his chair in the living room. It was completely dark, save for the flickering illumination from the TV screen. He raised a bottle of beer to his lips, pausing for just a brief second before taking a long drink. His face remained expressionless as he watched the credits for "Moneyline" flash across the screen.

[ Download Clip #49 ]

Jet Wolf: And then we have poor, poor Xander, aaaall depressed, watchin' "Moneyline". And- And I actually like that visual a lot. It was— That was my first silent scene, look at that.
Ultrace: Wow, look at that.
JW: Yay!
U: That's kind of funny actually. And I don't recall when this episode went up whether or not we, uh, had a lot of feedback from people saying, "Hey, you know, what's up with Buffy? You didn't even focus on her at all!" <JW laughs> "She showed up for, like, one sentence—"
JW: She showed up in the teaser, and that was it. We didn't see Buffy again all episode. And the point of that being, there wasn't really anything to dwell on with Buffy, because the important thing at this point was setting up Trillium, and Slayer Central, a-and the other characters, I mean, and Buffy was off doing her own thing. She was separate from them, and that's where our focus was, so it made sense that she wasn't around.
U: Yeah.
JW: Uhm, no, there wasn't a lot of feedback because we didn't- we didn't even have the domain when we first started this. Remember? It was just- It was running off of jetwolf.com.
U: Yeah, that's true.
JW: And I had no forum, I had my Blog where I- I where I posted little, you know, little bits like, "Hey, you can go check out the new episode, here's the link!" and I like ... I had a couple people going to check it out. And uhm, a-and it was around like episode two or three, I think, when I was like, "Hey, I'm getting more feedback then I really wanna have on the forum." Rather, on my Blog. "I'm gonna make a forum for it now." Uhm ...
U: And it was shortly thereafter, actually, that we registered btvschosen.
JW: Right. Right, right. So uhm, so yeah. There wasn't a whole lot of feedback at that point. But even if there was— Actually, the only feedback I can remember early on about Buffy in generally was actually when she came back. And I think someone- someone said something. It might've been Greg, actually, who said something to the effect of, like, "You know, I actually haven't missed Buffy. I don't want her to take over everything", or something like that. But uhm, yeah, not a- not a whole lot of- of— But it was right. But- And at the same time, too, I kinda like it because it, uhm, it helps to establish from the outset that this is not ... It's a Buffy continuation, but it's just only in name. That it's— Buffy is no longer the central point. Uhm, I- I like Buffy a lot, she will continue, of course – unless we kill her – to be a- a part—
U: Dun-dun-DUN!
JW: <laughs> —to be a part of- of the cast and the series, but it's no longer Buffy and her friends, it's all of her– It's- It's all these friends, of which Buffy is part.
U: Yeah.
JW: And that's what we're- that's what we're talkin' about now. So it was okay to only have Buffy in the teaser.

"Human Nature"

Story by: Jet Wolf and Ultrace
Written by: Jet Wolf
Premiers: Tuesday, 13 April 2004, 8pm EST
Rerun: Tuesday, 25 May 2004, 8pm EST

Next week on an all new episode of The Chosen...

If the animals don't get you...

A shot of Buffy, her neck craning way back, facing a huge arachnoid adversary.
Buffy: Wow, you're...large. Large...spider...thing. There's never a giant shoe around when you need one.

Cut to a young man carving into a tree. He looks behind him and screams.

...the trees will.

Cut to Willow talking to someone at school.
Woman: The trees are our sisters, our mothers, our daughters. They cry out in pain, yet people never hear them.
Willow: It's kinda creepy, actually, but yeah. I can see what you mean.

Cut to Dawn and Willow looking up at a dark substance oozing from a broken tree limb.
Dawn: That's... That's sap, right?
Willow: I don't think so...

Cut to Xander standing outside a lumberyard, facing an angry woman.
Woman: Do you plan to enter this slaughter house, to purchase the lifeblood, the heart and soul of Mother Earth?
Xander: That sounds a liiiittle bit out of my price range.

In the Tri-mouth area, activists have a way of making their voices heard...

Cut to Xander and Giles nervously backing away from a large group of advancing protestors.
Woman: You reek of the spilled essence!
Giles: Xander, remind me to never again ask you for a favor when we get out of this.
Xander: Hey, the night's looking up already.

The Chosen: A Buffy Virtual Season 8. Because the story's not done yet.

[ Download Clip #50 ]

U: So let's check out the promo for next week, before we're done ...
JW: Alright ...
Ultrace: Our first promo.
Jet Wolf: No, we had a promo for "Crossroads".
U: Did we?
JW: Yeah.
U: Did we have clips and stuff in it?
JW: Uhh ...
U: Or was it just a poster?
JW: No, no, we- we had that too. Mike was writing the promos for these in the beginning. Uhm, then I took over. I don't know why. Because I do that, I guess.
U: Probably because I wasn't providing them in a timely manner, or ...
JW: Possibly, possibly. Uh, Mike actually wrote the teaser for this one. For- For "Human Nature". Which, "Human Nature"- Which I was much happier with.
U: <laughs> I'm sorry. I was laughing at "Wow. You're large. Large spider thing. There's never a giant shoe around when you need one."
JW: Yeah. I was- I was really happy with "Human Nature". I was happy with "Human Nature" for a while. So ... Much happier with "Human Nature" than I was with "Crossroads", which was not a bad episode, but it's ... it's so damned expositiony.
U: Yeah.
JW: A-And I was really, really not in my rhythm. And, like I said, I'm frankly I'm surprised we had readers after "Crossroads".
U: You know how it is. It's the pilot for our series.
JW: Yeah, it is, it is. Which I guess— Hopefully ... I suppose, people will just kinda look at it and be, "Oh, this has potential, I'll come back", as opposed to, "Wow, this was tremendous, best thing ever."
U: Yeah.
JW: I guess. I dunno. I'm glad everyone stuck around. So. We are done. With our ... Are we?
U: Oh, I'm in the process of reading the promo.
JW: Oh, okay.
U: <laughs> "Do you plan to enter this slaughter house, to purchase the lifeblood, the heart and soul of Mother Earth?" "That sounds a liiiittle bit out of my price range." You did a— There were— This had some really great lines in this episode.
JW: "Human Nature"? Yeah.
U: Yes, absolutely. There were some— I-I definitely— The wit was turned up quite a bit.
JW: Well it wasn't— I was able to kinda play around with the plot a bit more, cuz it wasn't— There was not so much need for, you know, fifty pages of saying "Here we are in Trillium, here's what's up with Trillium, here's Slayer Central." It was more like, "Oo, tree!"
U: Oh, god. Yeah, but the dryads are our first- were our first ... our first monster of the week. And our first monster of the week that was overblown at times and very dramatic.
JW: They were fun.
U: They were fun. They were fun to do, without a doubt.
JW: Good ol' dryads.
U: "The heart and soul of Mother Earth?"
JW: Actually, it got hard. It got hard writin' the dryads, cuz they ARE so pompous, and like, how many times can you say the same thing with different words.
U: Well you know what? We found that out when we tried to Robespierre later.
JW: Oh my god, Robespierre! Jesus christ.
U: "Run, or he will talk at you!" Okay.
JW: All right, I think we are done.
U: Yup. See you all in the next one.
JW: Which is ...
U: I dunno.
JW: I have no idea.
U: You've got the schedule.
JW: I dunno, okay. Well whatever it is. So. Hopefully this wasn't quite as lame as I fear.
<laughter>
JW: <laughing> And I guess we'll know if no one downloads the next ones.
U: D'oh!