Not much to say this time besides thanks ever so those who are following this little tale!  Big thanks to Sanityfair and Diebirchen for being their awesome selves! Please just take a moment to let me know whatcha thought!  Thanks ever so!  *4/26/12 Thanks Minx DeLovely for pointing out my big time boo-boo!  All fixed now!  Thanks Minxy!*
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“Computer class was completely amazing today!  I mean, I’ve worked with binary data before, but this, this was—”

With her wide eyes and animated hand gestures, Willow appeared to be just barely containing her excitement. While Xander clearly seemed caught up in Willow’s enthusiasm, on the other hand, Buffy’s attention was seriously lacking.  And this mental absenteeism did not go unnoticed by her friends.
    
To say Buffy was “preoccupied” would’ve been an understatement.  Even though she could hear the sounds of the world buzzing all around her, her mind was still focused on last night’s return of her X-rated dream in all its techni-color, surround-sound glory.

 
She was only alone for a moment before the hands from earlier returned, leaving her trembling.  In a mere instant, she was driven to the point of insane  rapture.  While writhing under the mind-numbing explorations, her legs splayed, offering up herself completely to this blissful madness.

Just as she felt two cool fingers poised at the entrance of her heat, she heard a deep voice purring in her ear, “Buffy”

“Buffy, Will and I were thinking about going vamp.  You know, I heard leather and fangs are in this year.  Whatcha think?”

“Yeah, sounds cool—What?” Buffy’s fork stopped mid-trek through the glutinous white mass on her plate, otherwise known per school menu as mashed potatoes.
 
Xander’s second, non panty-soaking version of her name shook Buffy from the steamy instant replaying of her dream.  Now with being caught again with her head in the clouds, or more like the gutter, her obvious embarrassment was staining her cheeks as she lifted her eyes from her lunch.
 
“Hey, welcome back.  We were kinda worried there for a sec, Buffster.  You were lost in La-La Land —again.” Before Buffy tried to disagree, Xander added, “Don’t try to deny it, the drool says it all.”  Xander brushed teasingly at the corner of his mouth, hinting for her to do the same.

Buffy absently wiped at her mouth with a paper napkin and dropped it on top of her minimally touched lunch.  A weighty silence hung between them, while Buffy watched Xander and Willow exchanging worried expressions and unspoken concerns before they looked back at her with compassion.

Great, I know those looks.  Here comes the speech.

“Buffy, I’m—” Xander’s loud throat clear hinted for Willow to change her pronoun choice. “We, we’re worried about how often you’re visiting, well, as Xander put it, La-La Land.  What did Giles say about it?”

“That’s the thing, Giles didn’t exactly say anything.  Well, nothing beyond what you heard.  That we got a week-long break from the baddies, him noticing I was kinda outta it and me needing to get my head back in the game.  So I guess he just chalked it up to me playing Ms. Space Cadet to an all slay, no play type of thing.  I think that’s why he didn’t really put up much of a fight for us Bronzing-it Friday night.  You know, after a little fun-age, everything should’ve been copacetic.  Well, they were, until last night—” With a heavy sigh, Buffy ended her drawn out explanation and hoped her friends filled in the blanks on their own.

“So I guess it’s safe to say, Scooby meeting tonight to discuss your off-in-your-own-worldy-ness?” Xander hooked a finger onto the side of Buffy’s Styrofoam lunch tray and slid it in front of him.  With his fork at the ready, he pushed aside the napkin and tucked into the mashed potatoes.

“Yeah, looks like,” Buffy mumbled glumly, while watching Xander eating her cast off lunch with gusto and trying hard to keep the look of disgust to a minimum.
 

“To summarize, Buffy, you are unaware of the incidents preceding your, as you so eloquently stated, ‘Spacing out.’” 

After almost a half an hour of beating this clearly dead then resurrected then dead again horse, Buffy tried to remain focused on the stake she was fashioning from an old wooden table leg and not Giles, repetitively polishing his well-beyond spotless specs.
 
Buffy felt her irritation steadily building inside.  Usually, when she felt like this, she just kicked a little demon butt, and then everything was right with the world.
Unfortunately, with no demons around, she was totally focused on Giles and what she’d now deemed a clearly evil monogrammed pocket hankie and an equally evil pair of glasses that seemed to remain dirty no matter how much he polished them.
 
She tried her hardest to suppress the overwhelming urge to rip them from his hands and go all Yosemite Sam, tearing up this pocket square and smashing his glasses to smithereens, all the while bellowing a jumbled string of curses.
       
“Buffy, to accurately reveal the issue at hand, we must discern between random everyday incidents and those connected that are causing this phenomenon.”
 
With that being said, Giles finally put away his handkerchief and donned his glasses.  Just in time too, since Buffy had just ran out of wood and more so, patience.

“Fine, let’s go over it—again.  Okay, we already know this all started after that vamp showdown at the Magic Box.”
 
Buffy placed the last skillfully whittled piece of wood on the table and casually brushed the shavings from her clothes, as her gaze bounced from Xander and Willow, hoping this time they would be adding their thoughts.
  
“Sorry Buff, I’ve still got nothing.” Xander shrugged before reaching deeply into a rapidly depleting bag of chips.

“Yeah, I really don’t have much to add, well, except I was at the Magic Box pre-Xander-and-me-napping, and nothing seemed out of place.”
 
Willow gave Buffy a wary smile, and after Xander was done pulling out a handful of greasy snacks, she shifted the bag’s opening toward her, removed a single chip, then daintily nibbled on one rippled edge.

“Well, this is something to consider.  Willow, you’ve frequented the Magic Box and were friendly with the shop owner, correct?” Giles removed his glasses once more, placing the rubber tip of the earpiece to his lips.

“Yeah, I’ve been there a bunch of times.  Especially lately for, um, supplies.  She was a really nice lady and a talented Wicca.  It was horrible that she was, you know, eaten.”  Willow eyed her partially eaten chip then dropped the remaining piece on the table, clearly appearing to have lost her appetite.

“So it’s safe to say, Willow, since she was a practicing Wicca, her shop carried more than ordinary trinkets and incense?” Giles now chewed on the tip, while his features displayed his internal deliberations.

“Yeah, I knew what most of the inventory was used for, but there were some other things I had no clue about. But what I do know is that she really knew her stuff.  Most of the time I just had to tell her what spell I was trying, and she collected everything I needed, without even looking anything up.”

“Then it appears we have narrowed our search.  Clearly, this shop was the starting point and what occurred during Buffy’s time there was the catalyst for her currently increasingly debilitating events.  Buffy, do you recall anything unusual happening during last week’s vampire attack?”

She was surrounded by a cacophony of breaking glass, brutal fighting, and vamps banging violently against the doors, trying to gain access inside.  With Angel’s weakened state, the door he was securing soon gave way, and two vamps rushed in.

While she took care of one, Spike fought the other.  With Angel down and the temporary barricades on the verge of collapsing, she knew she had to think fast.

She quickly scanned the room and spotted a small display table holding dozen-plus bottles of holy water. When Spike finally staked his vamp, she called over for his help.  She looked at him, then to the table, and back.  Without exchanging any words, they grinned at one another and stood back to back and started hurling makeshift vamp bombs at the quickly failing blockade—

“No Giles, nothing out of the ordinary, well, not for a Tuesday.  But there was this really cool thing with bottles of holy water that—”

Buffy was cut off mid-sentence by another one of Angel’s all too frequent, dramatic entrances.  He stopped just a few feet inside the library and while the doors still swung steadily behind him, his black trench coat oddly billowed behind him.

In an instant, acting with pure Slayer prowess, Buffy stood and had her stake at the ready.  Then, when she realized it was only Angel, she quickly tucked the stake between the small of her back and her waistline, and “just good ol’ Buffy” replaced the Slayer at the helm.
 
Buffy was about to question why he was there, but before the words left her mouth, she was unexpectedly overtaken by the returning of the crippling lustiness, which, as always, stopped her dead in her tracks.  Unable to do anything but surrender, she sank into her seat and clutched the table to steady herself.
 
Giles noticed Buffy’s instant reaction to Angel’s presence and stepped forward menacingly, creating a human wall between the clearly unwelcome vampire and his Slayer.

“Angel, is there a purpose for your visit?”

“Last night when I returned to the mansion, I noticed Buffy had been there while I was gone.  I just, well, I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong.”  Angel’s gaze softened and darted in Buffy’s direction.  Then, just as quickly, it moved back and his now hardened gaze was fixed with Giles’.

While vampire and Watcher stared one another down, Willow finally realized Buffy’s distressed state and rushed to her aid.

“Giles!”

Willow’s troubled voice instantly interrupted their silent standoff.  Since Buffy had yet to recover from Angel’s arrival, Giles hurried over and knelt before her.  He examined her briefly before standing and turning back toward Angel, who appeared to be warring with his demon, if his golden eyes were any sign.
 
“You are not welcomed here, Angel, leave now.”  Giles snatched a newly made stake from the table, his look and tone emphasizing his seriousness.

“I’m not going until I know Buffy is all right!”  Angel’s full demonic features rose to the forefront, causing Xander to react by grabbing a stake and standing next to Giles.

“Unless you wanna make like a Kansas song and be dust in the wind, Evil Dead, I suggest you take off!” Xander threateningly stepped forward, his stake raised.
 
There was a moment of eerie silence; the same silence that always seemed to precede something monumental happening.
 
Then with an unexpected guttural roar, Angel rushed forward.  Giles held his ground, but Xander backed up until his chair caught the back of his thighs, he fell into the seat, and both he and the chair tumbled back and landed on the floor in a tangle mass of wood and limbs.

With supernatural speed and agility, Angel passed Giles, and using Xander’s upturned chair as a launching point, stepped on the edge and cleared the banister into the upper level of the library and disappeared into the stacks.

Still stunned, everyone turned except Buffy, who was still fighting her own internal war, toward the distinct sound of a scuffle accompanied by crass utterances.  The group only waited a moment until a distinctive catch phrase was heard, right before Angel roughly yanked a blur of black from the wall of books.

“Bloody ‘ell!  Get your meat hooks off of me, you’ll bruise the leather!”
 
Spike struggled in Angel’s grip briefly before shaking him off.  Both vampires demon façade slid away almost in tandem, leaving behind only Angel’s scowl and Spike’s classic smirk.

“Evenin’ all.  Did ya miss me?” 
    
 
 
 
 
 
Author’s Notes:
 
Yosemite Sam is cartoon cowboy with a hair-trigger temper who hates Bugs Bunny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Sam

Kansas is a 70’s American rock band.  One of Kansas’ famous songs is “Dust in the Wind.” (Yes, it’s is and not was, cause these guys are still rocking!)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_(band)