deird_lj

Here's a ficlet written for

still_grrr's vacation-themed month.

It occurred to me that, for some people, Sunnydale means you're not at home...

Sunny, Exciting, Hellmouth Views… Wish You Were Here

Steph finds out that she’s special the day she’s almost stabbed to death on the way home from school.

The British guy who rescues her explains a lot of stuff she doesn’t quite believe, and then buys her a fly-any-time plane ticket for a town on the other side of the country, and suggests she use it as soon as possible.

She tells him to get lost.

But two weeks later, after yet another fight with her mother, she packs a bag, pulls the ticket out from under her pillow, and decides to see exactly what small-town California looks like.

* * * * *

“Dear Mom, Today I learned how to behead vampires with a kitchen knife,” Danni reads aloud, and she rips up yet another piece of paper, sighing. “This is impossible.”

“What is?” Kate asks.

“All I want to do is write something about my life that will stop my mom worrying, and won’t sound too weird. But… ‘today I sharpened lots of axes’? Or ‘last night I slept on the dining room floor, along with nine other people’? Or ‘I’ve been in California five weeks now, and still haven’t seen the beach’? What am I supposed to say?”

“That’s easy. Lie.”

* * * * *

Caroline’s on holiday – that’s what Anna’s parents tell her.

She has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see America, and her pen-pal has offered to let her stay with them for the next six months – isn’t she lucky? – and if Anna works very hard at school for a few more years, maybe she’ll be able to see America, too.

Of course, none of this explains the man who came to see them last week, or how worried they look, or why, in two years of sneaking into her big sister’s room and reading her diary, Anna has never heard of the pen-pal…

* * * * *

Sara keeps sticking photos up on the living room wall.

At first it was just two: her family, and her pet rabbit. But they were soon joined by Amanda and Kate with mouths full of marshmallows, Kennedy running training, Molly with bed-hair, and Sabine juggling.

Now, she’s got at least one for everyone in the house – most with very silly captions underneath – and she keeps on taking even more.

And yeah, she knows the situation’s serious, and they could all be about to die.
But it’s much easier if she can pretend they’re just on a really fun vacation together.

* * * * *

“Paris. I want to see the Eiffel Tower.”
“And then we can drive into Switzerland, and go skiing.”
“And buy one of those cuckoo clocks.”
“We do get to go somewhere with a beach eventually, right?”
“Sure. How about Italy? That has beaches.”
“I was thinking Hawaii, actually.”
“What if we start in Hawaii? Just take a plane direct from California.”

Dawn opens the door and sees six Potentials sitting on her bed, all adding things to the list in front of them. “Whatcha doing?”

They look up and say together, “Making plans.”
Then they go back to the list.