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========== BtVS ==========
‘I suppose it was too much to hope that demons would have embraced the computer age...’ Willow thought with a grimace as she pulled another leather wrapped journal out of the chest at her side.
“You know...” Buffy’s voice had a wheedling tone to it. “Spring break is only a couple weeks away...”
“Is it?” Tara asked, sounding disinterested.
‘Ohh! I hate when she does that... acts like she has no idea what you’re talking about,’ Willow thought with humor and annoyance. ‘At least this time it’s Buffy’s turn...’ She returned her attention to the aged paper in her lap. ‘It’s bad enough everything is on paper, but did they really have to write everything in ancient Sumerian? I mean, seriously, they all *spoke* English... grumble grumble...’
“Yep, it is...” Buffy answered, clearly trying to sound nonchalant.
“Hmm,” Tara hummed noncommittally, continuing to page through one of the tomes left behind in the minion-exodus.
Willow glanced up at Buffy, who was sitting on the raised hearth around the fireplace, drumming her heels against the stone. ‘Poor Buff, she tries not to show it, but she’s so fidgety,’ Willow thought fondly. ‘Mmm, squirmy girl... Oh, bad Willow... focus on this, squirm with Buffy later...’ She went back to her translating with a wide grin.
“You know? I’ve heard that some people... during spring break... you know, do stuff...” the blonde Slayer mentioned casually.
“Some people?” Tara asked, her eyes still on her book.
“Some people... young people...” Buffy continued airily, “not unlike those in this very room...”
“What kind of stuff?” Tara asked.
‘Oh, someone’s starting to sound just a little bit interested...’ Willow thought with a glance at her other blonde lover.
Buffy apparently caught the slight change in tone as well; her fidgeting stilled as she answered, “Oh, I’ve heard it involves water, sand, warm air...” Her voice had taken on a wistful softness by this point.
“Sandblasting?” Tara asked innocently. “You want to spend spring break doing sandblasting?”
“Taarrrrraaa!” Buffy whined.
Willow giggled along with Tara, but kept her eyes on the journal in front of her as she came upon a grid with columns of numbers and letters. ‘This is different,’ she thought, becoming intrigued.
“I wanna go somewhere for spring break! Somewhere with a beach, and sunshine, and, you know... other beach stuff...” Buffy trailed off petulantly.
‘This is weird...’ Willow thought as she went through page after page of inexplicable numbers and letters.
“Well, Sunnydale has a beach,” Tara began, actually engaging in the conversation.
“I want to *go* somewhere! Someplace that’s away from Sunnydale, and vampires and monsters and stuff. I want a vacation! Just me and the two most beautiful women in the world, laying on the beach, soaking up the sun, laughing at all the boys who will drool in hopeless lust at the sight of the three of us...”
“That sounds nice Buffy, but...” Tara began.
“Mmm, and there could be much rubbing of sunscreen...” Buffy continued dreamily.
‘Finally, some kind of legend...’ Willow thought as the grid finally came to an end. ‘Village in three towers? Usury Armamentaria? What...?’
“Buffy, I’m not sure we can afford to really go anywhere...” Tara interjected.
“Sure we could, I mean, things have been pretty quiet lately, and Faith could cover while we’re gone easy! I mean, it’d only be a week...” Buffy argued excitedly.
“That’s not what I meant, sweetie,” Tara explained. “I think a vacation sounds great, I just don’t think we have the money to afford to go very far...” Tara offered almost apologetically. “Maybe we could go to San Diego?”
‘Holy!’ Willow thought in stunned disbelief. ‘This can’t be what I think it is... could it?’ she immediately began riffling back through the pages of the grid, only half-listening to the conversation between her lovers.
“San Diego?” Buffy said as though it left a bad taste in her mouth. “I was thinking more like Puerto Vallarta... or Acapulco...”
Willow shook her head slightly as she closed the journal and set it down. ‘Goddess!’ she thought in shock.
“Mexico?” Tara asked, sounding dubious.
“How about a Mediterranean cruise?” Willow asked, joining the conversation for the first time.
Both blondes turned their attention to her with eyebrows raised.
“Um, I’m pretty sure that Mexico is out of our range...” Tara began.
“Yeah, in our dreams maybe,” Buffy said with a dismissive laugh. “No way we could afford that!”
Willow’s face broke out into a radiant smile as she contradicted her Mistress, “Actually...”
========== BtVS ==========
“...Ok, so the minions were getting on everyone’s nerves and Buffy was getting really pissed, so I opened up a portal and sent them back to Glory’s original plane of existence and then the next morning we were wondering how it was that they could afford to do all the repairs on the mansion, cause it needed a lot and they did a lot, and so I was checking through their stuff and found this ledger thing and it had all these records- of course they were in ancient Sumerian, which I guess is kinda redundant; that is the ancient part, not the Sumerian part- and anyway it turns out that she owned not only that building she was in, but the other two next to it, and also a bunch of bank and investment accounts all over the world- which, by the way, it took me almost a week to track them all down! They were pretty well hidden- and so, anyway it all adds up to about two hundred forty five million or so, but of course that fluctuates as much as one-and-a-half to two percent daily, depending on market conditions.”
Despite its smaller size, the entire Scooby gang was meeting at Giles and Joyce’s apartment to hear the ‘news’ that Willow had to share. It had been a week since initially unearthing the former hell-god’s finances and the triad had decided to wait until everything was worked out and set in place before sharing their discovery with the gang.
“So, anyway, that’s it. That’s the news,” Willow concluded with a broad smile.
She couldn’t help but giggle at the quintet of shocked faces before her. ‘Buffy and Tara still look a little bit surprised by the whole thing,’ she thought as she glanced back at her lovers. Tuning back to the rest of the Scooby gang, she decided, ‘I think they took it better than the others are taking it, though.’
“Good Lord!” Giles’ astonished whisper broke the ringing silence.
“Ow!” Xander suddenly gasped.
“Xander!” Dawn’s reproving voice sounded out. “You’re not dreaming! You don’t have dreams this good...”
Xander turned and looked at his girlfriend with a soft, adoring _expression_. “Sometimes I do...” he said softly.
‘Ok, those two are officially too cute!’ Willow thought, both happy and annoyed. “Ahem!” she cleared her throat loudly and shot Xander a raised-eyebrow. “That’s it? A ‘Good Lord’ from Giles and Xander pinching himself?” she asked with surprise.
“Did you just say that you had opened a portal to the hell-dimension from which Glorificus originated?” Giles asked in a raspy voice.
“Yep. It was pretty tiring to, let me tell ya!” Willow quipped. ‘Don’t laugh, Rosenberg, or Giles’ll bust for sure! Of course, he looks like he’s about to bust anyway...’
The watcher’s face grew paler upon Willow’s affirmation.
Willow felt Buffy’s breath on her ear as the Slayer leaned in and whispered, “The portal thing, is that one of those really incredibly huge, like, world shaking things... the ones where you just make it seem like it’s nothing, but Giles is the only one who knows better and gets all freaked out?”
Willow nodded. “Yep, it’s one of those.”
“Have I mentioned lately how incredibly, amazingly much in love with you I am?” Buffy’s warm breath stirred Willow physically as her words stirred the redheaded witch emotionally.
“Ohh, well, I think so, Mistress, but I never get tired of hearing it!” Willow crooned softly back.
“Could you repeat the part where you said some kind of dollar figure?” Xander’s bewildered voice rang out. “‘Cause I thought I heard you say two hundred and forty *million*...”
“Two forty five,” Dawn corrected.
“Right. That part,” Xander went on. “The part with the *million* in it.” He turned to Dawn and asked, “Are you really sure I’m not dreaming? ‘Cause I gotta tell you, this feels pretty unreal.”
Dawn smiled indulgently and said, “Xan, if this was one of your dreams, Giles and mom would have left already, and the rest of us would be naked...”
‘So busted!’ Willow laughed out loud at that, as did Buffy and Tara. Faith got a wicked grin on her face and the two parental Scoobies blushed almost as hard as Xander was blushing.
“Ah, good point,” Xander said, his head held high despite his bright pink face.
“Actually, that number is probably low, Xander,” Willow explained once she was able to speak again. The interest alone over the last couple days has probably pushed that as high as two fifty.”
“Two hundred and fifty *million* dollars. As in quarter of a *billion* dollars,” Xander said, shaking his head. “I... I don’t even know what to say to that...”
“That’s awesome you guys!” Dawn gushed, clearly less overwhelmed by the news. “Congratulations!”
“You opened a portal to a- a hell dimension!” Giles stammered, apparently having found his voice again.
‘Poor Giles. We’ve turned his whole world askew,’ Willow thought sympathetically. “Giles, it’s ok- really! It was more like a vortex, really- one way only. No way anything could get through from the other side, and plus I shielded it completely, so even if something could have come through- which it totally couldn’t, but just in case- it would have been contained and shoved back through! That was the most draining part- I mean the portal wasn’t that hard, it was all the precautions I took! You’re just going to have to trust me- You know I would never endanger Buffy or Tara in the slightest... it would have been riskier getting in a car to drive to the mall than it was when I sent the scabby-hobbits home.”
Giles looked taken-aback by Willow’s calm, even delivery.
‘I’m not gonna argue with you Giles, you’re just going to have to accept that we know what we’re doing,’ Willow thought, resolve face in place.
“So, what are you going to do with all that money?” Faith asked, speaking for the first time.
“Oh! I’m glad you asked!” Willow said gleefully. ‘This is the fun part!’ she thought excitedly.
“See, none of this stuff could be directly in Glory’s name, cause, you know, it wasn’t like she had a social security number or anything... So when you make it through the paper trail, it’s all owned by a company, well more of a corporate entity really, anyway it’s called Girl’s Luciferous, which I realize isn’t the most friendly name, but changing it will take some doing, but the point is...” Willow trailed off, turning to Tara with a broad smile for her lover. “You got those packets, baby?”
“Oh,” Tara said, apparently not realizing that they had reached her part. She dug some envelopes out of her bag and handed them to Willow. “I was distracted,” she softly explained. “You know how turned on I get listening to Willowbabble...”
Willow blushed, but grinned smugly at the same time. “No, I don’t seem to remember...” she teased. “Maybe you can show me later...”
‘Ok, back to the subject at hand, Rosenberg,’ Willow chastised herself. “You can lust after the girlfriends in a little bit...’ She quickly handed each of the Scoobies an envelope with their name on it and explained, “As I was saying, the point is- all you have to do is sign the papers inside that envelope, and you will officially be employees of Girl’s Luciferous!”
“You want us to work for you?” Faith said with a frown.
“It’s not like that, Faith,” Buffy spoke up. “This isn’t about any of us working for anyone...”
“Yeah, this is just a way to let us use the money without worrying about taxes or stuff- they’ll all be taken out of our income just like it was a real job,” Willow explained. “This way it’s all legal and stuff, but it doesn’t stop you from doing whatever you want... I mean, we all had a part in saving the world here, so we should all share in the bounty...”
“To the victor goes the spoils,” Xander said in an oddly flat voice.
‘What’s that all about?’ Willow wondered. ‘He looks almost sad... and Dawn’s hugging him like she’s trying to reassure him?’
“How much is this?” Joyce asked, speaking at last in an almost frightened tone as she stared at the envelope in her hands.
“Oh, well...” Willow said with a shake of her head, distracted away from Xander’s strange melancholy. “Um, we thought we should send a check to Angel Investigations, you know for services rendered... plus a nice bonus check for each of them. Then we figured that, just interest alone should allow for the eight of us to have about a million dollars each.”
“Oh my God!” Dawn said excitedly, her hands trembling slightly as she looked down at the packet in her suddenly tight grip.
“Good Lord!” Giles said once again, apparently finally letting go of the portal topic. “With a bit of care, we could live the rest of our lives quite comfortably on a million dollars...” he said, looking at Joyce.
“Two million, Rupert,” Joyce corrected him, gesturing with her packet.
“Well, there are, of course, taxes to be considered...” Giles began.
“Um, Giles, Mom?” Buffy thankfully interrupted before the watcher could go off on a tangent. “You’re kinda missing the point...”
“Hmm, yes?” Giles asked, turning back to the triad.
“A million dollars is your annual salary,” Buffy said with an enormous smile.
“Oh, and if investments and interest add up to more than that, we’ll divvy up the rest equally between us too... kinda like a Christmas bonus!” Willow explained excitedly.
The resulting silence was at last broken by Xander’s exclamation, “Holy Jackpot, Batman!”
========== BtVS ========== Ok, finally. The end of Repercussions, Reactions and Retaliation Book II
Onward to Book III, and hopefully it won’t take me a month to post something!
Hey, a little feedback wouldn’t kill you, would it?
TheBear!
Willow: "It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in." Buffy: "I kinda love you." --'Choices' Community email addresses: Post message: buffywantswillow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subscribe: buffywantswillow-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Unsubscribe: buffywantswillow-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx List owner: buffywantswillow-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Shortcut URL to this page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow Official archive for the list: http://www.ikoly.com/fanfic Other links to Buffy/Willow fics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/buffywantswillow/links Yahoo! Groups Links
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