From his vantage point of sulking on a corner, Spike observed that the little whelp was sending covert glances in Buffy’s direction. Now he had a chance to look around, so was that other guy. He let out an audible sigh and turned from the gathered group.
“You wanna come with me?” asked the blond girl and he looked at her in surprise. “You did save my life,” she offered with a smile. “It’s the least I could do.”
“Well, now, doesn’t that sound nice,” he purred, glancing at Buffy who was studiously ignoring the exchange.
“I can show you the Rose Garden,” enthused Ainsley.
“Probably best seen in full daylight,” suggested Buffy quietly.
Spike smiled unpleasantly at her, then followed the cute girl who had gazed into his eyes so trustingly. He resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at the slayer.
“What’s that all about?” asked Josh.
“Stupid vampire,” said Buffy curtly.
“Wha- vampire? That was a vampire?!” The White House staff didn’t take the news well.
“He’s a good vampire!” said Willow hastily. “Well, a neutral vampire. Or a neutered vampire. He helps, anyhow.”
“Ainsley and a vampire!” laughed Josh. “All very appropriate.”
“You wanna come along with meee…ow!” Sam invited the now less-happy Slayer. He valiantly ignored the subtle way in which Josh was kicking his leg.
“Sure!” said Buffy, brightening.
“I thought I could show you the…” Josh began.
“You have the thing,” interrupted Sam. “You know, the thing.” He backed shiftily out the door, gesturing Buffy to follow.
“I have no *thing*,” muttered Josh in disgust, watching his friend and the very cute girl waltz out.
“Guess you’re stuck with us, my friend,” sympathised Xander, patting Josh on the back. “Never mind.”
“Huh,” replied Josh, absently. “I mean, sure. Cool.”
“I’d love to see the press area,” said Willow hopefully. “See as in look at from a safe distance, not in the sense of talk to about monsters and crash the stock market.” Tara nodded in agreement.
CJ smiled. “That can be arranged.”
******
“There’s one thing I have to say before we begin, and I should have said it before,” said Sam, very seriously. Buffy’s face fell. She had been looking forward to a nice, relaxing, non-work-y day with no vampires and one really cute guy, and already – already she could hear words of doom falling from his lips.
“I don’t know anything about the history of the White House. Nothing. I know its name, that’s about it. I realise how very ironic that is, what with me being deputy chief of communications of the White House. But there you have it. Nothing.” He stopped for breath, noted Buffy’s bemused expression and continued, “I’m sorry, do you want to go with one of the others instead?”
Buffy exhaled a laugh of relief. “God, no! Me and history? Not big with the best-friendliness. History is dates and stuff that happened, well, *before*. And I’m starting to get right back into the philosophy of ‘Live for the day, for tomorrow you may be dead.’ And also - history boring.”
“Ah. Point taken. And nice motto. In a deeply depressing sort of way.” Sam wondered for a moment how he could work it into future electoral campaigns.
“So, you guys run the country,” pondered Buffy. Sam made no effort to deny it. “But you’d never heard of demons?”
“Oh, we did. We heard about demons….this morning.” He looked sheepish.
“Good to know the government’s on top of these things, then,” she said smugly. “Joking – you’re not supposed to know. It would distract you from all that really b – important stuff.”
“You save the people from demons,” he said thoughtfully. “And we save them from….inflation.”
Seeing his expression, Buffy tried for a cheerful note. “But that’s good too!” she said encouragingly. “You’re not going to tell me about it though, are you?”
“No,” he assured her before wondering, “You’re so young. You’ve been fighting the forces of hell since you were….”
“Sixteen,” she replied, enjoying herself now. “No biggie.”
“No…I can’t even imagine…..”
“It’s not that hard. If you lived on a Hellmouth, you’d learn. Hey! I could teach you!”
“No, really. I’m…..well, I’m sort of clumsy,” admitted Sam, wondering if the addition of the ‘sort of’ qualified as a big fat fib.
“Anyone can learn to fight monsters,” she insisted. “I know I have the super power for add on bonus, but most of the others don’t. Xander and Giles kill vamps all the time.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose they get knocked unconscious a lot as well….”
Sam looked worried.
“No, really, it’s easy!” she promised, to his dubious look. She pulled out a stake and looked at it thoughtfully.
He gasped in horror. “You have weapons in the *White House*?!”
“You have a *demon* in the White House,” she reminded him. “Weapons good.”
Sam shrugged his reluctant acceptance of this fact, before taking the proffered stake.
He twirled it once or twice. “What do I do with it?” he finally asked.
“Stick it through the hearts of annoying vampires,” she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice.
“But…you work with a vampire,” he said curiously. “A fact which I’m sure would bring great joy to the military.”
“He’s just…Spike,” she said lightly. “He helps.”
“He goes off with Ainsley,” said Sam, frowning.
“Huh.”
They looked at one another with a degree of understanding.
“So if you teach me how to kill vampires, can I kill him?” he asked.
“Probably not,” she grouched. “He tends to be hard to kill. We’ll start you off on something a bit easier.”
Adopting fighting stance, she improvised a few moves.
“Cool,” said Sam.
“Now you try. Say – knock the stake out of my hand.”
Under her guidance and after some practice, Sam completed a competent roundhouse kick, before falling over backwards and knocking over a vase.
“Well, if the vase was evil, you’d have saved us all,” Buffy offered, helping him to his feet.
“And that’s just exactly what we pay you for,” intoned Leo, grimly, glaring at Sam and eying Buffy suspiciously. “What the hell is going on here?”
*****
“I am so very grateful for your saving ma life,” said Ainsley.
“Do it all the time,” breezed Spike, beginning to feel quite happy. “Don’t give it a second thought.”
“This has been a very odd day.” She shook her head. “I always knew that no good could come of working in *this* White House.”
“Don’t seem so bad,” he said with a swagger. “And your demon – piece of cake. We’ll have him screaming in pain by sundown. You just be glad you don’t have a hell-god. Now those can cause some problem. Hard to keep’em in a basement too.”
“These are things that a well brought up southern girl should not be hearing about,” Ainsley informed him, wagging a finger at him. He grinned at her dismay. “This is all *freaky*!”
“’S fun, love,” he promised.
“Who have we here?” asked a strangely familiar voice as they turned the corner.
“Dr. Bartlet,” gasped Ainsley, unnerved as she found herself face-to-face with the first lady. “I didn’t, that is, I’m sorry, we can….”
“Quite all right, my dear. And this would be…..” Abbey trailed off, a quizzical look in her eye as she looked Spike up and down.
Spike glared back, folding his arms and suddenly feeling an unreasonable sense of ….fear? He hastily attributed this unwarranted emotion to the presence of the Thesulac. As if there could be anything to worry about in this….little lady.
“This is Spike,” explained Ainsley. “He’s….”
Abbey smiled slowly. “A vampire.”
Spike closed his eyes in disgust. Bloody White House.
*****
“My office,” said Josh, “Or, as we like to call it around here, ‘The Centre of the Universe.’”
Xander and Anya dutifully admired the office.
“Call Toby,” instructed a blond woman, passing them without looking up from an armful of files.
“And, of course, my ever loving, supportive and well-mannered staff. What was that, Donna?”
“Call. Toby.”
“I’m to phone Toby?”
Donna stopped for long enough to glare at him. “Is there some other interpretation of ‘Call Toby?’”
“Okay, not that I can think of just now but that’s not the….you sure it was Toby? ‘Cause I just saw him. What could Toby want?”
“Something important. I think it was about…..” Donna stopped and glanced at the visitors.
“What?”
“It might have been about certain things that are going on today. If certain things are in fact going on today, then that might have been what this was about.” She looked uncertainly from her boss to the guests.
“We have got to get you into, like, writing code or something,” groaned Josh. A thought struck him. “What do you know about what might or might not be going on today?”
Donna’s nervous glance continued to flit about the room.
“These people know about what might or might not be going on today,” Josh assured her.
“Does he mean the demon?” whispered Anya, loudly, to Xander.
“Ha! That!” yelped Donna. “A,” she lowered her voice, “Demon.” Her voice rose shrilly, “In the White House!”
“Now that’s all out in the open…” Josh sighed. “All the assistants don’t know, do they?” he asked suddenly, in strangled tones, contemplating the possible outcome.
“No,” admitted Donna, “I called in to give you that memo earlier and you and Sam and Toby were talking about…..well, demons. So I backed out quietly, assuming you were all on drugs.”
“No drugs,” Josh promised. He remembered the origins of the conversation and added, “I should call Toby.”
“You really should,” Donna agreed. “Can I get either of you some coffee?” she asked of Xander and Anya.
“Yes please,” called Josh.
“That’s okay, you’ve been here long enough to know how to make coffee,” Donna assured him. He made his phone call without further comment.
Xander and Anya stood by awkwardly. “I don’t want to be locked up and experimented on,” confided Anya.
“I know, honey. And shush.”
“I don’t think….”
“An, now is not the time to talk about times past. Think of it as a chance to show off what a great, totally human person you are,” urged Xander, watching the passing staff nervously.
“I can be human. I *am* human! I’m very good at being human. Fine, I’ll be quiet,” sniffed Anya.
“Apparently, we sort of left some books about demons in the mural room,” Josh informed them, reappearing. “Which is bad.”
“Who goes in the mural room?” asked Xander.
“Oh, you know. The President,” said Josh, heading for the door.
“And that’s bad.”
“Oh yes. Wanna come with me? I can show you the mural room?”
“That sounds pleasant, thank you!” beamed Anya. “Although, we have seen many books on demons before so that will be less interesting.”
“Lead on, White House Man,” joked Xander and they left the room.
“Behold – the Mural Room,” said Josh. “And then note how very close it is to my office, indicating my supreme importance. Oh, and then behold the suspicious looking books on demon-stuff.”
“You okay with them?” enquired Xander as Josh gingerly picked up the books.
“Yeah, they’re just books. What could go wrong?” As he heard his own words, Josh wondered had he just jinxed the day. More than a day with a demon was already jinxed.
“Scary demon books,” said Xander, with feeling.
“They’re just books,” repeated Josh, poking at one with his forefinger to illustrate his total lack of fear.
Double triple jinx.
“Just don’t speak Latin in front of the books,” warned Xander. “Bad things can happen.”
“Yes,” Anya agreed. “I once knew someone who….actually this is an inappropriate story for the White House.” Her boyfriend patted her hand proudly.
“Well, for a start I don’t speak Latin. And for second…what the hell is going to happen if I say….”
Josh opened a book at random and dropped his finger down the page.
'Librum incendere'
Anya and Xander winced even before the book burst into flames. They had backed away even before Josh dropped the burning book with a yelp and it ignited a corner of a rug.
“Well that can’t be good,” commented Xander, shaking his head.
“Fire!” yelled Josh. “It’s a fire!” He seemed to remember himself, clamping a hand over his mouth abruptly as he jumped backwards. He then reconsidered, returning to the scene of the crime and stomping on the fire.
“Josh Lyman, what is it about you and fires?” Donna shook her head, calmly passing coffees to Xander and Anya.
“It wasn’t me! It was the book!”
Donna looked sceptical.
“It really was,” Xander backed him up, before wondering, “Was that a very valuable carpet?”
“If my boss sees this he’s going to feed us to that demon,” groaned Josh.
“He of the bald-headed crankiness?” Xander checked. “Yeah, he looks like he could.”
“No, that’s only Toby,” corrected Josh.” “Although, he might too…. No, I’m thinking Leo. He who we run from in cowardly terror.”
“If he feeds you to the demon first, it may not want the rest of us,” pondered Donna. Josh shot her a ‘Could you please be more supportive?’ look.
“Maybe we should run in cowardly terror *now*,” suggested Anya. “The imparting of bad news is better received when the receiver is happy. So we can hide until we kill their demon, and then they may not mind that we also killed their carpet.”
She thought for a moment. “Or we can just blame him,” she added, indicating Josh.
“You’re really getting the hang of this place,” congratulated Donna. Anya smiled with pride.
“Democrat Burns Books in White House. That’s not a good headline.” Josh shook his head sadly, surveying the mess.
“It really isn’t,” agreed a voice from the door.
Josh looked up and swallowed a groan. “Hi, Toby.”