Buffybot in Tabula Rasa
PAIRING: None
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Very welcome, to [email protected]
BETA: Miss Murchison - thanks!
SETTING: This fic is set during the events of 'Tabula Rasa' in BtVS Series 6, when the Scoobies temporarily lose their memories. I've twiddled with the time sequence in the episode a tiny bit, but just call it artistic licence.
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Joss. I’m borrowing, and I promise to put them all back in reasonably good condition, and only slightly used.
NOTE: This story is a sequel to Buffybot Behind Bars!, but it can perfectly well be read as a stand-alone.
SCENE: A house in Sunnydale
Chapter Fourteen
Giles stepped up to the door of the Summers house, and rang the bell, pressing a hand to the small of his back, and repressing a groan. All the bruises inflicted on him by the herd of stampeding Fyarl demons were starting to take their toll.
After a moment the door swung open. Dawn stood on the threshold. “Giles! Anna! Hi!” She took in Giles’ trampled and slime spattered appearance, and did a double take. “Oh wow! I guess the fighting got pretty intense back at the old Match Box, huh?”
“That’s Magic Box, said Anya, “and it’s Anya, with a ‘y’, Umad." She stamped past Dawn into the hallway.
Dawn narrowed her eyes and stared after her. They just weren’t going to let that ‘Umad’ thing drop were they? Suddenly a terrible smell assailed her nostrils, and she turned her head to find Giles standing beside her in the hallway. “Oof!” she said, taking a step backwards. “You sure do stink.”
“And it’s very nice to see you again too, Dawn. Thank you,” said Giles, limping past her.
“There’s a real nice bathroom upstairs,” called Dawn after him, “in case you want to wash any of that slime off, or anything.”
Giles hunched his shoulders. “Very kind of you to mention it,” he said in a stifled tone. “I’ll look into it in a little while, shall I? After we’ve established where we are in our battle with the Sorcerer.” He set off towards the living room.
“If you say so,” said Dawn. She held her nose behind his retreating back, blinked her watering eyes, and then followed him at a respectful distance.
“Eeeeeee!!!”
A shrill female scream rose from the room ahead of them. Giles and Dawn broke into a run.
.............
“Well, I don’t see why you’re so upset,” said Spike, as he tailed along behind Buffy.
Buffy marched along the road, one hand firmly clasped round the arm of an unhappy and silent Jonathan, the other holding a string shopping bag. Now they were in Jonathan’s presence the hot/cold stone was unremittingly burning hot, and she’d been forced to carry it in the only non-plastic bag she could find. She wished she’d asked Willow or Tara how to switch the stupid thing off.
“It was gross,” she said. “Blood on your chin, and all those little bones crunching in your teeth.”
“I was hungry!” said Spike, “Besides, sea otters eat raw salmon, and I bet you think they’re cute.”
“I do not! Well, yes I do,” Buffy corrected herself, “but you are not an otter.” She frowned. She wasn’t entirely sure if sea otters did eat salmon, but if they did, it would be cute - not like something out a horror movie. Spike had gone through the salmon like a chainsaw through a piece of plywood. She shuddered. It was just ... yucky.
............
Giles and Dawn tumbled through the door of the living room, panting. A puzzling scene met their eyes.
Anya stood screaming beside a squashed cardboard box, out of which had spilled a newspaper, an overturned water dish and several half chewed carrots. A large white lop-eared rabbit was sitting on the arm of the sofa, peacefully chewing a piece of straw, while Willow, Tara and Xander darted around the room trying to catch a bewildering array of little red and blue striped bunnies.
"What happened?" gasped Dawn.
Xander turned, a little blue and red rabbit pressed to his chest. “We’d just collected them all up,” he said, exasperated, “when Anya came rushing in here and stepped on the box, and started screaming.” He grabbed at his rabbit, as it made a panicked attempt to scramble over his shoulder and take a leap to freedom.
“And now they’re scared to death,” said Willow, as she tried to fish under the bookcase for an escapee that was gazing out at her with panicked glassy rabbit eyes.
“Rupey! I fell over,” wailed Anya, “into a sea of bunnies. It’s my worst nightmare, come to life. They stepped on me with their filthy little rodent feet, and breathed on me with their foul carrot-laden breath. Who wouldn’t start screaming?”
The second living room door crashed open, hitting Xander in the back. He fell to his knees, dropping his rabbit, as Buffybot flew through the doorway, sword twirling above her head. Xander jumped to his feet - and then threw himself desperately backwards as the madly whirring sword flew past his nose.
“Die! Evil creatures of the....” Buffybot paused, taking in the scene. “Ooh!” she cried happily, “it’s Willow’s sneakers!”
Xander’s rabbit bounded past her, making a mad dash for the space under the sofa. Tara threw herself forward in a diving tackle, and grabbed the panicked bunny. It kicked her in the face, with both back feet, and she let go with a muffled cry. The rabbit bounded off, weaving between the Scoobies’ feet with impressive rabbit agility but very little sign of a plan. Anya began to scream again.
Buffybot put down her sword and, in a blur of motion, scooped up the rabbit as it bounded past. Dawn silently held out the cardboard box, and the rabbit was popped inside.
“You poor baby!” cried Willow, kneeling down beside Tara and examining her scratches.
“Anya!” shouted Xander. “If you could just stop screaming they might calm down enough for us to catch them.” He was back on his hands and knees, trying to extract the rabbit under the bookcase. Dawn was silently stalking towards the tv, where a little rabbit face had just popped up from behind the video recorder, while Buffybot was eagerly lifting cushions, and peering behind curtains.
Anya’s screams ended on a little hiccup, as Giles patted her wearily on the back. “Bunnies are evil,” she said with a shudder. “And they stink,” she added wrinkling her nose. She turned accusingly to Giles. “Why on earth did you send them here, instead of into another dimension?”
“I don’t think that smell can be the bunnies,” said Tara. “Unless it’s some magic or demony thing. None of my pet bunnies ever smelled like that.” She was sitting on the sofa, holding onto Willow with one hand, and stroking the white lop-eared rabbit, which had remained calm through all the drama, with the other.
Anya’s eyes narrowed as she heard Tara confess to a past in rabbit keeping.
“You’re right, Tara!” said Buffybot eagerly. “The bad smell is Giles. The bunnies only smell of bunny!” She brandished two more little rabbits triumphantly, and put them in the cardboard box, which Dawn had put down on the coffee table.
Giles closed his eyes for a moment. “Some of us have been fighting demons,” he said, brushing ineffectually at the congealed slime on his cuffs. “It’s really not surprising we might have picked up a little ... contamination.”
“Ooh!” said the Buffybot, straightening up from her rabbit hunt, her eyes wide with admiration. “Did you kill lots and lots of them?” She made a demonstrative swishing gesture, her eyes alight at the notion of demon slaughter.
“Well, not as s...” began Giles.
“Aargh!” cried Anya, agony in her voice. “Look!”
Everyone turned, startled, and followed the direction of Anya’s dramatically pointing finger. There was a long, tension filled, pause.
“Er, what exactly are we looking at?” asked Xander cautiously. “It seems to be your legs. Which are very nice,” he added hastily, in case Anya started screaming again.
“Hairs!!!” yelled Anya. “Bunny hairs. I have filthy rabid rodent hairs on my skirt!”
The silence became less tense, and more hostile, as everyone regarded their own disshevelled and rabbit hair strewn selves, and Anya's near pristine appearance.
“Ah, yes,” said Giles at length. “I think I do see a couple, dear.”
He stepped forward and plucked a couple of red hairs from Anya’s skirt and held them out in front of him. Anya shuddered back, as though he were holding a scorpion.
“Got it!”
Dawn held up a bunny triumphantly, then put it gently into the box. “Only two more to go!” She looked eagerly around the room, her competitive rabbit hunting instincts aroused.
Buffybot skipped over and stared into the box admiringly. “They’re real cute little sneaker bunnies aren’t they?” Suddenly her face dropped as she remembered just whose sneaker had perished that the bunnies might live. She turned to Willow sorrowfully. “Your sneakers, Willow. I’m real sorry I wore your sneakers without permission, and that I let them be turned into bunnies.” She looked down at her two right feet, embarrassed. “It was real careless of me.”
“The bunnies are way cuter than any pair of sneakers,” said Tara, smoothing the lop eared rabbit’s ears.
“Which I don’t remember owning anyway,” said Willow, gazing adoringly at her bunny stroking girlfriend.
Xander emerged from under the bookcase, stripy rabbit in hand. “And I have to admit, stripy rabbits are pretty cool.”
They all smiled at Buffybot, and she sent a big relieved grin zinging right back at them.
“Although, I would like to know exactly how you made bunnies out of Willow’s sneakers, Lara,” said Tara, rather reluctantly getting off the sofa, and adding the lop-eared rabbit to the box. “It seems like a kind of hard thing to do.”
“Oh, I didn’t do it,” said Buffybot happily. She pointed at Anya, who was still going over her clothes inch by fanatical inch, looking for rabbit hairs.
“She did!”
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