[X] She needs to talk to Harmony, even if drawing more attention to Harmony's response to all this is going to be suspicious with everyone around.
It wasn't like she hadn't been hanging around Harmony a lot before, in a non-girlfriendly way. It probably wouldn't look too weird for her to want to talk with her now after an incident like this, especially in the enclosed space of Cynthia's minivan. Of course that included, well, Cynthia, but she would build that bridge when she got to it.
With the show over, she could see the crowd breaking into various groups as she headed to the minivan across the clearing. Cortez was directing the film crew he'd brought, Skip was chatting with Cordelia and a couple cops, Andrew and Giles were paging through some old book with a flashlight, and Oz seemed to be the center of the SDCW group in Xander's absence. She looked for Willow near him, but didn't find her until she noticed her running in the direction Xander had wandered off into; it was good that he wouldn't be beating himself up all alone. Even though she'd been square in the middle of all the drama, nobody seemed to want to bother her, and that suited her fine.
Buffy couldn't hear what the two of them were saying as she approached, thanks to the newly closed windows and the roar of the AC inside, and eventually they noticed her coming and stopped their discussion. Hoping things weren't too bad, she quickly slipped into the backdoor, stowing her hammer in the ample floorspace at her feet. Buffy was pensive for a second, not quite knowing how to start and instead noticing how weird it was for Harmony's passenger seat to look empty in the rearview mirror. Doing this in front of Cynthia was going to be delicate.
"Don't hesitate on my account," Cynthia said. "I'm already aware."
"What?" Buffy said, losing all her mental momentum. Then, thinking she might be referring to something else, she said, "You're aware of, umm-"
Cynthia turned on the radio, setting it high enough to be heard over the AC but still not distractingly loud. "The relationship between you and your paramour. You need not be alarmed." She cracked a little smile. "After all, if you can't trust your secretary, who can you trust?"
Had Harmony told her? She'd noticed them hanging out before, but she hadn't thought they were this close. She wasn't in any position to make her own complaints now though, so she decided to drop it for now. "Harmony. I am really, really sorry. I should've listened to Anya, but I didn't and the Pan bucket was all mind-controlly, and then things got way too intense and the whole idea was stupid, I just-"
"It wasn't stupid," Harmony interrupted, her voice tight. "I mean, you won. That's what you wanted, right? I should be happy. After all, we can't-"
The confines of the minivan and the imagined eyes she felt on her all around the clearing made things awkward, but Buffy reached forward and grabbed Harmony by the elbow anyway. "This is totally not about you. This is about me, I screwed up." Despite everything, the danger of it made her kind of excited. She was such a freak.
"It looked more like Xander screwing up and you going along with it," Harmony grumped. At least she wasn't blaming herself or something terrible like that, but Xander wasn't really at fault either.
"Xander doesn't have any powers, he isn't a thousand years old, and this wasn't his plan. His brain was probably double-knotted by the time that song ended, it had me feeling like I was some wild animal hunting her next meal," Buffy said.
"What do you mean exactly, with the mind control?" Harmony asked. "Cynthia told me it might have been some kind of magical thing. Was the bucket puppeting you guys, like some kind of… puppet bucket?"
"No," she admitted. "No puppets, as much as I wish that was it. It just like, pushed at me, to make me do what I wanted and not think about the consequences that much. It was like I was in a dream or something, but it was still me."
"Am I like, your second choice then? And you're just too nice to take Xander from Anya, even though you want him more?" Harmony's voice was tight again.
"No. No, definitely not. Even when I was all wild and crazy I wanted you more, he was just there." She was aware that this argument didn't paint her in the best light, but it was probably what Harmony needed to hear. "The kiss? Totally not as good, and I felt like I was going to break him the whole time too." She tightened her grip on her elbow a little. "He'd be screaming in pain right now."
"Oh. That's sweet." She smiled, but then her expression got cloudier. "So you're saying you really are, like, more into vampires?" Her hand moved hesitantly over Buffy's on her elbow, and then she vamped out, looking back right at Buffy. "Is that what this is?"
Buffy Summers was she, queen of terrible awkward implications. At least Cynthia was deliberately looking forward into space, as if they weren't there. "No! Well, I mean, a little." She didn't think Harmony looked bad like this at all, even if she thought Harmony had hangups about it herself. "But it's not just that. You help with patrol, and you're fun to hang out with, and you really try to be good. With other vampires there's really a lack of that."
"Even with Angel?" Harmony asked.
"Angel tries so hard to be good that he goes right around to being a total jerk," Buffy said with venom. "The kind of good that matters is being good to people. And you are! You were even getting to be friends with Xander, and he wanted to stake you before!"
"Some good that did. I hope Anya really makes him regret what he did." Harmony still sounded way angrier at Xander than she was at Buffy.
"She seemed pretty peeved, but even she seemed to think that the not-puppet bucket was pretty responsible. But I think it wouldn't be wrong to predict some couches in his future. And maybe some being screamed at, or flower-buying." Hopefully that would appease her a bit. Buffy didn't want to even think about what she would have to do if Harmony flipped out and attacked Xander in a jealous rage or something.
"I guess Anya is pretty reliable for vengeance," Harmony allowed. "But I'm definitely going to give her some suggestions."
That would have to do for now. Buffy decided to change the topic back to her own misdeeds. "But you shouldn't just blame Xander. There's plenty of blame for me. I'm a very sorry Buffy," she said, putting on her most penitent expression. "A Buffy looking for some way to make it up to you."
"Well…" Harmony started, "We never did finish that beach date. I know tonight is kind of-"
"Kind of irrelevant," Buffy finished. "Everyone probably expects me to stomp off and vanish in a puff of embarrassment anyway. Let's go to the beach. Plenty of moonlight left." Then she remembered it was Cynthia's minivan. "Umm, that is if-"
Cynthia smoothly shifted into drive and started them towards the road. "Would you like me to drive you there, or drop you off at Harmony's vehicle? And there is of course the matter of swimwear."
------------------------------------------------------------------
"You can't just abandon us! The whole Galaxy is at stake here!" Cordelia threw her arms out wide and the wind whipped through her hair as the sun started to set over Kingman's Bluff. Nezumi blinked a woeful pattern at her feet, racing around in his little drone costumes.
"But that's exactly what I'm going to do!" Buffy argued. "You remember how we were never friends? All those long days having fun together we didn't have? I couldn't care less about you, Charisma, or about this one horse town. Heck, if the Satirical Empire rolled up tomorrow and turned this entire planet into a Strum Node, it wouldn't bother me in the least." She took another step back, standing on the edge of the cliff while the crew of the Nezumi tried to talk her down.
"I know you've had your differences with the Milky Way Alliance, but haven't we moved past that?" Skip took a step forward, but didn't quite come within her reach. "We worked together against the Satirical scouting expedition. You even shot down their ship with the primitive Earth weapon! Surely the galactic tribunes will pardon your crimes after all this is over."
"But then I'd have to be a good girl, and not commit any more crimes." Buffy pouted. "And that would be no fun at all. How could I get up in the morning if I wasn't dedicating my life to making people miserable?"
"But you're as intelligent as you are sadistic!" Skip said. "You must know how this ends, you can't run from the law forever."
"Can't I?" Buffy smiled. "That experimental Satirical hyperdrive I stole off their ship says otherwise!"
"But we were going to reverse engineer that," Clem said quietly, from the back. "Without it, we'll never stop the Satyrs."
"Sounds to me like you just need to try harder!" Buffy put on a thinking expression, and mimed having an idea. "Maybe you could spend a little less effort on supercriminals like me?"
"You'll never get away with this, Ringer!" Skip declared, and he moved forward, grabbing at her from one side as Nezumi's drones swarmed in from the other.
"I already have!" she laughed like a maniac, and swung down off the cliff.
Skip stopped just at the edge, and looked down in shock.
"No way, she really jumped?" Cordelia asked. "I don't get how an ugly death is getting away with it."
Instead of answering her question, Skip shouted, "Get down!" He dived for cover and the other two hit the dirt as well, just as a sleek looking fightercraft levitated into view and buzzed over the bluff, quickly disappearing over the horizon.
Cordelia was the first to rise, looking at the darkening sky forlornly. "That hyperdrive was our only chance. What are we going to do?"
Skip got up behind her. "Whatever we have to, Charisma. Whatever we have to."
Nezumi blinked some more around them, and Clem tried to stand and failed. "Guys, I think I twisted my ankle."
The actors all paused in the moment, and then Cortez shouted. "Cut! Excellent take! I would never have thought a visual effect could leave me so enchanted!"
Buffy easily climbed back up from where she'd been clinging to the cliff face and walked over to Cordelia, who was brushing the dirt off the jeans she was wearing. "Hi Buffy. I hope I get to keep these, they're about as far from something a real nerd would wear as you are from a normal mayor."
"Thanks, I think?" Buffy said. "But, being a normal mayor might be my future, at least for a month. Campaign season majorly sucks." Buffy still would have to do the occasional shoot for the ongoing filming, but a lot of her scenes were wrapped up at this point.
"But if you win, you pretty much get the job for life," Cordelia said. "I have to win my jobs again and again."
"There's another election in 2002," Buffy said, already knowing that was a half-truth at best. 2002 was a long way away, and the hellmouth probably wasn't going to just recognize her authority or anything. She was getting stronger, but death was always right around the corner.
"One that nobody will run in to oppose the incumbent, because that's not how things work in Sunnydale, duh," Cordelia said. "This is basically for all the marbles."
"Yeah, I guess that's true" she covered, kind of surprised Cordelia wasn't just bringing up the whole dying early thing. "It's pretty scary."
"Why so glum?" Cortez burst upon the two of them, a great big smile on his face and with an uncertain Jonathan guided by his hand. "Sad to be leaving the set for a while? The life of the actress is quite glamorous."
"As Cordelia has attested," Buffy said. Cordelia rolled her eyes at her, but Buffy ignored it and went on. "But election month is about to claim me in it's sticky claws. Sad could definitely describe it."
"Well never fear, for I am a man of my word. My voice will be at your service for this campaign!" Cortez declared. "You have done everything you could to make this movie a success, and your experts have been the top of the top," he gestured at Jonathan, who blushed. "These illusions he makes, they are more real looking than the newfangled stuff you see from the other studios, and my actors can really respond to them."
"I mean, I still need to get the hang of laser fire," he hedged. "It doesn't really look real without marking the environment, and for that you need to wrap all sorts of contingencies together, and-"
"Hey, take some credit," Cordelia said. "Trust me, it's rare enough to get it in the professional world. The space fighter looked good, you should bask."
"Oh, well, if you say so," he replied. "But I'm not really sure how? I haven't done much basking."
"Come on, basking starts with snacks," Cordelia started leading Jonathan to the food trailer. "Besides, those two are going to start talking politics now, and this is a great excuse to get away."
"She is truly a gem," Cortez said, shaking his head. "But we should talk! I have had a vision of the future!"
"Wait, like a prophecy?" Buffy asked.
"Those are real?" He seemed disturbed for a second. "I guess it is unsurprising. But no, more of a metaphorical vision. Imagine Sunnydale, not as the set of one movie, but of many! You have the scenic views, the open warehousing for sets, the abundance of talent, everything that made Hollywood what it is. I have even read about the boom in the '20s, when your Richard the First fostered the industry here. We could bring it all back."
"That's definitely ambitious," Buffy said, a little unsure. "You do know the hellmouth is calmest in the summer, right?"
"I am confident you can handle the worst of its dangers," Cortez said. "And Los Angeles is not such a safe place itself."
Buffy nodded, hoping she wouldn't mess up in the future and prove him wrong. "So you'd be stumping for me with all the other big directors and movie people then?"
"It won't just be talk. I will move to Sunnydale!" he said. "After all, housing is very cheap here, all these beautiful buildings on the market for so very little. And the landscape is so much better than that dreary locus of traffic to the South. I am convinced it will stir my creative energies."
"Wow, that's a huge commitment," Buffy said. "You're really sure, right?"
"Absolutely! It will make supporting you in the coming election much more legitimate, for a start. But that is not the end of my intentions. I have spoken about the current political situation with Anya Jenkins, and if I have your support, I, Juan Cortez, intend to run for city council. How better to convince everyone Sunnydale is the new mecca for filming?"
Vote: Does Buffy agree Cortez should run for the last open city council seat? The other three people you have standing for the four open spots are Anya Jenkins, Ian Banks, and Larry Truman. (Vanessa Waters is not up for reelection and will be on the council regardless, in the fifth spot.) With less than a month left until the election, the time for decision is now.
[] Juan Cortez should run for the city council.
[] Rupert Giles should run for the city council.
[] Joyce Summers should run for the city council.
