ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES
folder
BtVS AU/AR › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
210
Views:
11,624
Reviews:
182
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
BtVS AU/AR › Het - Male/Female › Buffy/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
210
Views:
11,624
Reviews:
182
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
COMPUTERS & LIBRARIES
CHAPTER 101 – COMPUTERS & LIBRARIES
August 1, 2008
Friday
10:00am
“Hey, you’ve got an email! And there’s an attachment, too!”
It had been a little over a week since things had more or less gone back to normal. William hadn’t had aore ore nightmares or headaches since that time, at least none that Buffy had been aware of, and he’d resumed learning to drive. Almost every day since then, either her or Clem took him out for at least an hour, so he would get comfortable with it, though it would still be almost 90 days before he could get his license.
“I do?” he asked, coming up behind her to look at the computer screen, “who’s it from?”
“I don’t know, it says it’s from an ALH@ hotmail.com, I guess ye goe going to have to open it and find out. Unless it’s some secret girlfriend of yours, sending you some dirty pictures, huh?” she joked.
“What? Of course not!” he said, looking flustered.
“I’m kidding, go on, open it.”
“Maybe it’s that spam stuff you told me about. Do you think I should just delete it?”
“Only if there’s a sales pitch after you open it, just don’t open the attachment until we find out who it’s from,” she said, standing up to give him the seat at the desk.
“Just double click the left button on the mouse,” she reminded him.
“I know.”
The email read:
Dear William,
How are you? I miss you. Do you like your house? Do you have a dog? I have a dog. Her name is Bear. She looked like a bear when she was a puppy. Thank you for my present. I like The Count. I like you and Elizabeth, I like you best.
Write Back,
Alex
P.S. My daddy helped me send the picture; it’s of my dog Bear and me. My mommy helped me type t
William turned tffy,ffy, “Well, what do you know!”
“Neat! Let’s see the picture,” she said, showing him how to click on the attachment. The picture came up a few minutes later, it was of Alex holding The Count, standing next to the his dog, which they assumed was Bear.
They laughed together seeing Xander’s cute little boy hamming it up for the camera.
“I’d better write back to him, don’t you think?”
Buffy nodded, “I think so, you don’t want to be outdone by a 4 year old, do you?”
“No, I shouldn’t thio, bo, but I’m afraid that’s not saying much with my computer skills being what they are,” he said, grinning, “or rather, what they aren’t.”
After gaining mastery over the mouse, whose icon seemed to zip all over the screen at first, William finally got it under a semblance of control, enough to hit the reply button.
“What should I say?” he asked.
“He’s your little buddy, I’m sure you’ll figure it out, “Buffy said, “when you’re done, let me know, we’ll take a picture of you with my digital camera and send it to him, if you’d like.”
“Okay, that’ll be great.”
She gave him a quick hug and kiss, before leaving the room.
He waited until she had left, then got up and got his glasses off the coffee table.
Fifteen minutes later, when she came back, he had just finished. It read:
Dear Alex,
I am fine and so is Elizabeth. I hope you and your family are, too.
It is nice to be home and I like my house very much. The outside is made of logs, but the inside has everything most houses have.
There are two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. There is also a wrap-around porch in the front, and an enclosed porch in the back, right off the kitchen. There is a big barn outside, too.
In the living room there is a fireplace that Elizabeth and I like to sit in front of in the evenings.
Our house is in the woods. There are many tall trees. We like to walk on the trails and see the pretty scenery.
One day, if you come and visit, I will take you hiking on them, too.
I don’t have a dog, but Bear sounds nice.
I’m happy you still like The Count.
You are a nice boy, Alex, and I’m glad to have met you.
Best regards.
Your friend,
William
P.S. Attached are a couple of pictures for you to see. Elizabeth helped me attach them, since like you, I am just learning about computers.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She’d been watching him hunt and peck the keyboard from the dining area for about 5 minutes.
“I think you need some keyboarding lessons,” she replied, laughing.
“Besides that,” he said, grimacing.
She read it over his shoulder.
“It’s good. Just enough to keep his interest, nice short sentences without talking down to him.”
“Of course not, he’s a smart boy!”
They took a couple of pictures to send, one with William standing outside the front of the house, the other with him standing in front of the fireplace, with the Indian pots from Mesa Verde seen in the bacund.und.
After the pictures were downloaded and attached, William hit the send button.
“How long does it take to get there?” he asked.
“Seconds, probably.”
He shook his head, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand that.”
She came up and wrapped her arms around him; “I don’t either, not really. I mean, I know how to use technology and wit dit does, but I only have a rudimentary understanding of it. But you know what? Most people are like that, except for the techno-geeks,” she said, thinking Andrew, because she refused to think of Warren, “doesn’t matter as long as you can use it as a tool. I don’t have to know how to use a wash machine to appreciate that I don’t have to go stand at a stream beating my clothes on a stone, or use an old-fashioned washboard. Just a tool, see?”
He shook his head, “Replacing manual labor with a labor saving device, such as a wash machine is different than replacing one’s intellect with a machine. I mean, when I think of writing something, it’s with a pen and paper. When I read something, it’s out of a book, something I can feel, something that has a smell to it, a texture, if you will. On a computer…it’s just different.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make it bad, I know my mom pretty much did all her college papers in longhand. Then she’d type them out on an old manual typewriter, where if she made only a small mistake, she’d have to redo the whole paper or it would look sloppy. I know! She told me how easy I had it all the time! But I know what you mean. I did a lot of papers by longhand in high school; it wasn’t until college that I had my own computer. Sure, it was different to write that way, but I adapted. And it’s great, really. Especially when you make a mistake and you can just erase it without redoing the whole paper. Of course, if you lose your whole report or delete it…well, then you wish you had a paper copy or were smart enough to have backed it up... Nevermind. Off topic. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“I guess.”
“And for research, I still used a library and books, but lots of research was easy to do online, where I’ve got access to thousands, hundreds of thousands of resources. I couldn’t possibly visit enough libraries to find all those.”
“I still like books and libraries better,” he said, stubbornly.
“No reason why you can’t. I’m just saying, you can still use the Internet and not feel like you’re betraying your preferred way, right?”
He nodded, “Yes, you’re right, and I do like it…it’s just that it seems rather cold to me. And speaking of libraries, aren’t we going to town soon?”
“Oops, you’re right, better go get ready,” Buffy said. She had decided she’d go to the first meeting at Montessori, despite feeling it was a waste of time, and that her fellow teachers would be upset with her when they found she wasn’t returning to teach in September.
“Okay, see you in a couple of hours,” she said to William, who had just deposited about 10 books to the return desk.
She’d let him drive them to town and park behind the library.
“See you then,” he said, kissing her goodbye.
She walked to the door and looked back, he smiled at her, happily in his element. She smiled back and waved. Sometimes he reminded her of Giles. Well, in the book sense, but nothing else. She mentally slapped herself, hard, for having just made that comparison. Best not to even go there.
Buffy sat through the meeting rather quietly, feeling more than a bit of a traitor, to her fellow teachers. No one asked her about William, so she knew that Mrs. Carpello most likely, hadn’t brought him up to anyone.
Mostly the meeting was about new state rules and regulations for the coming year 2008-2009, and testing.
Marilyn got up next and started talking about Kindergartners and First Grader immunization records. Suddenly Buftarttartled.
“What is it Elizabeth?” Marilyn asked.
“Um… oh, sorry, I thought I felt a bug on my leg,” she said, thus having the effect of now all the women looking under the table, “guess it’s gone,” she said sheepishly, motioning for Marilyn to go on.
“Oh shit!” she thought to herself, “William was born before immunizations! Crap, I’m going to have to get him to a doctor before he gets every childhood disease under the sun!”
A couple of hours later, William was siting at the same table he’d occupied the first time he’d come here. He was looking over some of the flyers he’d picked up in the entryway when he saw Buffy come in, he quickly folded them up and put them inside one of the larger books.
“Ah, I see you got a library card,” she said, seeing it on top of the stack of about a dozen or so books.
“Yes, I’m now the proud owner of my own library card, as well as a Driver’s Permit,” he said, grinning, “quite an accomplishment for a 27, almost 28 year old man, wouldn’t you say?”
She nodded, relieved that he was saying this in fun and not despair, “I would, especially for one who’s had to start over from scratch, I’d have to say it’s not a bad start.”
He smiled at her, “Not too bad,” he agreed.
END CHAPTER 101
August 1, 2008
Friday
10:00am
“Hey, you’ve got an email! And there’s an attachment, too!”
It had been a little over a week since things had more or less gone back to normal. William hadn’t had aore ore nightmares or headaches since that time, at least none that Buffy had been aware of, and he’d resumed learning to drive. Almost every day since then, either her or Clem took him out for at least an hour, so he would get comfortable with it, though it would still be almost 90 days before he could get his license.
“I do?” he asked, coming up behind her to look at the computer screen, “who’s it from?”
“I don’t know, it says it’s from an ALH@ hotmail.com, I guess ye goe going to have to open it and find out. Unless it’s some secret girlfriend of yours, sending you some dirty pictures, huh?” she joked.
“What? Of course not!” he said, looking flustered.
“I’m kidding, go on, open it.”
“Maybe it’s that spam stuff you told me about. Do you think I should just delete it?”
“Only if there’s a sales pitch after you open it, just don’t open the attachment until we find out who it’s from,” she said, standing up to give him the seat at the desk.
“Just double click the left button on the mouse,” she reminded him.
“I know.”
The email read:
Dear William,
How are you? I miss you. Do you like your house? Do you have a dog? I have a dog. Her name is Bear. She looked like a bear when she was a puppy. Thank you for my present. I like The Count. I like you and Elizabeth, I like you best.
Write Back,
Alex
P.S. My daddy helped me send the picture; it’s of my dog Bear and me. My mommy helped me type t
William turned tffy,ffy, “Well, what do you know!”
“Neat! Let’s see the picture,” she said, showing him how to click on the attachment. The picture came up a few minutes later, it was of Alex holding The Count, standing next to the his dog, which they assumed was Bear.
They laughed together seeing Xander’s cute little boy hamming it up for the camera.
“I’d better write back to him, don’t you think?”
Buffy nodded, “I think so, you don’t want to be outdone by a 4 year old, do you?”
“No, I shouldn’t thio, bo, but I’m afraid that’s not saying much with my computer skills being what they are,” he said, grinning, “or rather, what they aren’t.”
After gaining mastery over the mouse, whose icon seemed to zip all over the screen at first, William finally got it under a semblance of control, enough to hit the reply button.
“What should I say?” he asked.
“He’s your little buddy, I’m sure you’ll figure it out, “Buffy said, “when you’re done, let me know, we’ll take a picture of you with my digital camera and send it to him, if you’d like.”
“Okay, that’ll be great.”
She gave him a quick hug and kiss, before leaving the room.
He waited until she had left, then got up and got his glasses off the coffee table.
Fifteen minutes later, when she came back, he had just finished. It read:
Dear Alex,
I am fine and so is Elizabeth. I hope you and your family are, too.
It is nice to be home and I like my house very much. The outside is made of logs, but the inside has everything most houses have.
There are two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. There is also a wrap-around porch in the front, and an enclosed porch in the back, right off the kitchen. There is a big barn outside, too.
In the living room there is a fireplace that Elizabeth and I like to sit in front of in the evenings.
Our house is in the woods. There are many tall trees. We like to walk on the trails and see the pretty scenery.
One day, if you come and visit, I will take you hiking on them, too.
I don’t have a dog, but Bear sounds nice.
I’m happy you still like The Count.
You are a nice boy, Alex, and I’m glad to have met you.
Best regards.
Your friend,
William
P.S. Attached are a couple of pictures for you to see. Elizabeth helped me attach them, since like you, I am just learning about computers.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She’d been watching him hunt and peck the keyboard from the dining area for about 5 minutes.
“I think you need some keyboarding lessons,” she replied, laughing.
“Besides that,” he said, grimacing.
She read it over his shoulder.
“It’s good. Just enough to keep his interest, nice short sentences without talking down to him.”
“Of course not, he’s a smart boy!”
They took a couple of pictures to send, one with William standing outside the front of the house, the other with him standing in front of the fireplace, with the Indian pots from Mesa Verde seen in the bacund.und.
After the pictures were downloaded and attached, William hit the send button.
“How long does it take to get there?” he asked.
“Seconds, probably.”
He shook his head, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand that.”
She came up and wrapped her arms around him; “I don’t either, not really. I mean, I know how to use technology and wit dit does, but I only have a rudimentary understanding of it. But you know what? Most people are like that, except for the techno-geeks,” she said, thinking Andrew, because she refused to think of Warren, “doesn’t matter as long as you can use it as a tool. I don’t have to know how to use a wash machine to appreciate that I don’t have to go stand at a stream beating my clothes on a stone, or use an old-fashioned washboard. Just a tool, see?”
He shook his head, “Replacing manual labor with a labor saving device, such as a wash machine is different than replacing one’s intellect with a machine. I mean, when I think of writing something, it’s with a pen and paper. When I read something, it’s out of a book, something I can feel, something that has a smell to it, a texture, if you will. On a computer…it’s just different.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make it bad, I know my mom pretty much did all her college papers in longhand. Then she’d type them out on an old manual typewriter, where if she made only a small mistake, she’d have to redo the whole paper or it would look sloppy. I know! She told me how easy I had it all the time! But I know what you mean. I did a lot of papers by longhand in high school; it wasn’t until college that I had my own computer. Sure, it was different to write that way, but I adapted. And it’s great, really. Especially when you make a mistake and you can just erase it without redoing the whole paper. Of course, if you lose your whole report or delete it…well, then you wish you had a paper copy or were smart enough to have backed it up... Nevermind. Off topic. Do you get what I’m saying?”
“I guess.”
“And for research, I still used a library and books, but lots of research was easy to do online, where I’ve got access to thousands, hundreds of thousands of resources. I couldn’t possibly visit enough libraries to find all those.”
“I still like books and libraries better,” he said, stubbornly.
“No reason why you can’t. I’m just saying, you can still use the Internet and not feel like you’re betraying your preferred way, right?”
He nodded, “Yes, you’re right, and I do like it…it’s just that it seems rather cold to me. And speaking of libraries, aren’t we going to town soon?”
“Oops, you’re right, better go get ready,” Buffy said. She had decided she’d go to the first meeting at Montessori, despite feeling it was a waste of time, and that her fellow teachers would be upset with her when they found she wasn’t returning to teach in September.
“Okay, see you in a couple of hours,” she said to William, who had just deposited about 10 books to the return desk.
She’d let him drive them to town and park behind the library.
“See you then,” he said, kissing her goodbye.
She walked to the door and looked back, he smiled at her, happily in his element. She smiled back and waved. Sometimes he reminded her of Giles. Well, in the book sense, but nothing else. She mentally slapped herself, hard, for having just made that comparison. Best not to even go there.
Buffy sat through the meeting rather quietly, feeling more than a bit of a traitor, to her fellow teachers. No one asked her about William, so she knew that Mrs. Carpello most likely, hadn’t brought him up to anyone.
Mostly the meeting was about new state rules and regulations for the coming year 2008-2009, and testing.
Marilyn got up next and started talking about Kindergartners and First Grader immunization records. Suddenly Buftarttartled.
“What is it Elizabeth?” Marilyn asked.
“Um… oh, sorry, I thought I felt a bug on my leg,” she said, thus having the effect of now all the women looking under the table, “guess it’s gone,” she said sheepishly, motioning for Marilyn to go on.
“Oh shit!” she thought to herself, “William was born before immunizations! Crap, I’m going to have to get him to a doctor before he gets every childhood disease under the sun!”
A couple of hours later, William was siting at the same table he’d occupied the first time he’d come here. He was looking over some of the flyers he’d picked up in the entryway when he saw Buffy come in, he quickly folded them up and put them inside one of the larger books.
“Ah, I see you got a library card,” she said, seeing it on top of the stack of about a dozen or so books.
“Yes, I’m now the proud owner of my own library card, as well as a Driver’s Permit,” he said, grinning, “quite an accomplishment for a 27, almost 28 year old man, wouldn’t you say?”
She nodded, relieved that he was saying this in fun and not despair, “I would, especially for one who’s had to start over from scratch, I’d have to say it’s not a bad start.”
He smiled at her, “Not too bad,” he agreed.
END CHAPTER 101