Learning Curve

Interlude: Time

"That stupid, arrogant, self righteous bastard. Thinks he knows who I am
after meeting my husband for like a half hour. I'm so nothing like
Angel. Yeah I married a prick, doesn't make me one." Buffy stopped for a
second, thinking, "well technically it wouldn't no matter what because-
Okay Buffy stay on topic: Annoying, arrogant William Giles. Right, he
thinks that I can't tell him what my husband's going to do. Angel might
be an asshole, but he's a predictable asshole. And yeah, so what if I
didn't stand up to him today, that's the only way I can get what I want
out of this. If I push him on stuff, he'll send Sam to that damn school
just to spite me. The only reason he's agreeing to this tutor thing is
because I used his own logic on him or something and somehow convinced
him it was his idea." Buffy stopped her angry muttering as she reached
the door of her house.

"Sam, sweetie." She called as she opened the door, "Where are you?
Meredith?" she called the babysitter's name as well. She was, after all,
on a time limit.
Sam can running down the stairs, dragging her 16-year-old babysitter
behind her, “Mommy, you’re home. Look what Meri and I did.” Sam held out
the picture to her mother. Buffy looked at the marker drawing and
couldn’t tell what it was. But it was beautiful.
“Meri thinks it’s a house and a dog, but I told her it’s just a picture,
she won’t listen.” Buffy knew she should probably reprimand her daughter
for talking about her babysitter like that, especially when she was
standing right there, but what Sam had said was also very true.
“Sam, honey, don’t be rude, maybe that’s what Meredith sees in it. Did
you ever think of that?” Buffy could see that her daughter was about to
argue with her, so she quickly continued, “But we’re not going to talk
about that right now. I need you to come do something with me. Okay,
sweetie?”
“Sure mommy, can I bring Katie come with me?” Sam looked up at her
mother with hopeful eyes, wishing that here friend would be able to tag
along.
“Not this time, maybe next time, though. We don’t have enough time this
time; we need to leave right now.” Buffy said, handing the babysitter a
twenty dollars.
“Mrs. O’Connor, that’s too much-“Meredith started to protest.
“Mer, I know I’ve told you before to call me Buffy, so please try not to
use the “Mrs. O’Connor” stuff anymore. And as for the money, that’s what
I’m giving you, this was on really short notice and I’m sort of pushing
you out of the house right now, so just take it, okay?” Despite her
words, Buffy couldn’t have sounded any sweeter.
When she saw that the babysitter wasn’t going to protest any further she
turned the two girls towards the door, “Come on, time’s a wastin’.”
Sam and Meredith hurried out the door in front of Buffy, both not
knowing why she was in such a hurry; she usually was the one telling
Angel to calm down, that they had plenty of time. But today she couldn’t
get them going fast enough.
Buffy had already gotten Sam buckled in the backseat and was about to
getting in the drivers’ door when she thought of something, “Meredith,
you can get home okay, right?”

“Yeah, Mrs. O—Buffy, mom let me borrow her car to come over here so I
can drive myself home.” Buffy smiled at the girls slip up and turned in
the direction she was indicating. Buffy saw Meredith’s mothers SUV
parked on the opposite side of the circular driveway, the side she
hadn’t used. ‘So I’m not totally oblivious for not seeing it,’ Buffy
thought with a sigh.

“I’m sorry Meredith, I’m kind of distracted today and I gave myself a
nearly impossible time limit for something. And, of course, it’s
something really important, so I need to get going if I’m going to make
it on time, I’m sorry about being so spacey.” Buffy didn’t want their
best and most reliable babysitter to think she was ungrateful or crazy
or anything else not of the positive, and decide to quit babysitting for
them.

“It’s alright, just glad I was home today so I could help.” Meredith
thought she knew what Buffy was thinking and wanted to make sure the
woman knew there was no way she was giving up this job simply because
her “boss” was acting a little strange. They paid her way too much,
Buffy was too nice, and Sam was too sweet for her to ever quit working
for them. “I hope you make it to wherever you’re going and that
everything works out.” She went to get into her own car.

“Thanks, Mer,” Buffy called out of her car window as she backed down the
driveway and turned onto their narrow road. She was going to make
it there on time.

*(*(*(*(*(*(*(*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*

“What in the world is that girl doing’ Giles thought as he looked at the
clock for at least the tenth time in the last, ’12 minutes now, she’s
got eight minutes left now, what is she doing? Oh, she better get here
in time, William’ll leave if she doesn’t and while I said I’d do my
best to keep him here, there’s now way I’m going to be able to when her
twenty minutes are up.’

‘Well, da’ doesn’t look like you girl's necessarily going to make it,”
William said a few minutes later, “if I have this figured correctly,
which I do, ‘Wonder Woman Buffy’ only has a little less then three
minutes to get here. “ There was no way William was going to admit to
the little part of him that wanted to see what it was she was going to
do, eve if it did take her longer than twenty minutes to do. He’d never
met another woman who’d been so forceful (and yes, he was going to
ignore the imagery that came with that, the fairly NC-17 rated imagery)
with him and he wasn’t quite as immune to her pleas as he appeared Still
didn’t mean he was going to take I job just so he could make her happy
only to get fired by her arrogant husband. Nope, he wasn’t going to
stick around for a second after her twenty minutes were up, no way to
lose his resolve then. He went to his father’s office to retrieve his
coat and put it on before continuing what he was saying, “Twenty
minutes. Then I’m leaving, damn her plan because if she’s not here on
time…”


TBC..
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A/N:Please review.