The Hart of L.A.

Willow, Kennedy, and Dawn were sitting around their dining room table, eating dinner. Dawn was kind of mopey and Willow was on edge. Kennedy was oblivious to Willow's turmoil. Trying to break the silence, Willow addressed Dawn. " So, Dawn, did Buffy give you any useful information on Andrew?" Dawn just shook her head. She was very quiet, which was very weird for Dawn. " She gave me a whole boatload of nothing. They're just doing an errand for her, and she won't tell me what it is. She's always sheltering me from things."

Willow knew exactly what she meant. There had been times when everyone had tried to shelter her. When Xander was dating Cordelia, Buffy not telling her when Angel had come back from a Hell demension, and now this. " Dawn, she's just trying to protect you." Dawn dropped her fork onto her plate. " Well it majorly sucks! I thought I was part of the scoobies now. I guess I just thought wrong." Before Willow could say anything else, the phone rang. Willow answered it, and when she heard who it was, she had to smile.

" Oh Dawn! You have a telephone call, my dear." Dawn got up sulkily, ( probably thinking it was her sister again.), and went over to the phone. " Hello?" That was when she heard Andrew's voice...and she squealed. His voice was smiling.

" Hi. I heard that you've been asking about me, so I figured I'd just call you."

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Well this was just great! After Xander had told Oz about Joyce, Oz had gone to sleep saying he couldn't take anymore bad news. Now, after talking to Buffy, Andrew was on the phone with Dawn. AAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! Xander couldn't take this for very much longer! He couldn't go to sleep for the life of him. Just then Andrew was saying something about where he was. " Oh, don't worry, we're just fine. We were only checking out Cleaveland, you know because of the Hellmouth. So, how's school?"

Great, teenage love, only Andrew wasn't a teenager he just acted it. " So, I was wondering if you wanted to go to a movie or something like that. Really? Great! Well, I'll see you in a couple of days then. Bye bye." Andrew hung up the phone and immediatly started to go to sleep. He said goodnight to Xander, who was still upset about not being able to sleep. After Andrew was asleep that only left Xander to think about what he wanted to do. He didn't have Anya anymore, so he could go anywhere. That sounded so horrible in his head. He missed her so much. He missed her stupid sayings, and the way she made him feel. Now, he was just dead inside. He finally fell asleep, and when he woke up they were still quite a bit from California. They had stopped to refuel, and were already headed out again. It seemed like forever before their plane was decending onto the runway at L.A.

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Buffy hated waiting. She was at the airport by herself, and she was waiting for the boys' plane to land. Angel hadn't minded that she was going. Technically, yes, he was her boss, but he didn't give her orders. The same with Faith. She and Buffy could pretty much do whatever they wanted to do, but if something big came along that they couldn't defeat, then they'd have to tell Angel. He'd made them promise that if a demon came along that was really hard for them to kill, then they needed to tell him. He was still very protective of her, which was nice, but only to a certain extent. Angel had told her to tell Xander to stick around here, so he could talk to him. Just then they announced that the flight had arrived. She walked over to where they would be deboarding to wait for them. It was a little while before they got out of there. Oz walked over to Buffy and gave her a hug.

" Hey Buffy. I'm really sorry about you mom. I would have come for the funeral if I'd known."

She smiled. She couldn't really blame him. To be around the person you love, and not be able to touch them...very hard to do. She was so excited about Willow seeing him. " Oz, It's totally fine. I really didn't expect you to come, what with everything that happened. I'm really glad that you agreed to come, though, and not to sound too rude, but we have to leave. Your flight to San Diego leaves in twenty minutes."

They walked over to where the other gate was, and Buffy started talking again. " Ok, I brought you here, because I think Willow needs you. It's as simple as that...she needs you. She may not need you as a boyfriend, but she does need you to be there as her friend. I can't protect her anymore, because she's there and I'm here. You can, though. You used to always protect her when you could, and I respect that more than you'll ever know. So, here are your tickets. Send Willow my love."

Oz took the tickets from Buffy, and noticed there was only two. " Hey, wait, there's only two tickets here, who's coming with me?"