Buffy

I can’t believe it’s been four months. Four months since that battle. Four months since the First. Four months since we moved to LA. That’s a lot of change in a short amount of time. I wonder if they can carry on? I wonder if I can. Buffy walked around the courtyard, critically watching each of the chosen Slayers as they moved through their morning exercises. Since she had risen earlier than everyone else in the Hyperion, unable to sleep with all the questions running through her head, Buffy had already gone through her personal workout and had enough time to organize theirs. She had gone easy on them for a few weeks after the battle with the First, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think they could afford to get soft. Buffy had seen too much, been through too much, to loose vigilance now.

“Tighten up, everyone! I know it’s early, but that’s not an excuse for sloppy fighting,” she called out, yanking at one girl’s leg until the extension was perfect. “The vamps aren’t going to wait for you to finish yawning before going after you.” She moved through their ranks on autopilot, adjusting here, straightening there, and rarely granting praise. I wonder where Dawn has wandered off too. Even though she’s training to be a Watcher, there’s no reason she can’t join in. It would probably strengthen those skinny little bones. Absently taking a whack at one Slayer's weak point, Buffy glanced around, looking for signs of her kid sister or any one of the other scoobies.

Kennedy

Kennedy was exercising in the courtyard with the other new Slayers, going through the moves nearly automatically after several months of training with Buffy and Faith. "Sometimes it's just amazing what my life has turned into in the last year. I used to be just Daddy's Little Girl, with a trust fund in her pocket. Then, after Giles picked me up,I was suddenly thrust into this life, as one of the Chosen." she thought to herself.

"I wonder if Red has gotten out of bed yet? Maybe if we get done early enough, I can get back to the room and wake her up in a nice way. It really is great having a job with a girlfriend in upper management!" Maybe it was a little cynical thinking about Willow in terms of a "fringe benefit", but Kennedy did her best to insure that the "benefit" part went both ways.

Xander

Xander got out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Getting into a nice hot shower, he thought "Ya know Angel, there is a lot I can't ever forgive you for, but after spending a few months in Buffy's house with a dozen teenage Potentials and only one bathroom, living here in the hotel makes up for some of it. Everyone with their own rooms and a hotel-sized water heater forgives a lot of sins."

After showering, he looked in the mirror to shave. "Man, I just ain't ever going to get used to seeing only one eye staring back at me from the mirror. Oh well, no sense brooding about it, got to face forward and move along. I wonder if I should maybe get one of those glass eyes?"

Dawn

Dawn walked out into the courtyard while reading a vampire book. She had noticed Spike in it the other day, but didn't want to tell Buffy. She tripped then as she stood back up saw Buffy. Quickly she turned to another page as she watched the slayers not noticing the person on the page was now Angel.

"Hey Buffy," she told her then slowly tried to back out of the courtyard. She knew her sister would was her to join the training. She stifled a yawn as she watched all the slayers. She still missed Spike at times, but knew her older sister missed him much more. Sometimes at night the thought she heard her mutter his name, but she couldn't be sure.

Faith

Faith stalked out into the courtyard, almost knocking into Dawn, to join the other Slayers. Well, not so much to join as to watch and mentally laugh. 'Slayers...pfft...half of these are just kids...I'm surprised they survived...'

Despite many rants off of Buffy, Faith refused to accept that these kids were Slayers. Yes, she had been young when she had been told about the Slayer heritage that hung over her being, but she quickly caught on. These had seen one big fight. Life, for Faith, was one big fight. She had no one. Everyone around her had everybody else.

Faith sighed as she walked around the group of Slayers and crossed her arms over her chest. She watched as Buffy ordered them around. Faith had never listened to Buffy's orders before she gutted her, she wasn't bound to do it now. Buffy worked on morals Faith sometimes didn't understand, but that could have had something to do with how Faith was in general.

She came to a stand still beside Buffy. She turned to her slightly, eyes fixed on the group, and mumbled, "I don't know how you do it, B. Not exactly cream of the crop these guys..." She knew she may pay for what she had said, but what else could she do, but complain? She hardly knew any of them, so felt that she couldn't trust any one of them.

Willow

Willow wandered down the hallway from her room. She passed Xander's. She resisted the temptation to go and speak to him. He had been so put off by the concept of coming to the Hotel and Willow hadn't had a real chance to talk to him. She knew how torn up he was about Anya too. She just wanted to help him.

She sighed as she moved passed his room, quickening her pace so as not to enter it. She looked around for signs of anyone. She guessed that Buffy would have all of the Slayers in the courtyard again. She had been like such a slave driver since they had gotten her. Was she trying to prove something?

'What is there to prove? We've seen everything...now we're here...' Willow thought to herself, hanging her head as she came to the top of the stairs down into the foyer.

She walked down the steps, but didn't make it all the way to the foyer. She stood at the top of the small set of steps to the foyer level and looked out of the door into the courtyard.

Willow saw the Slayers practising again. She then saw Buffy and Faith. Willow wasn't 100% comfortable about Faith's prescence in the hotel with everyone around here. Willow had never really trusted her and thought that she may never ever trust her.

Kennedy

While practicising a set of overhead blocks, Kennedy sees Willow at the stairs in the foyer. "There's my girl!", she thought happily to herself. "I wonder how much longer Buffy is going to want to continue the exercises? Maybe I can convince her to let us just get in a good jog. I think that would be a quicker way to end it, I think. Then, maybe me and Red can get in a little shopping before an early lunch. Yeah, that sounds like a plan."

While concentrating on her early morning plans, Kennedy slips up just a little bit on a left hand thrust move, drawing a scowl from Buffy. "Oops, better concentrate on the now, or I'm gonna be stuck doing this all day."


Xander

Xander puts on his "work uniform" of blue jeans and a flannel shirt. "Time to go find out what disaster happened to the hotel overnight. I swear Angel ought to be paying me $15.00 an hour just to stay here and fix all the little things that kept going wrong. Just replacing the vermillion drapes and gold striped wallpaper in his room was a huge public service." he thought.

He headed down the stairs, passing Willow on his way to the counter. "Good morning, Will. How you doing?" he asked in passing.

Below him lay the slayers, all training in the courtyard; a series of squeeks, grunts and shouts echoing into the inside of the hotel - the vibrations passing through the walls, reverberating around Angels room, his keen senses absorbing the noises, and enduring the harsh sounds that hurt his vampire senses. He sat up in bed and scratched his head, glancing at the curtains and squinting from the sunlight. About 10 AM, and he was up already. This wasn't a vampire's way of life, he was sure of it - but Buffy forgets these things. She'd been so focused on training up the other slayers, she'd forgotten about the other people living in this hotel altogether.

Angel lay back down in bed, and closed his eyes, drifting off almost instantly. Again, he was woken by another sound - this time coming from his room - his phone. Rolling his eye's and getting out of bed, he crouched to his jeans, and pulled out his cell, opening up the hinge and putting it to his face;

"Angel Investigations - Angel speaking." He answered, as polite as possible.

"Angel - I'm calling from Wolfram&Hart - "

Angel stopped him right there. No way would he talk to the low lifes of the corporation that was Wolfram&Hart. The way they dealt with problems Angel was meant to sort out was appaling, in no way fair to demons and humans alike;

"Whoa whoa whoa, I don't care if you're from Wolfram&Hart. Why should I? You woke me up, in my books that results in me hanging up this phone."

Before the other man at the end of the line could respond, Angel clicked his phone back into place, throwing his phone back onto the bed and sighing.

His head slightly throbbing, the noises of Buffy's relentless training regeme continued, making each throb pulsating ache all the more.

"Give me a break Buffy."

Kennedy

After a couple more minutes of exercises, Kennedy decided that it was time to speak up. "Hey Buffy!" she shouted. "How about if I lead the girls on a quick 2 mile jog to cool down from this? Worst case scenario we could maybe stop an early morning mugging?"

Hopefully Buffy would go for the idea of a jog to finish out the workout. She was ready to get cleaned up and maybe take Willow out to a late breakfast.

Xander

Xander looked at the trouble list that accumulated overnight. "Hey, do you think Laura would mind me telling her that maybe she should get some women's Rogaine? That girl clogs more shower drains with her long hair falling out, she's gonna be bald before she hits 25." he half shouted in Willow's direction.

He looked over at his best friend, watching her watch her girlfriend exercise. It was still a little weird with Willow being gay. It was even odder that he still considered that a "weird" thing, considering the lives that they all led. But he would never let on that fact to his friend, he would never want to hurt his Will.