Act 1

 

Guest Starring:
Stephanie March as Bonnie, Christopher Gartin as Gretz, Elijah Wood as Jeffrey, Brad Dourif as Brell, and Lacey Chabert as Mora

Special cameo appearance by Kelly Donovan as Xander Harris.

Fade In:
Int.
Watchers Council – Kitchen – The Next Morning

The sharp silver knife slammed against the cutting board again and again in quick succession, chopping the tomato into fine pieces. A hand lifted the cutting board over a sizzling skillet on the stove and used the ornately designed knife to scrape the tomatoes into the egg mixture already in the skillet.

Andrew placed the slightly curved blade back down on the cutting board and used a spatula to gently prod the omelet. With a practiced flip, he threw the omelet into the air. It landed half in the skillet and half on the stovetop.

“Oops!” Andrew scrambled for the spatula and hurriedly scooped the rest of the omelet back into the pan. Looking over his left shoulder to make sure that no one had seen his culinary blunder, he turned his attention back to the nearly finished omelet.

“Andrew!” Rowena yelled from the doorway of the kitchen, her voice uncharacteristically loud and angry.

Andrew jumped guiltily, pushing the tomato and egg mixture around nervously. “Sorry about that, but the Naked Chef always made it look so easy, so I thought I’d give it a try. If you won’t tell Willow, I’m sure that –”

“Not the omelet,” Rowena cut it, irritated. “My cardigan.” She held up the offending article and shook it at the would-be cooking show host. “Giles said you did the laundry yesterday, and now look!” She shoved the yellow ball of cloth forward, forcing Andrew to take a step back from the stove.

“Uh, yeah,” he began nervously. “I seem to recall doing laundry. Kinda like a ‘welcome to the good side, glad you turned from the evil Old Guard’ present,” Andrew smiled, hoping to pacify Rowena.

“By ruining my favorite cardigan?” Rowena demanded icily, her composure restored to some degree. “This is made of wool and you shrunk it and dyed it yellow,” she spat the color out with a disgusted look on her face.

“Yellow is a nice color, it goes good with your hair,” Andrew grinned nervously. “A-and it’s the color of sunshine and, and buttercups and…Uh…”

“Regardless,” Rowena broke through Andrew’s fumbling, holding the garment up against her chest. It resembled a doll’s sweater in size. “Hue aside, I am not a cabbage patch kid.”

“I’m sorry. I could get you a new one?” Andrew offered, omelet forgotten behind him.

“I don’t think so. Chances are you’d damage that one as well,” sniffed Rowena. She left the kitchen, brushing quite coolly past Faith, who suddenly stopped at the counter.

“Not even a month and already – Maaan!” Faith rushed over to a bewildered Andrew, who was still holding the spatula and standing a foot from the stove. She snatched up the silver knife Andrew had been using as a cleaver and pointed it at Andrew. “It’s gonna take me hours to get it sharp again!”

Faith drew the blade of the knife across her thumbnail, testing its edge. “Make that days!”

“I’m s-sorry,” Andrew apologized again. “It’s just that your knives are way sharper than anything else we have around here. Makes cooking much easier.”

“Not that easy,” Faith shot over her shoulder as she rifled through cabinets and drawers to search for a whetstone. “You’re burning.”

“Burning?” Andrew turned his attention back to the stove, where his omelet was indeed sending off clouds of smoke. “Ah!” He quickly grabbed the skillet from the stove and dumped the charcoaled mess into the trash.

Faith, having found a whetstone, leaned against the farthest wall of the kitchen, sharpening her knife. It made an unpleasant scraping sound that caused Andrew to flinch as he rummaged through the fridge for fresh ingredients.

“Could you please do that quieter?” Andrew pleaded, placing a carton of eggs and a jug of milk on the counter next to the stove. “It’s making my fillings hurt.”

“You wanna do it for me?” Faith held out the knife.

“I have to cook,” Andrew said with self-importance. “And you know you get them sharper than I ever could. Maybe you could sharpen the set we bought for the kitchen?” he asked hopefully.

“Fat chance.” Faith continued, scraping the knife against the stone.

“What’s burning?” Kennedy inquired as she followed Robin into the kitchen. She made a beeline for the fridge, pulled out a carton of orange juice and began drinking from it.

“It was an omelet,” Andrew said dejectedly, giving the skillet one last bang against the edge of the plastic trash bin. “But Faith took my, I mean, her knife, and I accidentally dyed Rowena’s favorite cardigan yellow, so I got a little distracted.”

“Not the silver one with the inscription?” Robin asked, leaning against the counter closest to Faith.

Andrew nodded glumly.

Robin whistled in sympathy. “And we’re goin’ to get more slayers today. Not a good day for you to dull her favorite knife. Come to think of it, no day would be a good day.”

“You know it, baby,” Faith winked at her boyfriend, who grinned in return. She continued scraping metal against the stone, sharpening the silver knife.

“Andrew!” Willow’s voice echoed all the way downstairs from Andrew’s media room.

“Today just isn’t your day,” Kennedy noted as she jumped up to sit on the counter. “She sounds pissed.”

“Andrew!” Willow repeated as she came running into the kitchen. “What is this?” she demanded, thrusting a videotape in Andrew’s face, much the same as Rowena had done.

“Uh, a tape?” Andrew hedged, trying to get a look at the label on the side of the tape.

“This is last night’s security tape! I told you to make sure to change the tape at midnight, remember? You promised me that you would remember to put in the new blank tape!” Willow fumed. “How will our security cameras work if there are no tapes in them? Huh?” She pushed the tape into Andrew’s chest as she backed him against the stove.

“Well, there are still the wards,” Andrew pointed out, trying to step away from Willow’s wrath.

“But if someone is invited across, the wards won’t do anything! And anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I asked you to do this for me and you didn’t.” Willow stared seriously at Andrew, who hung his head, spatula held loosely in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, ashamed.

“Look, I don’t wanna make you feel bad, but if you’re gonna stick with this whole doin’ good thing, you have to remember to do the good,” she continued. “What were you making for breakfast anyway?” Willow abruptly changed the subject, looking up at the smoke that circled around the fluorescent lights in the kitchen.

“Omelets,” Andrew smiled proudly. “At least, until I got distracted by…oh, forget it… but to answer your question, I was making omelets. You like yours with just tomatoes, right?”

“Yeah, I do. Only you know it’s gonna be a lot of work making omelets for everyone.”

“Oh I didn’t make omelets for everyone,” Andrew assured her. “Everyone else just has scrambled eggs. Omelets are reserved for high command.”

“So where’s mine?” Faith demanded from the corner.

“And mine?” Kennedy grinned, joining in.

“I like mine with green peppers, onions and shredded cheddar cheese,” Robin volunteered. “Remember, no meat – veggies only.”

“How you can eat an omelet without ham or bacon is beyond me,” Faith said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“You go right ahead and eat the flesh of any dead, diseased animal you like, Faith. I don’t begrudge your choices, so don’t begrudge mine,” Robin countered.

“Sorry, but humans are carnivores. It’s why we have teeth.” She growled and nipped toward Robin for emphasis before breaking out into a grin.

“I refuse to debate this again,” he told her as he poured a cup of coffee.

“It’s ironic,” Faith told Kennedy. “He feels sorry for Bessy the cow on my plate, yet he loves how hot I look in my leather pants.”

“That’s different,” Robin replied.

“Oh yeah, how so?” Faith countered.

Robin sidestepped the question and turned to Andrew. “So, how ’bout them omelets?”

Faith chuckled in victory as Andrew looked startled for a moment before regaining his composure.

“When I finish with Willow’s, I’ll start on everyone else’s. I can only do one at a time.” He reached over to the eggs and cracked the first one into a glass bowl by the stove. He reached back over for a second egg and held it at the edge of the bowl, ready to crack it, but another inarticulate sound of anger and frustration from outside the kitchen startled him and he smashed the egg roughly against the glass, sending shell in along with egg.

“Andrew!” Giles roared as he came storming into the kitchen. Rowena followed after him and moved toward the fridge to pour herself a glass of apple juice. For good measure she stopped and showed Andrew that she was forced to wear a different sweater.

Busy picking bits of shell out of the bowl, Andrew flinched and slowly turned around to face Giles.

Giles’s collared shirt was streaked with oil and dirt and his glasses were tilted slightly to one side, before he angrily ripped them from his nose. “When were you going to tell me that the service light was on in my car?”

Willow coughed rather pointedly, forcing Giles to rephrase but not to calm down. “On the Aston Martin?”

Andrew laughed nervously. “Well, that’s kinda funny…” His chuckle died under Giles’s withering stare. “Uh, but not really. I was gonna tell you, really, but uh, you were so reluctant to let me drive it in the first place, I thought you might think that I had done it.”

“Well now you really have done it, haven’t you?” Giles reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to clean his glasses, only to realize the handkerchief was also grimy and oily. He stuffed it back into his pocket and angrily refitted his glasses on his nose. “I’ll have to call the mechanic this morning.”

“Did anyone escape from the clutches of Andy the Klutz?” Faith asked rhetorically.

“Hey!” Andrew protested, hands slippery with egg from picking out broken bits of shell. “That wasn’t very nice. It might be true,” he sniffed with injured pride, “but it wasn’t nice.”

“Truth hurts, pal,” Faith smiled toothily, giving her knife one last scrape against the whetstone. She tossed the stone across the kitchen and it landed on the counter with a heavy thud, making Andrew jump.

“We gotta get goin’, Babe, if we’re gonna make it to Niagara before nightfall,” Robin told her.

“Right, we’re off, boys and girls,” Faith pushed off from leaning against the wall and stood next to Wood. “Keep Martha over there away from my knives while I’m gone,” she told Kennedy as she handed the blade over to her.

“Good luck.” Willow smiled as Faith and Robin left the kitchen, waving over her shoulder.

Rowena sat at the table, sorting through the morning mail, when something caught her eye. “Hey, guys. It’s your favorite absentee slayer,” she said, waving a postcard. “She’s at Mount Rushmore.”

Willow came over and Rowena handed it to her so she could read it.

“Ooh, Buffy says that she’s getting bored with the US and is thinking about going back to Europe after the holidays!” Willow read excitedly.

“Who’s going to Europe?” Rachel asked as she entered the kitchen.

“Woah,” Kennedy walked back to the kitchen doorway and laid a strong hand on the other slayer’s shoulder. “You know better, midget. Get back in the dining hall where you belong.”

“Where’s breakfast? We’re starving out there.”

Kennedy nodded back to Andrew. “There’s been a slight delay. Now go on.”

Rachel gave Kennedy a look that would have frozen the blood of anyone but a slayer. “Fine,” she huffed and stalked away.

“Kids these days,” Kennedy sighed, to which Giles could only shake his head.

“Wait until she’s pushing 50,” Giles muttered to Rowena as he cleaned his glasses. “Everyone is practically a kid.”

Rowena looked up briefly to give him a smile before starting to sort the mail again.

“Well,” Kennedy began, “since Andrew can’t seem to get breakfast finished up, I’m taking the girls on a run.” She tapped Andrew gently on the shoulder. “And if I were you, I’d have it ready by the time we get back. You don’t want to have 30 tired, hungry slayers beating down your kitchen door,” she instructed as she walked out of the kitchen.

A door slammed further down the hall a few moments later, indicating she had left the building.

“Woo!” Andrew pumped his fist in the air in exultation. “Flipped it perfect!” He opened the cabinet closest to the stove and pulled out a plate. He gently shook the omelet from the skillet and placed the skillet back on the stove. He held the plate out proudly in front of Willow. “Ta daaa!”

It was then that he noticed a bowl of cereal in front of her nearly gone. His shoulders slumped in defeat and she just shrugged.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “I got hungry.”

“I’m going to call the mechanic before anything else is damaged,” Giles announced as he left the kitchen for his office.

Willow turned to Rowena, who was watching the procedures with a studied mask of calm.

“So, um, I was thinking we could get working on some lesson plans tonight? After Giles has his crisis-mobile fixed, that is.”

Rowena grinned at the expression.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” she answered. Andrew silently offered the omelet to Rowena before she could return to her task. “Sorry Andrew, egg allergy, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” he sighed, defeated.

“Ruins my clothes and now he’s trying to kill me,” Rowena muttered to Willow.

“Well he was an evil genius,” she countered.

“Very sly, how his mind works,” Rowena said as she joined in Willow’s mock speculation. “He must be our secret weapon.”

The two gave a light chuckle as Andrew sat down and began to eat the omelet, having had no takers.

“So how’s Mr. Robson in England?” Willow asked with curiosity.

“Good,” Rowena answered. “There are only some days he has to walk with a cane. Just the rainy ones.”

“The man lives in England. So that’s like, what…?”

“All but three days out of every month, I’m sure,” Rowena replied with a chuckle. “But I didn’t point that out. I can play the role of optimist when need be,” she answered with a grin that Willow returned in kind.

“We could start those lesson plans after dinner, I think. Giles shouldn’t be tied up, but will you be ready?” Willow asked her.

“Ready and waiting,” Rowena flashed a quick smile before she turned to Andrew, who had his fork perched at his lips. “By the way, for my order, I’d like some oatmeal please – cinnamon and maple syrup,” she informed him as she left the kitchen for the less hazardous dining hall.

“Oh goody, more work,” Andrew mumbled despondently to himself, looking down at the rapidly cooling tomato omelet as he stood to throw it out and prepare Rowena’s breakfast request.

“Andrew…Are you ok?” Willow asked sincerely as she studied his despondent demeanor.

“What do you mean?” Andrew suddenly looked worried. “Do I look sick?” He looked around the kitchen for something with a reflective surface.

“No, no, I mean, with all the mistakes and stuff. You’re usually not this…” Willow waved a vague hand in the air. “Spacey. You’re Mr. Big Boards and Organization King.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just…there’s a lot of stuff to do,” Andrew slouched against the counter, holding the plate loosely in his hand. “I’m feelin’ kinda overwhelmed…I guess it’d be nice to have someone like Rowena, you know? She helps you out with your watcher and magic stuff and…you know. I am sorry about the tape, though.”

“Look, everyone has rough days,” Willow looked sympathetic. “But you just have to tough it out. We’re all feeling kinda overwhelmed at the moment, so you’re not alone.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Andrew reluctantly agreed. “I mean it would be great if I had a hired hand here. The Slayerettes help out, sure, but it’s not the same.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary just yet. You’re just having one of those weeks but it’ll all work out, you’ll see,” Willow smiled confidently. “And uh, Andrew?”

“Yeah?” He looked hopeful.

“If you don’t have the slayers’s breakfast finished before they return, don’t let Kennedy give you any guff.”

“Easier said than done,” he countered.

“If she does, you tell her to come see me,” she told him.

“That’s okay,” Andrew answered. “I can handle it. Besides, you guys have got enough friction right now. I don’t want to be another cause.”

“You noticed, huh?”

“Well when two people go from playing tonsil hockey when saying goodbye to…well, not so much as a wave, it’s noticeable.”

Willow just gave an audible sigh. “Yeah, but my offer still stands, okay?”

Andrew gave a slight grin. “Thanks, Willow.”

Fade in:
Int.
Watchers Council – Lounge – That Evening

With a dramatic sigh, Andrew sat his graphic novel on the arm of his chair and stared dejectedly at the empty room. He could hear the sounds of Kennedy and the other slayers coming from the training rooms in the back, filling the room with shouts and laughter.

He got up and made his way toward Giles’s office, hoping that the teachers’s conference was finished. He stood outside the door and listened for a few minutes, an optimistic expression on his face.

“Don’t you think that’s too advanced?” Rowena asked, sounding uncertain.

“No, I think it’s just right. They’ll be wanting to know how it all works and if we don’t tell them, they’ll probably start experimenting,” Willow asserted.

“So that’s the second semester finished.” Giles sounded as though he was trying to keep the meeting efficient. “What shall we start with next?”

Andrew’s expression darkened as he realized they still had more to plan. He turned from the door and stared down the hall, as though willing someone to appear.

Jeffrey answered Andrew’s silent summons, as the teen walked down from the teacher quarters again, heading in the direction of the main entrance.

“Jeff!” Andrew almost ran down the hall. “What’re you doing? Wanna catch a movie or something?”

“Well, um…” The dark-haired teen looked uncomfortable. “I-have-a-date-again,” he said quickly.

It took Andrew a few minutes to decipher what Jeffrey had said. “Oh,” he finally said. “That’s cool, I guess.”

“Look,” Jeffrey added quickly, his face sincere. “I mean it. Next week, we’ll go see Return of the King, I promise.”

“Really?” Andrew’s face lit up. “It’s a date!” Jeffrey suddenly looked extremely uneasy and Andrew quickly amended his statement, “I mean, uh, yeah, that’ll be cool.”

“Cool,” Jeffrey smiled. “Bye!” He waved at Andrew.

“Bye!” Andrew waved back, temporarily uplifted by the thought of their Guys Night Out. But as he stood in the hall alone for a few minutes, his euphoria slowly faded.

“Bye,” he repeated sadly, looking left and right for someone else to appear.

“Looks like I have to make my own fun,” he said to himself, depressed.

Fade In:
Int.
Watchers Council – Library – Later

Andrew sat cross-legged in the library, surrounded by books and shelves filled with even more books. He reached to his left, picked up a book bound in green, flipped through the pages half-heartedly and sighed. He placed the book on his left and reached for another on his right, one with gold writing on the cover.

He skimmed through the chapter listings and put the book down on his left. Andrew sighed again and slouched down, his hands flopping against his legs.

“If Willow won’t find me help, I’ll get it myself,” he told himself with authority.

He picked up another book and flipped open the blue cover, then slid his thumb along the pages, making them fan out. One page, which had come loose from the binding, flew out and landed on the pile of books on Andrew’s left.

Andrew picked up the page and read the top, “For the Summoning of One Who Knows of…um…hang on, I know that word…” He thought deeply for a moment, lips moving silently as he mentally translated the words. “Of Small Things! That’ll be great for extra help and company!” His eyes lit up and he continued reading, ticking off the spell ingredients.

“Have it…Have it…Have it…Have it! This is easy!” He jumped up with the piece of paper clutched tightly in his hands and left the blue book sitting on the pile.

The title of the book read, in barely legible, cracked writing, “Lesser Known Demons and Devils.”

Cut to:
Int.
Watchers Council – Storage Room – A Few Minutes Later

“Four lodestones to be placed at each corner of the outline,” Andrew read from the faded piece of paper.

“Lodestones, lodestones,” mumbled Andrew as he ran his finger along the shelf in the storage room. There were neatly packaged bags of herbs, jars of various items floating in opaque liquids and rocks of all shapes and sizes lining the shelves.

Each object was meticulously labeled with sticky tags printed from a computer and placed in alphabetical order in the cool and dimly lit concrete room on the Council’s lower level.

Andrew found “Lodestones” next to “Loganberries, Dried and Fresh,” and Andrew grabbed four palm-sized gray stones and stuck them in his pocket.

“…Chalk for outline…” Andrew said to himself, sticking three sticks of sidewalk chalk in his pocket with the stones. “…Sage…” He put a small packet of herbs in his back pocket. “…And the bones of a hero.” He lifted a massive bone off one of the bottom shelves and slung it over his shoulder like a caveman, leaving the storage room.

“Urg, bone heavy,” he grunted with a small giggle, amused by his own humor.

Cut to:
Int.
Watchers Council – Coven Room – Minutes Later

Laden with the ingredients for his summoning spell, Andrew traipsed inside the room and squatted down on the floor, setting the leaf from the book by his feet. Very carefully, he began to trace the design from the spell onto the gray floor with bright blue sidewalk chalk.

The design was of a square,with an upside down V inside and a horizontal line cutting the square in half. It was very easy and did not take Andrew long to complete.

Taking great pains not to smudge the outline of the square, Andrew got up with the paper stuffed into his jeans pocket and picked up the stones, sage and bone.

With perfect, anal-retentive accuracy, Andrew placed one of the four lodestones at each corner of the square and laid the bone across the horizontal line in the center of the square.

Pulling a handful of sage from the plastic bag, he dug out the paper from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, not unlike flipping omelets, he tossed the herbs into the air over the symbol. Then he haltingly began to recite the words written on the page.

As he spoke, the falling herbs turned into sparks of light that swirled around the bone in the middle of the square, cycling tighter and tighter as Andrew gained confidence and chanted the words with more authority.

The sparks reflected the blue of the chalk outline, turning the square into a blazing blue cyclone of magic. The room filled with a roaring noise, like the far-off sound of the sea, as Andrew shouted the last word of the spell.

“Elte!”

The sparks and noise vanished as though someone had flipped a switch. The bone was gone from the center of the chalk outline.

In its place stood a human-looking woman, who wore a white dress draped around her like a toga. Long black hair cascaded down her back. Andrew’s eyes widened, as if he found her very attractive despite her strange, faintly iridescent mauve skin.

“What is your desire…” she smiled widely, stepping out of the square and sidling up to Andrew. “…Master?”

“Uh, Master?” Andrew squeaked. He squirmed to try to avoid her hand, which was winding itself around his upper arm.

Black Out

 

End of Act One