She was so nervous. Brother Duncan had given her a very quick run-down of the process; he had set up the computer on the appropriate windows and stuck post-it’s on all the pertinent pages of the desk guide. He had told her she would do just fine and ushered in the first family in with a smile.
Then he left. How could he leave? She wondered, I can’t do this, I don’t know how to do this., I haven’t done anything like this since I worked for Principal Wood at Sunnydale High, that was years ago. This is important stuff, how could he just leave me all alone to do it. I’m gonna mess it up. She realized that the family was staring at her while she was having her lack-of–confidence-in-herself attack. “ Please, sit down,” She said anxiously, looking at the application card the man handed her, “…Mr. and Mrs... hope I don’t mangle this too much…Ravishankar…God, I really hope that was the last name, not the Ramaling-,ling-,gashar part. She smiled hesitantly as she gestured for them to sit even though there were six of them, counting the children, and only four chairs. “My name is Buffy Summers, how can I help you today?”
“My parents don’t speak English well, but I do.” The girl, who was the oldest of the children spoke, she looked to be about ten or eleven years old with the composure of someone much older, and had stayed standing while the other three children scrambled up on the two remaining chairs left by their parents. “My name is Parvatii, and I usually translate for them.”
“Well, okay, great, Parvatii,” Buffy tried not to wince, it didn’t roll off her tongue quite the same way it did off the girl’s, and she hated messing up people’s names. From the way the little girl smiled back at her, she could tell that she did maul it, but not too badly.
“I’d be very happy if you could translate for me, to them, as well. Would you?”
“Surely,” the girl said back.
Buffy sat down in the chair behind the desk. Well, that’s a start, I guess, she thought.
The scenario repeated itself a total of fourteen times before the line of families waiting in the corridor dwindled to nothing.
“Tired?” Father Francisco asked as he looked over the stack of finished forms and report print outs she handed him.
“Is it like this every day? That was so many.” Buffy commented a little drained by the day’s activities. It had been a few months since she had a ‘day’ job, she had forgotten what it was like and she had also forgotten to take a break which, was sort of on purpose. She didn’t want to keep anybody waiting in the corridor for longer than a quick bathroom trip . So, yeah, I am tired, but a little bit satisfied. She felt like she had done some small bit of good, and without killing any demons – it felt really good.
“School starts in five days, so next week will be just as bad, after that things slowly gets back to normal,” Cisco said, scribbling on a post-it pad and sticking them on a few of the reports.
Buffy thought that‘normal’ was probably pretty hectic too.
“Did I do okay? I hope I didn’t mess them up too badly,” she said craning her neck to see what he was sticking on the reports.
“No, you did well. Missed a few programs here and there on some of them, just supplemental stuff, nothing major. Spike can fix them next week. Overall, you did good.” He tucked the stack into a folder and smiled. “Now, see, it wasn’t that bad was it? You got the hang of it really quick too; we were only expecting you to process about four or five. We can close up shop early and that’s always good on a Friday night. Spike’s got some plans, I think.”
“Really?” She found that idea very pleasing.
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My storyline has Spike as being here at the Mission pretty much since the end of ATS, first both he and Angel recouperated there, having been found by the Monks. Angel left, Spike having no place else to go (again!) stays there. Needless to say, the Monks not wanting an idle vampire on their hands, (scores of trouble, that, especially to the semi-demon oriented Order of Dagon,) put him to work.
Buffy gets a chance to see that she is capable of doing something other than killing and actually feels good about it.
Next up: Trunks, letters, wet pillowcases and bad karaoke.