Three Coffees and a Destiny to Go

Three Coffees and a Destiny to Go

Title: Three Coffees and a Destiny to Go

Author: Bastard Snow

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: I don't own any of this. Joss owns his stuff. The other stuff is owned by somebody else. Not me.

Timeframe: Post S7 Buffy, umm... I guess set during the first episode of this season for GG.

Summary: Willow, Xander and Buffy are driving around finding new Slayers. They stop at a little town in Connecticut. . .

A/N: Thanks to Drake (as always) for Beta'ing, and suggesting the title, and catching a very significant error that would have just ruined the whole thing. This story kinda took over my head for the past couple days, so I just chugged it out.

Pairings: Just some friendship stuff for the Scoobs. Otherwise. . . who knows?

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"Slow day."

Luke looked up and saw a young, dark-haired man, no more than 25 years old, sitting at the counter, with an eye-patch over his left eye, a big bag under his right, and a lopsided smile on his face.

"It's an off hour," Luke said, returning the smile.

"What's good in this place?" asked the stranger.

"Nothin'" Luke said, judging the man to be of good humor. "Unless you like grease or coffee."

The young man grinned. "You just said the magic word. One for me and two to go?" Luke nodded. "I've been driving almost twelve hours," the young man said. "My friends decided they don't need licenses."

"Female travelers?" Luke asked.

The young man rolled his eye in response.

"I know the feeling. I'm Luke by the way."

"Xander. Nice to meet you."

"So where do you hail from?" Luke asked as he set down one mug of coffee and two to-go cups.

"California," Xander said, sipping his coffee. "At least originally. We recently relocated to Cleveland."

"Big change. How come?"

"We run a very specialized school, and our benefactor wanted us to set up in Cleveland, so Cleveland it was. Go where the money wants," Xander said as he dropped two sugars and two milks into one of the to-go cups.

"What school?" Luke asked.

Xander smiled and poured three milks and one sugar into the other coffee. "You won't have heard of it. It's very new, and extremely selective. We're actually in town hoping to talk to a uh. . . potential student."

"You don't look much like a teacher, no offense."

"It's a unique curriculum."

"Must be."

The door to the diner opened.

"Xander!" yelled an attractive young blonde woman who stood in the doorway

"What?" he asked without turning around.

"We told you three minutes! It's been at least twice that."

Xander grinned at Luke. Luke decided it was the grin of a man who was about to risk his life.

"Dammit woman! I'm drinking coffee!" Xander yelled.

The blonde looked insulted, affronted, angry and oddly in good humor. All these emotions played out across her face as Xander held up four fingers where Luke could see, and put one down each second. When all the fingers were down, the blonde looked hopeful.

"Coffee?"

Xander smiled and held out one of the to-go cups. With surprising speed, the young woman approached the counter and snagged the cup of coffee from Xander's hands.

"Does it have -- "

"Yes, Buffy. Three creams, one sugar, just the way you like it," Xander said.

The young woman grinned, kissed Xander on the cheek. "Thank you," she said with a silly grin. Xander handed her the other cup as well.

"That's for Willow," he said softly. "Did you find the address?"

"No, Willow's working on it. Still trying to figure out this Rory's last name."

Xander shook his head. "Every time you say that I look for my uncle to show up."

Luke was immediately on guard. "Did you say Rory?" he asked.

"Yeah, she's the student we're looking for," Xander said. "You know her?"

"I know pretty much everybody," Luke said. "What kind of school is this, *exactly*?"

Xander was a little surprised at Luke's suddenly harsh tone, but plugged on anyway.

"Like I said, it's a very specialized school. The girls we recruit are all very special girls, with specific skills that we help them hone. If you could give us her address, you'd save us a lot of trouble." Xander smiled.

"Rory's committed to Yale," Luke said with a slight glare.