I get much joy from that.

You're not alone. I use a UK spellchecker for the current series, and I was absolutely livid to find that it refused to recognise "gobsmack".

I added it. Take that!

Deb, my husband (aka the librarian) asked if I could show him your page, and I can't find the link. Could you post it again?

Website page?

Http://www.deborahgrabien.com

Yes, and thank you. My stupidity knows no bounds today. Your name, yes, that one was really hard to remember.

heh. Listen, I forget it all the time - why shouldn't anyone else?

I always use "normality".

Uhhh, that's all I have. Except that I really love Fay but that's no surprise to anyone.

And all these people posting are making me feel awful and unproductive. I'm holding my hat over a bunch of Things that Aren't True (Willow), for the fic challenge, but I haven't finished yet so I won't post. Because occasionally, I have some self-restraint.

Rebecca, as of this precise moment, I am making with the unpostingness for rather a bit.

Strudel in the oven, salad being prepped, table to set, catboxes to clean, floors to hoover (or electrolux): in short, several people doing the Buffydance at around half past five and I haven't showered yet.

(heading towards chores and cleaner armpits, applauding Rebecca's self-restraint)

more of "Needfire" (note change in last line of first paragraph, continuation of previous):

My mother rang the bell of Carolan. We waited on the doorstep, listening to the echoes shrilling behind the gaily painted red barrier. The door opened, and I got my first look at Richard Giles.

It would be pleasant, soothing to my self-esteem, to look back at that first meeting and say that I saw something, anything, of what was to come. I can't offer myself that sop, however; it would be a lie. I felt nothing at all. Perhaps the rising need in me, the part of me that was Slayer, had taken on enough importance to smother or at least overlay the witch power I had always had. Even now, I don't know.

"You're Amanda?"

At that point, the first warning, the first trip of my web of survival, slid across my nerves. I disliked him - he had opened his mouth and spoken two words, and I disliked him. I disliked the question, which was asinine; how many young girls was he expecting, then? I disliked the voice in which he asked the question. It was a careful voice, coming from a careful mouth. His lips were too thin, without a trace of humour. I disliked how masked off he seemed; that was in part due to the eyeglasses he wore, a thick-lensed pair that I would come to learn, soon enough, was as much a weapon as an aid to vision.

But most of all, I disliked his treatment of my mother. She stood there beside me, her right hand resting on my shoulder, and he did not once turn the reflective glasses her way, or acknowledge her presence. I felt her hand tremble slightly, was aware that the corners of her mouth trembled, and understood that she felt dismissed, humiliated, invisible. A sudden anger came up in me. How dare this arrogant man treat my mother so?

"Of course I'm Amanda," I told the glasses, and watched his jaw tighten. "That's a really silly question. But you ought to be asking my mother that. Haven't you any manners? She's brought me down here and you haven't even said hello, or introduced yourself properly."

My mother swallowed a noise, undefinable, perhaps a protest. The man's thin lips stretched out, and I realised that this was, for him, a genuine smile of amusement.

"Outspoken." He fixed the glasses on me, and I knew what he was trying to do. He must be shown that I wasn't so easily awed, or put inwhat he seemed to think was my place. I fell back on one of my own favourite tricks of intimidation, raising my left eyebrow nearly to my widow's peak, leaving the right eyebrow where it was; that quickly, then, were the lines of battle between us set. His head jerked, then turned to face my mother.

"Mrs. Lisle? Please, come in. The girl is right, my manners need some review. I hope the train down wasn't too stuffy?"

My mother murmured something conventional. I pushed back my habitual exasperation with her timidity. Yes, I understood that she was an unwed mother. Yes, I understood that my father, that black-browed Frenchman whom I remembered from visits when I was very small, had been a man outside the fold, different, with talents and habits outside what the Church would overlook. And yes, I understood her terror of me. How could I not? From the day she had found her toddler daughter muttering in French, a language never spoken in our house and one which I could have had no way of knowing, she had been in terror of me. She watched me grow, my instinctive knowledge of how to manipulate objects, of how to make weather match my moods and a hated terrier who had snapped at her whimper away in protest after a muttered spell. She watched me grow and with me, her own sense of helplessness grew. I understood my mother's desire to stay small and hidden and to not upset anything or anyone, but this took nothing from my impatience, my exasperation, my wish that once, only once, she might stand and face the world and show some inner steel.

I don't remember if I posted this V!Giles bit

At the hospital, Willow kept hold of Tara's good hand, only letting go when Buffy carefully unwound her fingers so the technicians could take Tara to X-ray. Tara's frightened whimpers at being separated didn't help matters.

Willow watched the doors to the radiology department calmly. "Glory's at that apartment house next to the park, right?"

Buffy rubbed her shoulders. "Uh huh, why--Wills, no."'

"Sixth floor, was it?"

"You can't do this, Willow."

The look she got was calm and frightening. "Why not? You're the only one allowed to go after the baddies?" A crack appeared in Willow's composure. "She ate my girl's mind, Buffy. She has to pay."

"And she will! it's just--we're not up to it yet."

"And when will we be? The deadline is dawn, the day after tomorrow. Glory's going through us one at a time, looking for the Key. It's time to do something to her, instead of picking up the pieces of what she does to us. She nearly tore Spike apart, she took Tara's mind--who's next, Buffy? Xander, me, your mom? Dawn herself? What do you expect us to do?"

"I don't know! OK?" Buffy wiped her eyes. "I don't know."

Willow wrapped her arms around herself. "She laughed, Buffy. I saw it. And it hurt Tara. I tried to get through the crowd, and I saw Glory laughing and my baby in pain. It's got to stop."

Buffy went over to hug her. "I know."

They stood like that until Tara was brought back to the treatment room. Tara was crying in fear and reached for Willow.

"I'm here, baby, I'm right here." Willow took Tara's good hand and kissed her forehead.

Someone drew Buffy to one side as a doctor began prepping Tara's hand for a cast. Buffy started to bristle until she recognized the man in scrubs. "Oh, Ben. Hi."

"Hi," Ben said with a tired smile. "You're here a lot."

"Yeah. We ought to get good customer cards, one punch for each yard of bandage or something. Good for free coffee."

"How's your mom?"

Buffy managed to smile. "She's good. We've got her walking and doing small things. It's hard making sure she doesn't do too much."

"She should be fine, then." Ben glanced at Tara, who had her face buried in Willow's shoulder. "I'm sorry about your friend. We're seeing so much of this kind of ... attack. Sometimes I agree with the old timers: Sunnydale's cursed."

"Or something," Buffy agreed.

He fidgeted with his nametag. "You ought to just get out of town, take a break or something."

"A break? A vacation? I can't take a vacation at a time like this." She faded off. Maybe not a vacation, but maybe simply being elsewhere for the next couple of days. "I couldn't leave my mom."

"You wouldn't have to. She wouldn't be up to anything strenuous, but she could certainly sit in the car for a few hours. You've got all her prescriptions, and her therapy is as much simply getting up and moving around as anything else."

Her Slayer heart rebelled at the idea of running away, but the strategy drilled into her saw the wisdom in a tactical withdrawal, taking the Key and all the hostages to fortune as far from Ground Zero as possible.

"That might work," she said to herself.

Ben nodded eagerly. "Get as far away as you can for a couple of days, put all of it behind you. Everything will look differently in a few days."

Hope felt strange after so many days of fear. Buffy bounced up to kiss Ben on the cheek. "Thanks, Ben. A few days' break. And then we can deal with everything." She smiled, and it looked close to natural.

"But why can't she come home with me?" Willow's voice protested. "I can look after her."

"It's just for tonight, miss," the doctor said. "Some of the people who have come down with these ... seizures become violent, and we don't want to risk that. "

Willow continued to run her fingers through Tara's hair. "I don't care, I can take care of her, I can."

"Tomorrow."

There was no shifting them. Tara whimpered and cried when she was put in a wheelchair and pushed away from her lover.

"I'll be back in the morning, Tara," Willow called, trying not to cry. "It's just a few hours."

Ben leaned closer to Buffy. "It might be safer to leave Tara here for a few days. We're set up for dealing with the poor folks like this."

"'Fraid that's not an option." She smiled at him, wishing her life was in a place where she could pay attention to nice young men who did nice things for her. "We'd better go, we've got a lot to do."

"Sure. Don't worry, you'll be fine after a few days away."

He watched Buffy collect the crying Willow and walk away, and he ignored the headache screaming in the back of his mind, a headache that screamed his name and demanded to be free.

"Just a few more days for you, too," he muttered, heading back to the locker room and hoping he could make an escape before Glory broke loose again.

I'm very happy because I know what's coming!!!

I'm going to post my remix story here. It's unbeta'd, and I hope you'll be merciless in your criticism.

[link]

This is the story it is, err, mixed from. Take a look, please, and tell me how the comparison works.