willow_25 | Story: The Office Hellmouth, Part 2 (Reply)

I'll bet none of you thought you'd see this story again, did you?

When I started writing it, at the request/urging of happynonoplace, it was supposed to be finished in two parts. Then it ran away with me. So, I'm posting what I have now, because I feel bad about the lack of fic lately. There are a few sentences after this, then a large void. Hopefully, it'll be finished one day. In the meantime, please let me know what you think.

Part 1 Here

Monday (Eleventh Day)

"Good morning, Buffy. How was your weekend?" Carol waved, giving the younger woman a big smile as she blew through the lobby, knocking a magazine off the lounge table and slamming her office door as she went.

Cindi and Buffy, who were standing and chatting near the reception desk, looked at each other. "What the heck was that about?" Buffy asked, once the shock had worn off.

Cindi shook her head. "Sometimes, she's crazy hard on people because she's taken a disturbing liking to them. Then again, she's also hard on people she hates, and people she doesn't care about. She seems to like you, though. She stopped being friendly to me once I put my foot down and told her I wouldn't stay here until eleven and do her odd jobs, if she was only paying me to be here until 8."

"Wait, I thought you only had to stay until 11 because that was the earliest you could get a ride?"

"That's true. And, I would never ask for overtime if I was just sitting here waiting for my hubby. But, once she knew that I could be suck here until 11, she had me doing all these special projects; a couple of nights John had to wait for me to finish. And she was only willing to pay me until 8, even though she was calling to give me work later than that. So, I said I wanted to be paid for the additional overtime, and suddenly I get no overtime at all."

Buffy shook her head. "I'm sorry, Cindi. I could say no the next time she asks me to stay, if you need the time…"

Cindi smiled. "Don't worry about me, sweetie; I have another breadwinner at home. You just take care of you. Now, you better get back to your desk 'fore the bitch-on-wheels sees you standing here."

*********

Buffy knocked hesitantly on Carol's door. Bringing the fight to the enemy was her specialty, the Slayer reminded herself, although that thought didn't seem to help much. "Carol?"

Carol looked up from checking her e-mail. "Yes, Buffy?"

"I have the first couple of hotel contracts for you to sign." Buffy handed Carol the stack of papers. "The Radisson said that rate would only be good for a week, so we need to get the contract back to them, ASAP. None of the others have a special timeline, except for our fiscal year."

"What does our fiscal year have to do with anything?" Carol looked at her blankly.

Buffy blinked. How could she handle this without upsetting the crazy woman who thought she was a moron? "Well, so you'll know how much to put in the travel budget for next year, or something."

"Hotel costs come out of the office the person works at; the hotels here have nothing to do with our budget." Carol frowned. "And, this contract commits us to 100 rooms a year at the Radisson. We'll only use about 30. See if you can get the same rate for 30 rooms. We don't want to go over budget."

Buffy bit her tongue to avoid a snarky response, until she could taste blood.

*********

Tuesday (Sixteenth Day)

"Great, as soon as I get it, I'll have my boss look it over, and get back to you." Buffy smiled, even though the perky voice on the other end of the phone couldn't see her. "Thanks so much, LaTasha. Bye."

Buffy pushed her chair back from the desk, and went to get more coffee and check the fax machine. Carol walked into the kitchen a few seconds behind her.

"Hi, Carol." Buffy smiled. The hotel thing had been relatively painless, and if this contract passed Carol's specifications, she was officially done. All of her other job responsibilities had gotten easier with practice, and she was getting to know more people. Things were looking way up. Especially after she'd caught up on some bills last Friday.

"Buffy. I've noticed that you're doing more socializing lately. Spending time talking to people, chatting on the phone. I know you're young, Buffy, and you're outgoing, and you don't have a lot of experience in the workplace; but your behavior is not professional. This is not social hour, Buffy, nor is it high school. Please remember that, okay?"

Buffy nodded. She felt herself blushing; which was silly, because she knew she hadn't done anything wrong. Suddenly, taking an extra minute in the break room seemed like a bad idea. Buffy decided to go hang out by the fax machine. With a murmured good-bye, Buffy fled her boss as quickly as she could without using Slayer powers.

With the pile of neatly sorted incoming faxes in hand, Buffy took the stairs down to the mail room, to avoid passing Carol’s office on the way to the elevator. Trent smiled as she walked into view. “Hey, little girl, wassup?”

Normally, Buffy would have kicked the ass of any man who called her a little girl, but Trent was sweet and helpful, and nearly old enough to be her grandfather, so he got a little slack. “Trent; you don’t think I’m too social around the office, do you?”

Trent chuckled. “Miss Buffy, I see you a heck of a lot less than I see Julia, or any of the secretaries for that matter. Did Carol say something to you?”

Buffy nodded. She didn’t want to start saying bad things about Carol, or about Julia the other Office Assistant for that matter. After all, you never knew who was listening.

“I think the trouble is, you need to watch which people you spend time with, not how much time you spend with them. If you’re talking to one of the salesmen in the breakroom, Carol can’t say anything; you talking to Julia or Cindi, who don’t have any boss but her, she’s free to go on a power trip. Cindi and me, she doesn’t like so much, either.”

Buffy sighed. So, it was like Xander seeing her with Spike. Great. “Thanks, Trent. Any packages going out?”

“Not at the moment; Darnell’s at the post office, when he does the delivery and pick-up around the desks later I’ll know better. I’ll e-mail.”

Buffy smiled and waved her way out of the mail room, and headed back up the stairs. Maybe she’d ask Spike for advice. After all, he was used to dealing with crazy people.

********

At 3:00 p.m., Buffy got an e-mail from Carol, asking her to reply to a woman in the LA office who had a question about a check. Buffy was a little confused about why the woman had contacted Carol when she was the one who sorted the incoming checks, but she gamely looked up the information and wrote a reply that was as clear and concise as she could make it. She even sent a draft to Robin for some feedback. When the e-mail was finished, she sent it, forwarding a copy to Carol.

Half an hour later, Carol sent a new e-mail, asking the same question that the woman from LA had asked in the previous e-mail. Buffy wanted to cry. She sat there for a moment, trying to figure out what to do, but nothing came to her. Finally, she copied and pasted her previous note into a reply, and sent that. It just wasn’t worth figuring out a better way to say the same thing.

Carol’s reply was one word: “Thanks!”

********

When Buffy took Carol her draft correspondence an hour later, Carol didn’t acknowledge her presence at all; the older woman was hunched over her keyboard, ferociously typing. Buffy quietly retreated, figuring she’d call in a little while and ask if the letters were okay as they were. Then, Robin had a pile of emergency typing that she needed help with, and Buffy was already late for the afternoon breakroom clean-up when she finished that. Then Trent brought her a package to deliver to a 24-hour market on her way home, and had to give her instructions. It was almost quitting time when Buffy remembered to call Carol.

“Hello?”

Oh goody, she’s annoyed already. “Hey, Carol, I was just wondering if those letters I brought in earlier were okay to send. I can get them on letterhead before I leave, if they’re good.”

“You didn’t bring me any letters earlier.”

Buffy took a deep breath. “They’re in your inbox, in a binder clip, on plain paper, with a purple post-it note on top asking if they need edits.”

“I can’t find them, could you please print me out another set?”

It wasn’t that she minded overtime, the money would come in handy, but it would be better for Dawn if she was home at the same time every night. Then again, she remembered Cindi’s words about not getting overtime anymore once she complained. “No problem, I’ll be one second.”

Buffy re-printed the stack of letters, put them in another binder clip, and wrote another note asking for approval. When she reached Carol’s office, the woman held out the previous stack of papers to her. “I found them!” She declared with a grin.

The Slayer hoped her smile looked better than it felt. “Great! I’ll just put these on letterhead for you, and be right back,” she said in her perkiest voice, turning on her heel and carrying both stacks back to her desk.

Buffy rushed to complete the few edits, then stood over the printer, making sure everything printed out neatly. She rushed back to Carol’s office, only five minutes late heading home…And was confronted with a locked door.

She peeked her head around the corner at the reception desk, finding only the night receptionist. “Jean, did Carol leave?”

She nodded. “Yeah, she blew out of here a few minutes ago. Maybe ten?”

Which was about two minutes after Buffy walked out, saying she’d be right back with the edited letters. Buffy trudged back to her desk. There had to be an easier way to get money.

********

"I could beat up some fledges, get them to kill her." Spike glanced sideways at the Slayer, in case he needed to duck a punch. When no punch was forthcoming he returned his full attention to his cigarette. "Or, just to threaten her, run her out of town."

Buffy sighed. Sometimes it was very hard to peg Spike as the bad guy; especially when she'd had the same thoughts herself. Except, in her case, she delivered all beatings and murders personally. "Thanks, but no. That would be wrong. I just have to find a way of dealing with her that doesn't involve maiming or killing her, or me getting fired. It's actually a great job, except for her."

"Well, then, the best advice I can give for dealing with someone so obviously insane, is just to agree with everything she says, then do the right thing even if that's the opposite of what she told you." Spike took a chance on her friendly mood holding, and swung his right arm over her shoulders, pulling her close against his side. "I know what'll cheer you up. How 'bout after patrol we rent a flick and go back to your place. I can see Dawn, and when the rest of 'em are off to bed, I'll give you a massage. Promise to clear out before it gets too late, you don't need to be up all night just now."

Buffy leaned into the vampire. It was wrong, she knew that, being with Spike was bad…But so little in her life felt good right now. Why shouldn't there be something in her life that was just fun, and felt good? He'd toned down the asshole vibe a lot the past few weeks; and, since when had anyone else offered to spend time just sitting with her? And a massage did sound wonderful right now, between work stress and Slaying stress she felt like one big knot.

"Fine, but I get to pick the movie."

"No, you know what we should get? '9 to 5'."

"Never heard of it."

Spike smiled. "It's about a bunch of women getting revenge on their evil boss. You'll love it." As Spike elaborated on the silly charms of the movie in question, a fledge came flying at them from the left. He staked it without removing his arm from her shoulders, and continued talking as he steered them towards the video store downtown.

Buffy let him. Everything required too much thinking and doing and…Just too much effort. Someone else should be making an effort, too. Even if that someone was Spike.

********

Wednesday (Nineteenth Day)

That morning, for no reason anyone could determine, a rash of e-mails on office policy went out to the staff. Most of them were straightforward, some more convoluted, and one or two were downright silly. Buffy had spotted at least two blatant contradictions, and Robin assured her that one e-mail said the direct opposite of a previous memo from the company’s President.

“How can Carol say no children are allowed in the office, when Mr. Schmidt says we support ‘Take Your Daughter to Work Day’? What she should have said was, ‘the secretary sitting next to you is not your babysitter’, or ‘emergency situations and company events only’.” Robin shook her head in disgust, and headed back to her desk.

Child care was one problem Buffy didn’t have; now that she could afford cell phones for both of them (and Spike), she could always keep track of Dawn and make sure she was with an adult…Or vampire. Her biggest worry was overtime. One message said that overtime must be approved by Carol; another said action was being taken to reduce overtime. Buffy had been working lots of extra hours, always at Carol’s request. Did she need to submit her overtime for approval by the same person who asked her to stay? Did this mean she’d actually be going home on time more often?

Not that overtime wasn't great; her second paycheck had left Buffy giddy with the lack of worry over bills, but she still felt bad about foisting Dawn off. Though Spike had been making an effort to get her home at a decent hour, she still felt like she wasn't spending enough time with the Scoobies or Dawn. An extra couple of hours in the afternoon would make a difference.

Buffy finished checking her morning e-mails, then went to get coffee. In the kitchen she encountered Sonja, one of the Accounts Receivable clerks, who asked Buffy if she could help with monthly billing. It sounded fairly simple, just like the letters she did already, so Buffy agreed and Sonja said she'd speak to Carol about it.

She was now off morning break room and kitchen duty; Julia had taken over, leaving Buffy afternoons; which Buffy thought was kind of unfair. Her work with the marketing department picked up in the afternoon, as did her duties assisting in the mailroom. Then again, having an excuse not to deliver packages meant she could go home on time more, which would be good for Buffy and Dawn, as well as the company's 'overtime reduction' plan.

As Buffy strolled up to her desk, eager to finish off the last few things from yesterday before she went to cover Cindi's morning break, Carol came storming around the corner and nearly mowed her down. Buffy attempted to use her superior reflexes to dodge out of her boss' way, but the older woman teetered on her high heels, seeming to follow Buffy as she moved. The end result was Buffy on her ass on the floor, and her fresh cup of coffee all over Carol.

For a second, Buffy felt like a kid on the playground who had just managed to piss off the school bully. She could literally see the storm clouds gathering around the older woman's head. At first, neither of them moved or spoke, though Robin rushed over to hand Carol napkins and help Buffy to her feet. By the time the Slayer was standing, Carol had found her voice.

"Buffy, can I see you in my office for a minute, please?"

Buffy tried not to look like she was panicking, and followed her boss into her office. Part of her wanted to apologize, even though it hadn't been her fault, but she kept her mouth shut and waited for the outburst.

"I'm going to have to write you up for running in the halls. Now, this isn't elementary school; we're all grown-ups, but running around the office can create dangerous situations, and accidents will raise our insurance rates. So, I need to write you up."

Buffy nodded, willing herself not to get upset. Not worth reasoning with the insane, she remembered Spike saying. And he'd know, he had lived with the loony for a hundred years. So Buffy allowed herself to receive a citation for an accident that wasn't her fault. Somehow, she felt better about not apologizing now.