Humanity
by Espresso Rabbit

Chapter three
As soon as Joan had parted company with Adam and Grace, she had nearly run for the playground.
Just as she had hoped, God was there, in the guise of the geeky little girl with the enormous glasses and horrendous clothes. She was apparently waiting for Joan by the fence. Well, why not? Joan thought. Omniscient, after all.
“Hello, Joan.”
She gulped, and realized she had tears running down her face. “Hi.”
“You’re human.”
For a minute, Joan was so absurdly grateful she was certain she had mis-heard. “I am?”
God nodded. Joan breathed a sigh of relief, and sank down on the grass by the fence. “Then why…did she say I’m not?”
“Willow’s not exactly what you’d call a normal human either. She saw what makes you special; what allows you to see me. She had never seen it before, but she has seen other things, so she interpreted you as being one of those things, rather than what you are.”
“So what am I?” Joan asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“I told you. You’re perfectly human. You wouldn’t be able to see me if you weren’t.”
“So…what did she see about me?”
God sighed. “Can’t you just accept what I tell you and get over it?”
Joan paused slightly. “No?”
God rolled her eyes. “There are only very few people who are able to see me, Joan. It’s not an ability that I give you. Or rather, I give everyone the potential to be able to see me, but only certain people develop that ability into what you have.”
Joan let that sink in for a minute. “So…what’s so special about me?”
“You’re you, Joan.”
“But—”
“Goodbye, Joan.” And the little girl God walked away.
Joan glared after Her for a minute, then she slumped against the fence. Fears allayed, but no real answers. Joan sighed. But she was human. That was a good thing.

Four hours later found Xander slamming the last book closed with a muttered curse. “Nothing.”
Willow and Buffy put their books aside, not having found anything either, and looked at Xander. “There is nothing in the history of this town that makes it good for a mystic focal point. I mean, Sunnydale—Boca del Infierno, right? Arcadia hasn’t had anything to do with anything supernatural since the early eighteenth century, and that’s only if you want to count the Witch Trials, which was before Arcadia was an actual town.”
Buffy sighed and rubbed her temples. “There has to be something. Want to get a feel for the city, then?” Willow and Xander shrugged. “OK…first, let’s find a hotel. Then we can hit the cemetery…according to this, there’s only two in town—which is good for us, but also defies logic if this was a demon town—and we can try to see if there’re any underground clubs or anything. We can also check the mainstays…abandoned factories, burnt out churches. Gee, this’ll be fun.”
Xander and Willow chuckled.

When she woke up, Joan was secure in the knowledge that today could not possibly be any worse than yesterday.
She strolled down to breakfast.
“Oh, look,” Will said as soon as he saw her. “My daughter has decided to grace us with her presence.”
“Umm…okay…morning.”
“Where were you last night?”
“I got back early and went straight to bed. I figured the day couldn’t get any worse if I was asleep.” She slumped into her seat at the table and began picking at her omelet.
Luke glanced up at her. “You did seem kinda out of it yesterday.”
“Really bad day. I’d like to repress now, if you don’t mind.”
“Mr. Price told me about your ‘bad day,’” her mother said. “You were late to four classes, Joan. You’re going to make me think Grace is a bad influence on you.”
Joan nodded. “And to top it all off, on the way home, we ran into some wackos, and one of them said I wasn’t human.”
Helen’s eyes widened. Will had to cough to clear his throat. Kevin was looking skeptical. Luke rolled his eyes. “I knew it.”
Joan smacked him lightly. “I’m human…she just…seemed to think I wasn’t.”
“When you say ‘wackos’…” Will trailed off.
“Just regular weirdos, Dad. Not anything dangerous. I don’t think,” she added, remembering she had thought Willow was dangerous.
“Hmm…all right. But if they bother you again, let me know.” Joan nodded.

Buffy trudged into the dingy motel room just after sunrise. Willow and Xander were already there.
“Nothing,” said Xander. “This town is disgustingly devoid of anything even remotely supernatural.”
“Not entirely true,” Buffy said. “I dusted one vampire. Just the one, though, and I kinda got the impression that I just rid the town of its only undead citizen.”
“So what’s that leave us with?” Willow asked. “All of the churches in town are functioning, but I dropped by anyway. There are a few likely looking industrial buildings, but we checked those…nada. You checked the cemeteries. I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
“Me neither.” Buffy paused thoughtfully. “Back in Sunnydale, there were two places where most everything big happened…”
“The Bronze—of which, I might add, there is no equivalent here…I looked,” Xander groused. “And the high school. Wha—oh.”
Buffy nodded. “What say we go back to school?” Willow was looking dubious. “Unless you have a better idea?”
“No…I don’t. But we are going to need a way to get in. We can’t exactly fake being students.”
Buffy frowned. “Can you hack their system?”
Willow frowned for a moment, then she got the point. She smiled. “What did you have in mind?”

“Having a better day?” Adam asked as he walked up to Joan.
“So far, but we haven’t even had one class yet, so…” She shrugged. “Can’t be much worse than yesterday.”
“Oh, yes it can,” Grace walked up from behind her.
“What?”
“The wackos from the street are here. There in talking to your mom…they’re from the School Review Board.”
“Seriously?”
“That’s what they said. Though I don’t know how Red got a job anywhere.”
“Man,” Joan whined. “Now I have to worry about running into her all day.”
“Don’t worry, Jane. I’m sure she won’t bother you anymore.”
“Let’s hope.”

chapter four

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