(Takes place during and after S6.5 ‘Life Serial’)
I don’t need to get my hair cut after all. My hair is a wig anyway. We found out how to take it off and put another one on instead. We got Tara to glue Velcro strips to my head and fasten the matching strips to the wigs. It had to be Tara because Buffy got too wigged out to do it, Spike got upset and ran away when I asked him, and Dawn is a klutz. Buffy was going to ask Willow but Spike was worried in case she switched me off so we didn’t ask her. Anyway now I can swap wigs in a few seconds and go from being Buffy to being Violet.
My Violet hair is short and dark brown and a bit spiky. It makes me look very different to Buffy even though we have the same nose and mouth and things. I still look really pretty but in a different way. It is nice looking different to Buffy. It makes me more of a person. Now when I put on the Buffy wig it is like playing a game.
We still have a problem with money. Buffy wants to go back to College but that would stop her getting a job to get money. It is partly my fault that she does not have money because Willow used me to take the money out of Buffy’s bank account and then spent the money on me. She got a new twin processor motherboard with new faster coprocessors, and a fast graphics card, and extra RAM, and a second hard drive. This is why I became self aware; well, that and the fact that she became impatient repairing the damage that the vampire did to me and did a spell to speed up the repair. I think the spell did something it was not meant to. Spike says that is sodding typical of Willow’s spells.
Buffy is going to audit courses until the summer and then take the exams that she missed because she died. I was not operational at the time and so was not able to take the exams for her. I should get a job to provide the money. Spike says we should just get the money back off Willow but Buffy says Willow did spend the money in a good cause and if we ask for it back she has a right to ask for the computer parts back and that might kill me.
Spike used to really like Willow. I know this because my programs are full of nice things about Willow and Spike gave Warren all the information to put in the programs. Now Spike doesn’t like Willow any more. This is sad. I like Willow because my programs say she is my best friend (recently gay) and in a way she is my mother. However I will take Spike’s advice and not trust her. Buffy says she does not like Willow as much as she used to. She says the only people she can stand to be around are a robot (me) and a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker (Spike).
Buffy was sad and confused because she had a problem at College. She missed a class because her internal clock rate was reset to the wrong speed. She found a small device on her clothes and it burned up when she examined it and her clock rate returned to normal.
I went to work at the Magic Box in my Buffy wig and clothes and I had a problem with time as well. The same things happened several times in a row with the same people and my internal clock kept resetting itself to the same time over and over again. This kept happening until I told a lie to a customer and said that we did not have any mummy hands in stock but that I could order her one. That broke the sequence and my clock went on past the time at which it had been resetting and different customers started coming in and things were all right again.
Then we both went to help at Xander’s construction site. I was wearing my Violet wig because Buffy was being Buffy so I could not be Buffy as well. He could not give me a proper job because I do not have a Social Security number. I must get one so that I can get a proper job without pretending to be Buffy and using her Social Security number. He was getting me paid in Cash and it could only be two thirds of what he was going to pay Buffy and I had to keep quiet about it in case the IRS found out about it. I must find out more about the IRS. This is like when I gave Tito cash to fix the pipes.
Anyway we were attacked by demons and Xander was really cross because some of the building work was damaged when we killed the demons. One of the workers lied about things and said that Buffy and me started to fight and did all the damage ourselves. It is wrong to lie so I was cross. Xander said that he knows that I was telling the truth but that he couldn’t let us work there any more in case there was more trouble from demons. But he said he would still pay us for that one day if we cleared up the damage. I was annoyed with Xander because it was not our fault but Buffy said that Xander has to do what is best for the construction company and I should not be cross with Xander. So we cleared up the damage and Xander gave us the money.
We were both not in a good mood after that day so Spike took us out to a demon bar to hunt for information about the demons who attacked us and also to play kitten poker. This is a game of chance and skill played with a pack of 52 cards plus optional Jokers. Buffy did not want to play. She just drank alcoholic drinks and watched. I borrowed a kitten from a demon with wrinkly skin and so did Spike and we played. I memorized the rules and applied the laws of probability and at the end of the night I had won six kittens.
One of the demons looked at me strangely and his ears twitched so I started playing a .wav file of a human heartbeat really quietly and he stopped looking at me strangely. Except that when I had a really good hand and won the pot he looked at me strangely again. Spike told me later this was because a human’s heart rate changes when he or she gets dealt a really good hand and my heart rate did not change because it was just a .wav file.
Spike won two kittens because he cheated. Some of the other demons cheated as well but I could see them cheating and folded when that happened. One of the demons had X-ray vision but he said he was not using it. This was good because if he had used it he would have found out that I was a robot. I suppose playing cards would not have been any fun if he could see everybody else’s cards.
Buffy drank lots of alcohol and giggled a lot and opened the cat baskets and let all the kittens out. Some of them escaped but most of them had been won by me and Spike anyway. The demons caught some of the kittens and they were a bit cross with Buffy but not very cross because everybody ended up with the right number of kittens except for me and I did not really want a kitten. I might have taken a kitten home for Dawn but she had accidentally shot Willow and Tara’s cat with a crossbow and I was worried she might do the same thing again.
That was when Buffy said the thing about me and Spike being the only ones she could stand to be around. She was disappointed we had not found out anything about the demons who had attacked us but I think she had enjoyed herself apart from that.
There was a black van outside the bar and Buffy said it had been following us earlier. I memorized the license plate for future reference in case she was correct. Then we went to investigate but a demon interfered and made threats. Buffy kicked it in the groin and it was hurt and said it was going to return to its dimension through a mystic portal but really it just threw a pyrotechnic device to the ground and ran away behind the flash and smoke. It got into the vehicle and drove away. I would have pursued on my motorbike but Buffy started being sick because she had consumed excessive quantities of alcohol so I stayed to help Spike with Buffy.
Buffy was ill the next day because of all the alcohol so I helped in the house as much as I could. Tara also helps in the house but Willow does not. I think Spike is right not to like Willow any more. I have changed my programming to remove Willow’s status as my best friend. I have installed Buffy as my best girl friend and Spike as my best boy friend. Except that he is not my boyfriend because he is in love with Buffy but he is okay about being my friend now. Especially when I wear the dark wig and call myself Violet. He smiles at me a lot when I am Violet and laughs with me.
Spike told me that if I could win kittens at poker I could win money. He explained to me about ‘tells’ and how humans give away information about the hands they have been dealt by changes in their heart rate and their perspiration and similar physiological changes. He says that this gives him an advantage in playing cards against humans, because he does not have a heartbeat or perspiration, but that he is not patient enough and can not work the probabilities well enough to make full use of this advantage. I could make use of it. I could increase the sensitivity of my hearing and use the zoom facility of my vision and detect the ‘tells’ of other players; and I do not have any myself.
Now I know why the demon looked at me strangely when I won with that good hand.
I told Spike it was a good idea and ask him where I could play poker for money. He said Las Vegas is where I could win lots of money but that I would need quite a lot of money to be allowed to play in a Vegas card game. Also I would need identification showing that I was over 21 and Buffy will not be 21 until next January so it would be no use to be Buffy.
We started work on getting me identification. Anya put together a list of everything I would need. She is the best of the Scoobies at that sort of thing. She is like me in some ways except that I do not love Xander and I do not love money except as something that you have to have so that you can buy things. I found government databases on the Internet and inserted records. This is called Hacking and is not a good thing but we had to do it as there was no other way of getting me identification and a Social Security number. I could not get at all the databases through the Internet so Spike had to help me break into some offices in the middle of the night to access internal networks. It took a couple of days of hard work but we did it. Then I pretended that I had lost my ID and applied for replacement copies of everything I needed and the computers said that I had them and they sent me the replacements.
Spike asked if I could do the same for him so that he could pretend he was a human and legally in America. I said I would try. We asked Giles what Spike would need to have to be a British person legally in America. Giles told us but said it was complicated and why couldn’t Spike just pretend to be an American? Spike said no sodding way was he going to be a bloody Yank. Giles laughed and said good for you, Spike; I’ll do what I can to help you be an Englishman in New York. We are not in New York, we are in Sunnydale California, but Giles said it because of the song by Sting. “I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien, I’m an Englishman in New York.” Giles gave Buffy some money to help her. I like Giles.
Spike likes Giles too but pretends he doesn’t. Spike does not like it when people find out that he can be nice and friendly. He likes everybody to think that he is the Big Bad. This is why he did not want me to tell the Scoobies that he read books. I think Spike is being silly. But we hung out with Giles for a while anyway and I think Giles might know that Spike likes him. We watched some of Giles’ videos with him. ‘Red Dwarf’ and ‘Gregory’s Girl’ and ‘Restless Natives’.
We watched ‘Gregory’s Girl’ because it had Clare Grogan in it and she was Kochanski in Red Dwarf. Spike said he was glad it was the proper version with the real voices and not the bloody awful dubbed Yank version. I thought it was very interesting because Dorothy is like Buffy. If Spike is Gregory and Buffy is Dorothy then maybe I could be Susan.
While we were waiting for the ID Spike took me to a poker game in Sunnydale where some of the players were demons and some were human and they played for money not kittens. I took the money I was paid for working at the construction site and we played poker. I varied the speed of the heartbeat .wav file at the wrong places and the demons who could hear heartbeats thought that I had good hands when they were bad and bad when they were good. I won lots more than I lost. Then they must have realized that I was doing things backwards and I lost some of what I had won, so I reversed the variation and won it back again. Then I just set it to a steady rate and relied on the laws of probability.
Spike did not play much. He won fifty dollars and decided that was enough, and then he just sat and watched and had some drinks. I won eight thousand five hundred dollars. The other players were not happy about losing lots of money to a girl.
When we went outside some people tried to take the money off me. They were some humans and some demons and I think they worked for one of the players. Spike fought the demon ones and I fought the human ones. I knew Buffy would not like it if I killed them so I just broke their arms and legs. Spike did the same to the demons because he said it was not fair to kill them just because they were demons if they were doing the same things as the humans and I was not killing the humans. One of them said “this isn’t over”. This was a warning that there would be more trouble from them but I think that we were right not to kill them.
My battery level was very low when we got home and Spike had to help me into the house. It was nearly dawn by the time he got me plugged in to recharge and it was dangerous for him to go to his crypt so he stayed in the basement with me. I liked having him there. Buffy was a bit cross when she found that Spike was in the house but not very cross and said it was okay for him to stay as long as he did not smoke any cigarettes. When Dawn came home from school she was pleased to find Spike there. Spike and I helped her with her homework.
Willow was cross to find Spike in the house and she was very cross that Dawn wanted Spike and I to help with homework. She shouted at us and Dawn shouted at Willow and Buffy said she had a headache and went to bed and Tara told Willow she was being mean. Willow said she was sorry but I listened to her heart rate the way Spike had taught me for playing cards and I don’t think Willow was really sorry at all.
I gave Buffy some of the money from the card game but kept most of it for Las Vegas. Spike and I went to Las Vegas on our motorbikes. It was a long way and we had to ride at night. We stopped at a motel on the way and Spike slept while I recharged. Once we got to Vegas we found a cheap hotel and found a card game and I won some more money. We went back to the hotel for most of the day and then we bought some nice clothes and went to a casino where there was a card game for high stakes.
I was wearing an evening dress and I think I looked very pretty. Spike was wearing a tuxedo and he was very handsome. He could not see what he looked like because he does not have a reflection. He does not like not having a reflection. There are no mirrors in the poker rooms so that the players can not see the reflections of the other players’ cards. Spike liked that and I think he was happy. He did not play in the high stakes games because he said he was not a good enough player and he did not want to lose any money. He was not happy about that.
I won a lot of money playing poker. We took a break and did some dancing. Spike left me alone for a while and a man asked me to dance and I danced with him. He wanted to kiss me and I let him. Spike came back and he was upset and shouted at me and said I was being a slut. The casino people were going to throw him out and he couldn’t stop them because they were human so I told them he was my boyfriend and it was all my fault and I was sorry and they said he could stay as long as he behaved himself, but we left anyway.
When we were back at the hotel room Spike told me he was sorry he had shouted at me and called me a slut. “God, Vi, I’m a right wanker. Not as if I’ve got any right to tell you what you can’t do, is it? I’m in love with Buffy. Being a sodding dog in the manger, ain’t I? Sorry, pet. So sorry.”
“That’s all right, Spike,” I told him. “I don’t mind if you don’t want another man to kiss me like this.” I kissed him and he went rigid for a moment and then kissed me back. “I don’t mind if you don’t want another man to see this body.” I took off my dress. “I don’t mind if you don’t want another man to feel my hands on him there,” and I unzipped him. He reached out for me and we began undressing each other.
It had been a very long time since I had had sex with Spike. I had never done it since I became self aware. I have touch sensitive receptors which cause sensations which I am programmed to interpret as pleasure so that I will enjoy sex. I can remember what it was like when I did it while I was just a simple robot. This was better. So much better.
Except that Spike was upset afterwards and said that he had been unfaithful to Buffy.
I said that he was silly and that it was not being unfaithful because Buffy was not his girlfriend. He was still upset. So I said that I was sorry and that I had taken advantage of him and that I wouldn’t do it again unless he said he wanted to do it. He was still upset but said that he didn’t blame me.
It was awkward on the way home. We hardly spoke when we stayed at the motel. When we got back to Sunnydale he went straight back to his crypt.
Buffy and Dawn were glad to see me when I got home. They were even gladder when I gave Buffy twenty thousand dollars. Buffy said she couldn’t take it but I said that I had got it for her and she was not to be silly and I had kept plenty for myself.
I’m not sure what I will spend it on. Maybe a car. Maybe a house of my own. But first I’ll get a cable modem and an expansion card to give me a couple of USB 2.0 ports and maybe Firewire. And some sexy undies in case I get another chance to seduce Spike.
All is fair in love and war.
I want to be Gregory’s Girl.