RETURNS
“There’s something downstairs making a dripping noise.” Dawn tells us, coming up from the basement with a basket of laundry.
“Hmm?” Buffy asks.
“You know ‘drip drip’ some sort of water splashing from somewhere it shouldn’t. I mean, I’m fairly sure it shouldn’t.”
Willow is still at class, and I’m in the kitchen prepping for dinner. Buffy was leafing through the mail but not actually opening anything.
She looks, properly, over at Dawn.
“I’m sure there’s a plumber we can call.” I say, “The Yellow Pages is bound to have some…”
Dawn dumps her laundry basket on the other end of the sofa, “I’ll find it. You keep doing dinner and you keep—”
Buffy cuts her off. I have a feeling she’s glad to have something else to ‘fight’, “I know Mom had tools down there, and it’s just a dripping pipe that’s tighten a thing and it’s all good. I just have to find it.”
She heads downstairs. Dawn and I exchange glances both slightly concerned.
“She has super strength.” Dawn remarks, “What if she breaks it on accident.” Then her eyes brighten, “Mom had her rolodex thing I bet that has a plumber on it.”
She disappears for wherever that is, and comes back with an index card, then heads to the stairs, “Want me to call a plumber?” I hear her call down to her sister, and then, “You sure? I got the number!”
I hear Buffy’s reply but not the actual words. I also hear after another moment a strange groaning noise as though the house is trying not to throw up something that disagreed with it, and then water and Dawn shrieking and clattering up the stairs.
She stands at the top looking like the quintessential drowned rat. I stop what I’m doing to grab her a towel, and pulling up my skirts go down the stairs, or attempt to anyway because there’s a jet of water crossing the stairs. I can see Buffy on a step ladder, water rapidly pooling around the lower legs.
“There’s got to be a shut off valve!” I call to her, “It’ll most likely be a lever rather than a wheel but it’ll hopefully be labeled.
I hike my skirts higher and cautiously step over the jet of water. I still get wet, of course, but at the same time I don’t know why I bothered because I’ll need my hands to help her, potentially.
Buffy is wading through the water, frantically looking around, “You sure it’ll be down here and not somewhere else.”
“No.” I admit, “but it seems most likely.” I scan around. The light is flickering. At least Joyce doesn’t seem to have kept anything low to the ground, and most everything of preciousness was upstairs, in the attic, or we now have in the garage, “Oh, there!” I point to a pipe snaking down the wall and its bright red turnable lever.
Buffy just stairs at it, and much as I hate to, I call upon some magic to turn it, fortunately, I’ve been practicing the telekinesis side of things for help with attack spells. The lever lifts up, turns around and goes back down. The water sputters to a stop a few moments later. Buffy turns and gives me a ‘thank you’ smile.
“Teamwork.” I tell her.
She snorts, “I didn’t exactly—”
“How were you to know stopping a drip would cause a tsunami?” I point out.
“Why would it?” she asks, “I guess we call a plumber now.”
She wades towards me and then we both climb back up the stairs.
“Ugh.” She says, “I hate that wet clothes against your legs feeling.”
I nod in agreement. The damp lower part of my skirt hitting my legs as we climb each step.
“Dawn said she had a plumber?” Buffy asks me.
“What about a plumber?” Willow is just coming through the front door.
“Oh, there’s no water right now.” I explain.
“What do you mean?”
“The pipes downstairs decided to reenact Titanic.” Buffy says, “So, we turned the main water line off before we drowned.”
“I—” Willow shakes her head, setting her bag down on one of the family room easy chairs, “I—how?”
“That is the 64 Million Dollar Question.” Buffy continues, “Dawn!” she calls, “Where’s that plumber’s number?”
“Dissolved.” Dawn replies from upstairs, “It turned into mush in my hand from getting so wet.” She appears at the top landing in her pajamas, toweling her hair, “I don’t remember what it said.”
“We can call Xander.” I point out, “I’m sure he knows at least one.”
Xander arrives with Tito early the next morning and they disappear downstairs. We hear the water spraying a couple of times, as they are working out where the problem came from and then clattering and turning and water spraying less rapidly.
“Man.” Dawn remarks, watching downstairs instead of getting ready, “How much water can they fit in one set of pipes?”
“The entire city?” I suggest.
Willow offers me the cereal box and I shake my head.
“It should be okay now!” Xander calls from the basement. Buffy goes and tests the sink by turning the water on and off. No shouts from down below suggesting they’re drowning again. I hear her turn it on and off again.
“You were right.” She says from the sink, “Plumber make everything good.”
Dawn comes and sits down at the kitchen island. When we were going around getting supplies, we got a couple of stools for there too.
I look at the clock, “Dawnie, you’re not eating breakfast?”
Dawn looks around at what we have out and pulls a face. There’s not enough time for either of us to cook anything.
“Dawn.” Buffy says, turning the faucet back on and off, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s unbelievably important.” The faucet goes on again. The three of us exchange concerned looks and Willow goes over to where Buffy is, “You should eat breakfast at least three times a day.” Faucet on again. Willow closes the distance and turns the faucet off. She and Buffy exchange some meaningful looks, and Buffy turns away from the sink.
“I’ll grab something at school.” Dawn says.
“Okay.”
I hear Xander and Tito coming back up the stairs, “And a big Sunnydale round of applause for Tito the Amazing Plumber Extraordinaire!”
I oblige, “So, how’s everything looking down there?”
“Like we should be gathering up two of every animal.”
“Basically, your pipes are shot.” Tito says, “I’ve got everything set for the time being, but your whole system’s gonna have to be replaced. What you need is a full copper re-pipe.”
Willow takes the piece of paper from him, “That sounds pricey.”
“Well, if you have any questions our number’s on the invoice.” Tito pats Xander on the shoulder before letting himself out.
“That’s a weird phone number.” Dawn says, looking over Willow’s shoulder, “Oh, wait. Is that the estimate?”
“Tito cut you a good deal. That’s bargain price. I did some haggling for you.”
“Thank you.” Buffy says, “So, we’ll pay him, what’s the big deal?” Her eyes widen as Willow hands her the bill, “How did Mom deal with all these things?”
“Um…” Willow says, “Buffy, I—I know you’re still getting back on your feet after…”
“Lying flat on my back?”
“Yeah, so, we should go over what we’ve been doing on the finances, because this is a big one off expense.”
Dawn looks concerned.
I give her a hug, “It’s okay. We’re okay. It’s just boring adult stuff.”
“We’re okay.” She repeats and gives Buffy a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before heading out the door. Buffy barely gets chance to hug her back before she’s gone calling out Janice’s name.