Portal

"Yep, not sure about studying that much, probably be occupying various administrative buildings in protest and stuff," the blonde intern bragged casually trying to up her cool stakes.

"Protesting what?"

"That's not the point," Joyce shrugged as she took the joint back from Maria who was fast feeling the thc's ripple through her system.

"I think..."

"Joyce?" called Buffy, interrupting Danny's distinctly creepy drawl.

The slayer saw the three of them and smelt the sweet fumes of a comforting habit waft through the night air. Her eyebrows shot up as she saw her mother leaning back with smoke wafting up from her soft lips. Shock was not a word strong enough for what she was feeling at the moment, but whatever it was it came coupled with a diluted anger.

"What do you think you're doing?" the slayer squawked.

"What do you mean?"

"You're out here...smoking... and you...you look like some kind of...hoochie-coo," she finished slightly flustered at Joyce's appearance that she had not taken in until now.

Buffy looked her up and down noting every little thing from her pierced navel to her homemade cloth purse. She saw the generous amount of love beads that hung low across Joyce's ample bosom covered by a faded KISS t-shirt knotted just above her midriff which just showed that she was obviously not wearing a bra as her nipples were sticking out like she was smuggling Fruit Pastilles.

Joyce's feet now stood defiantly apart showing her scuffed cowboy boots and a pair of frayed Daisy Duke's that hugged at her crotch like a possessive lover as the smoke curled from her joint. She raised it up to her full glossy lips and inhaled deeply as it crackled away.

"Wait...is that pot? Are you stoned?!" Buffy shrieked at the woman she only knew as the buttoned-down wife and mother. Not the young, vibrant and free-loving spirit she once had been.

"You...you....you can't smoke that!"

"Screw you, narc. I can do what I want," Joyce snipped back and took another head lightening drag just to prove her point.

Buffy snatched the joint from her mother's fingers and stomped it out with menace into the dry dirt.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" the future Mrs. Summers yelled.

"I'm just...did you just use the 'f' word? What's wrong with you? You can't go h-h-hanging around with guys and smoking dope!"

"I can do what I want...you're not my mother!" Joyce snapped back.

Buffy's mouth fell open at this unexpectedly curt side of her Mom.

"I..I...if I was your Mom.....I'd be so disappointed. You can't go around acting like this."

"Oh shut up, you prude," Joyce mocked standing face-to-face with her irate daughter.

"Yeah, well you're a...a...shut up yourself"

"Hey, you oughtta take a sweet leaf outta my book...chill out, girl," piped in Maria, lost in her own herbally administered realm.

"Hey, what are you saying? I'm cool."

"Whatever, narc. God, you're so conservative. Your Mom must be a real drag. I'd hate to have a daughter like you, so prim and proper and.."

"...square," Danny interjected as the two interns giggled.

Crueler words had seldom been spoken to the slayer, and she felt her fingers ball up into knuckle-whitening fists as she bit her lip hoping to stop her tears from spilling once more.

"Don't you dare speak to me like that."

"Oh piss off, Barbie," said Joyce tiring of this intrusion of her leisure time.

"It's Buffy, actually."

"Pfft, whatever, narc," she replied.

"Hey, just leave them alone or do you want me to...." Danny tried to threaten but was cut off by a sharp jab to his nose. "Jeez, what is your problem, bitch?!"

The three of them were suddenly bathed in the light of the bar as Joe opened the door and stared at the quarrelling, stoned, and bleeding quartet.

"Danny, fuck off," she stated simply, to which the man just shuffled off into the night swearing to himself. "Buffy go inside, I'll handle this."

"Busted!" the slayer mocked in an effort to disguise her hurt and trundled back into the bar followed by a swaying Maria who had sudden craving for nachos.

"So, you out here getting high?" Joe asked with her best authoritarian tone.

"Yeah, so? What, some barmaid gonna rat on me," Joyce boasted as she pulled out her own badly rolled joint from her supple cleavage.

"I'm no barmaid. I own this place so anything that goes on my property is my business."

Joyce went quiet as her bluff of defiance had been called. It was one thing to show off to her peers, it was another to openly mock someone who could call the cops and bust her, and she knew that a conviction involving illegal substances could seriously jeopardize her scholarship.

Her lower lip trembled slightly, partly from fear, but partly to manipulate the brunette into sympathizing with her.

Joe looked at Joyce for a minute. She'd seen her type before, fresh out of school with a head full of unattainable idealism with the belief that the three 'r's stood for refuse, resist, rebel. Fuelled by the mistaken belief that she could truly effect change in this world, for she had been there and got the scars to prove it.

"So, you gonna light that?" Joe asked with a smile not even bothering to try the stern owner routine anymore.

Joyce's eyes lit up warmly at the gesture of acceptance and so she touched the end of her joint to the flame of the lighter being held out by Joe.

"I'm Joe."

"Joyce," came the reply as they shook hands that lingered a little too long for a casual acquaintance.

Passing the reefer to Joe, the brunette's chest swelled mightily as her lungs filled with the medicinal smoke. "Hmmm, nice. Haven't had any Mendecino since the 'stock."

"You were at Woodstock?"

"Hell yeah, don't remember much of it though."

"I wish I was there," Joyce admitted.

"Weren't you like ten or something?"

"Eleven actually."

"Heh, still too young to smoke...but what more do you need for a long hot summer than sex, drugs and Skynyrd," they chuckled together instantly falling into a relaxed rapport.

Joe leant across Joyce, reaching for a flower that hung from the well-tended window boxes that she felt rightfully proud of maintaining to such a professional degree, which was no mean feat in such a harsh terrain. Joyce instinctively sniffed at her, inhaling the scent of Chardonnay and cinnamon as Joe pulled the flower from its resting place and put it behind the younger girl's ear.

They shared a quiet smile and felt a strange urge flood from within them as they became lost in each other's eyes.

"I...I like the flower," Joyce said shyly.

"It's called Jonquil. It comes in white or yellow, but I prefer the white."

"It's pretty."

"So are you," Joe said softly, not even attempting to fuzz the issue with unnecessary rhetoric.

The carefree teen blushed at the compliment, but wasn't embarrassed by its nature, but how welcoming it was on her ears.

"Can I give you a bit of advice?"

"Oh God, I had to listen to Maria babbling all the way up here with her 'A good donkey will often outlast a great marriage' theory," Joyce whined.

"No, nothing like that, just stay away from Danny...he's bad news."

Joyce saw the serious look on Joe's face and nodded compliantly, but behind those chocolate orbs she saw something else. A mischievous twinkle dancing around her pupils as Joyce felt herself drawn deeper into the pools of unspoken desire and licked her lips.

"But I never get to meet anyone cool," she whined in the traditional Summers way.

"I'm sure you'll meet some guy at college and live happily ever after."

"God, I'd hate to go for the marriage and two kids thing and end up stuck in one of those boring suburban humdrum lives."

"So what do you want?"

"I wanna be the next Joan Baez or Hanoi Jane. I want to paint, I want to sing, I just want to be..."

"Free?" asked Joe.

"Yeah free, man. Free to find out who I am...what I want..." she said as she rubbed her hands up Joe's peach soft forearm to which the brunette just smiled back loving the feeling of her fingers on her skin.

"C'mon, let me get you a drink."

"Ok."

* * *

* * *

* *

Buffy washed what seemed like the thousandth glass of the evening and wiped her sweaty brow with her soapy fingers. Though she was battle hardened and used to the fray she was unused to such manual labor. But nothing comes without a price in this world. Or the next.

"Hey how about some service?" came the booming request of a punter from the bar area.

Buffy stuck her head round the door and saw that Joe was still outside with her Mom —

she hoped talking some sense into her. Buffy took the bull by the horns and decided to take over at the bar; it was the least she could do for all of Joe's kindness. Wiping her hands on the damp bar towel, she bounded up to the counter opposite the gruff man in his mid-forties wearing a suit which made him seem wildly out of place.

"Er, what can I get you 'cos I'm not too good with wine," the slayer admitted. "Heh, I don't even know a merlot from a claret"

"A merlot is a claret," the clearly unimpressed liquor fiend said with a roll of the eyes.

"Oh," Buffy replied bashfully and grabbed the first bottle she could find.

"How about this; it's called Chablis," Buffy said phonetically.

"It's pronounced Shab-Lee."

"Oh well how about Mont..er, Montre.."

"It's ok, Buffy, I got it...you just go back to collecting the glasses, ok?" Joe yelled as she came back in with her new friend, wiping the malingering ash from her sleeve.

Swapping positions with the slayer Joe slipped behind the bar and instinctively began to pour drinks whilst not releasing Joyce from her gaze as they stood opposite each other.

"Don't worry, the wine's on me, kind of like a welcome gift. I bet you're in the mood for something young and firm, just a little bit fruity....'cos I know I am," Joe finished with a wink that sent shudders through Joyce's nether regions.

"I..I'm not much of a drinker."

"It's ok, you're only gonna get a couple of glasses. I ain't running a charity here, and I'm not gonna get you wasted."

"Cool, thanks Joe."

"No problem...Joy," they said as they clinked glasses.

As Buffy busied herself around the bar, she saw how Joe was watching her mother closely and was grateful for it. 'Thank God someone's going to keep an eye on Mom. Who knows what a stoned Joyce Summers could get up to...it's like the band candy all over again. Crap, I better make sure she doesn't sleep with anyone this time, but it looks like Joe's keeping an eye on her. I must thank her later, she really is cool and I get to hang out with Mom...even if she is all crazy and shit. I'll talk to her when she's more sober. Tomorrow maybe?'

Buffy flashed a tearful smile to both Joe and Joyce as she went into the backroom to resume her washing duties. The two mildly stoned women at the bar shared an unusually protracted gaze feeling lost within it but were torn as 'Slow Ride' by Foghat blared through the jukebox.

"Oh, I love this song," Joyce gushed.

"Me too, come on," Joe said as she grabbed Joyce's hand and pulled her over to the swarming dance floor.

Joyce spun on her well-worn heels and came face to face with the brunette. As they danced they came closer and closer as they were both feeling the effect of that joint mixing with the sharp hit of the wine.

The sparks between them were not restricted to the static electricity between the dueling knots on their tops as Joyce felt her bravery bolstered by her slight stoned-ness and slipped a finger through Joe's belt loop and rubbed the oval buckle with her thumb, drawing them closer together until their perky breasts rubbed against each other and their lips became dry and their breath ragged.

The brunette's soft fingertips ran over the honey-drop sheen of Joyce's midriff and with a mnemonic sway to their hips and a salubrious grin of Chardonnay enchantment their eyes locked onto each others. An incorruptible attraction had ensconced itself upon them and was too ill mannered and wanton to leave.

Dual smiles fought to be reined in, to remain hidden as to not reveal their muted mutual attraction, but brief flirtations should be savored within the moment. A dalliance not to be contrived or overanalyzed but something to be cherished as something unspoken passed between them that fed their slow desires and pierced their restrained sensibilities.

"You got something..." Joe started as she reached her fingers forwards and wiped a droplet of wine from Joyce's chin with a tender stroke letting her fingers linger for a moment too long but retracted them before an awkward discomfort could set in. Once the droplet was on her fingers she made sure that Joyce followed her gaze and brought it to her soft and tender lips and drew the liquid from them with it a soft pop.

"Service please, Joe," came the raised voice of 'Stavo as he swung his empty glass high in the air.

Silently cursing her friend, Joe broke from her lust ridden dance and rather than Buffy trying to take over behind the bar she knew she had no choice but to get back to her work. She smiled weakly at Joyce who returned it emphatically and continued to dance.

"May I join you?" came the voice from behind Joyce making her jump. She recognized the hairy intern from their long drive up to the Napa Valley in a cramped van without air conditioning.

"Oh, er yeah, why not."

Joyce swung her hips along to the sound of seventies pop as the fuzzy faced man pulled her into a tight embrace to dance. As they swayed along to the music Joyce's eyes were elsewhere as her brain fogged a little by wine and pot.

As Joe busied herself behind the bar she couldn't tear her eyes from the tight rear end of Joyce that shimmied across the wooden floor and felt somewhat jealous of the lank haired man flitting around her. She cursed the fact that they were so busy tonight and sighed as she forced herself to accept that the moment...their moment had come and gone.

Fixing a smile upon her face, she poured drinks and swapped idle banter with her regulars but every now and then caught the glance of Joyce who instantly blushed and looked elsewhere. She was intrigued.

* * *

* * *

* * *

As the last of the customers had at last gone and all the interns piled into their van and drove off into the night, Joe and Buffy set about cleaning up from the nights revelry.

"Urgh," Buffy moaned as she emptied yet another ashtray, "I can't wait until they ban this."

"Ban smoking in bars? Oh please, we're more likely to get some crappy actor as president," Joe snorted.

The slayer wanted to speak up about the simple prophesying she had just heard but after being made to sit through that Back To The Future marathon at Xander's request, she knew that messing with the past could seriously affect the future in ways she couldn't even comprehend.