Having a Pow-Wow
Coming into the house, Hayden pulled a windbreaker over his head. Fat drops of rainwater ran along the slick sleeves. "Hey Izzy, are you here?" His muffled voice bounced off the walls. He only bothered to take off his muddy boots because he just had the carpet shampooed, washing out the beer and ash stain from the day he kicked the coffee table. He tossed his coat on the rack and his shoes on a mat.

Tonight, they were supposed to sit down and talk about progress on the electronic collar. He just hoped to hell there was progress, news that didn't give him nightmares about accidental detonation. He needed to call Toby, too, once he had the update. Wandering through the house in socks that felt damp, he flipped on a hall light and looked for signs of either roommate.

"In my room!" Izzy called out, not taking her eyes off her laptop display. Books both magical and mundane littered her desk along with printouts from technical websites, a testament to the research she'd been conducting ever since Hayden told her about Kris's dire situation.

She couldn't actually find tech specs on an explosive collar aside from details on Hollywood props, and had decided to focus her attention on Improvised Explosive Devices and how to defeat them. The amount of information on such devices was surprisingly extensive until she remembered that the wars fought over the last decade had seen insurgencies that made frequent use of them.

"Hey." He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "It looks like library archives threw up in here." Hayden scanned the books and papers from a distance. He knew that look of concentration, and the truncated response, meant to give her a few seconds. When he was onto something about demons, or translating a section of text, interruptions knocked him off track. It was a struggle not to pop a hand that shuffled things around.

He scratched the back of his neck.

Izzy finished skimming the article and pushed back from her desk, looking up at Hayden. "Hey Hayden, come on in. Yeah, it is a bit of a mess isn't it? I haven't worried too much on neatness lately, what with trying to get up to speed on explosives. Hopefully all my searching won't trigger an ATF raid on the place."

She raised her arms over her head and stretched, trying to work out the kinks from sitting at her desk staring at the monitor or various texts all day. "Any news?"

He shook his head. "Nah." A cell phone stood out against his pants pocket. It hadn't rung all day, which was bad, but also good, since he got frustrated when it turned out to be somebody else. "I was hoping we could come up with a plan, though, so when she does call, we'll be ready." A vein stuck out in his bicep, greenish-blue on the pale skin under his t-shirt sleeve. Hayden lowered his arm and went into the bedroom.

There was a chair near the door. He sat and leaned forward, rubbing his palms together. "How's it look? Anything that can jam up the signal?" They hoped to interrupt it long enough to get the collar off Kris, without worrying about Katherine detonating the explosives.

"That's the easy part." Izzy exhaled and leaned back in her chair. She put a hand to her temple and rubbed slightly as she thought about how to explain it. "I guess there's been a lot of experience with IEDs with the wars that have been fought in the Middle East the last decade or so, the insurgents would try to use cell phones or radio remotes to detonate the bombs so the military developed jammers to block signals from getting through wherever they might be."

The blonde sighed and looked at Hayden. "That part I can rig up no problem, I won't even have to use magic to do it. What I'm worried about is how to get the collar off, and I won't know exactly what we're dealing with until I see it. This Katherine sounds like a pretty smart operator to capture a Slayer and come up with a rig like that, I'm sure she's built some kind of dead man's switch into the thing to try and make it tamper proof."

Hunched at the shoulders, Hayden watched his roommate while she explained it. He followed her and nodded along until the end, when he was up to his ears in lingo. "At the risk of sounding like an idiot," he said, "What the hell is a dead man's switch?" Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. Being able to jam the signal was a really good start, but it didn't mean anything if they couldn't get the collar off. He knew it wouldn't be easy; if it was, Kris would unlatch it herself and get out of dodge.

"It's used all the time in mobile equipment or power tools," Izzy explained, putting her hands out in front of her. "Take a lawn mower for example, there's a bar you have to hold on to the entire time once you start it. If you let go even for a second, the engine cuts out. I don't think that Katherine would go to that extreme, but some way to try and tamper proof it so that it goes 'boom' if someone tries to disable it without a signal from the controller makes a lot of sense."

It was what she would do if she were a sadistic killer who wanted to keep a Slayer under control anyway.

"Anyway, I won't know exactly what I'm dealing with until I can get a good look at it. I'm researching some spells to see if I can attack it from that angle. I doubt many people in this dimension would try and shield it from magic, it just isn't something they think about."

"Similar to a kill switch." Hayden covered the lower part of his face. His shoes lifted off the floor as he thought it over and zoned out on Izzy's bedspread. "Let me ask you something," he asked, slowly straightening up in the chair. "If you start tinkering with this thing and interrupt the signal or disengage the switch, will Katherine know? And how long can you keep the signal down?"

He was sorry to hit Izzy with two questions at once, but he couldn't help himself. If they tried it and couldn't get the collar off, first time around, he had to know they'd get a second chance. All of this assumed they could get near Kris without the vampire knowing it, or atleast hold her off long enough to finish the job. It also assumed Kris would call again.

Izzy thought about it for a moment, tapping her fingers against the edge of her desk. "I don't think so for the first question, it shouldn't work that way. If she had a continuous signal emitting to or from the collar it would have to be short range, and from what you've told me she's had Kris running all over the place."

"For the second..." She paused, thinking over the possibilities before she answered. "Theoretically it could be indefinite, as long as we kept Kris in range of my jammer. It would also jam any other wireless devices too, so if you want to communicate with people while doing this we'd need a landline."

"Alright." Hayden didn't like going in without an exact plan. But since they didn't even know when or where they could meet up with Kris, they were winging the whole operation. There was no choice. Whatever Kris was being forced to do, it was probably dangerous. Every day she was gone, it was more likely she'd get hurt or implicated in things that wouldn't go away. It was a damn miracle the vampire hadn't killed her already. So it was worth the risk.

"Once we know where to find her, I'll plan out the approach and get the weapons, just for back-up," he said. "Anything you need to help get that thing off her, say the word." Hayden scratched his eyebrow. "I'll probably bring Toby, if I can get a hold of him." He didn't say what he wanted to say. That he was desperate to get her back in one piece. Izzy had enough pressure without him spelling out the worst case scenario, which could get her hurt, too.

It was no secret that Hayden was desperate to get Kris back, it was plain as the nose on his face. Izzy liked both of them and the last thing she wanted was for Kris to get hurt or, god forbid, killed.

"Backup would be good. I think I've got everything I might need for the procedure though," she pointed to a gym bag in the corner, stuffed to bulging with tools and spell components. "I whipped it together after I got your message and added some stuff since."

Izzy stood up and crossed over to where Hayden sat, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll get her back safe and sound."

Looking like a kicked dog, Hayden glanced up and nodded. "Yeah, I know." His shoulders ached from bunching up, which he noticed when Izzy made contact with a sore muscle. Pushing on his thighs, he stood. "I'm gonna grab a beer. Would you mind," he gestured vaguely at the papers with the explosives and magic components, "Showing me some of the ins and outs? Just in case." He wanted to understand as much as he could, in case she needed back-up. He'd done a few spells before in Searchlight. Nothing on the level of Izzy's magic, but he got the basic principles. He was pretty good with mechanical things, so if she pointed out how the parts worked, he might be able to pick it up, too.

"Grab one for me and I'll do what I can to walk you through what I've got." Izzy wasn't sure how much he'd be able to do if anything happened to her, but maybe he could at least help out if another pair of hands was needed.

She let him head out to the kitchen and proceeded to try and organize her notes to go over them with Hayden when he got back. This whole thing was obviously tearing him apart, so if going over her notes would help him she wasn't going to kick him when he was down.

On that part, Izzy was right. Practicality wasn't Hayden's gut reason for wanting a crash-course. He needed to feel like he was doing something, or learning something. Until he had a lock on Kris's location, none of his skills came into play. He was out of his depth.

After he got the beers, they sat down and went over the research on IEDs, the spells she researched, and the contents of her duffel bag. He picked up the gyst of everything, but wasn't able to make the intuitive leaps Izzy could, especially when she talked about applying the concepts to devices that could theoretically be around Kris's neck.

Hayden pulled on his ear. "I think I got about fifty percent of that," he said. He sat back in the chair and looked at Izzy. "So uh. I heard that you and Logan..." Incapable of making a graceful dismount from that sentence, he trailed off. "Are you okay?"

Izzy didn't respond at first, but looked down and took a healthy swig of her beer. "I guess I am, mostly," she twisted the bottle in her hands and looked back up at him. "Breaking up with him was the right thing to do but god it was hard. I liked him a lot, but I wasn't in love with him and it wasn't right keeping him tied up with someone who couldn't love him back."

She hadn't hooked up with anyone since Logan, but she hadn't really been looking all that hard either.

"What was missing?" Hayden leaned his chair back on two legs. The beer sat on his knee, wetting his jeans with a condensation ring. "I haven't dated anybody but Kris since college, but I remember how it felt starting off. I was religious back then. I thought, if it was meant to be, I'd know it in my gut. I'd love her right from the start. So then, it was like..." He thought about it. "How long do you wait before you can say you know it isn't gonna happen?"

Izzy refrained from asking why he hadn't married Kris yet if they'd been dating that long. She knew if she'd been dating a guy for longer than two years there had better be a ring in the offing, but not everyone was her. People obviously had different thought processes.

"I don't know, there was no spark after a while. He never complained, never disagreed or argued with me about anything. There was no challenge." She held up a hand to forestall any comment from Hayden, still thinking. "I don't want to bad mouth him, Logan's a great guy, he just wasn't right for me. I'm sure there's some woman out there who will be a perfect fit."

She shrugged. "I knew after six months that we weren't ever going to settle down and pop out the requisite 2.5 kids, but it took a while longer for me to really admit it to myself and do something about it."

Izzy's explanation coaxed a tired smile from Hayden. "Yeah. I know what you mean, about the spark." He looked into his bottle. "Kris is pretty agreeable, but she's always... running off and getting into rough situations. Kind of a hazard of the job. It rocks the boat. If things are quiet and I want to stir her up, I just... pick on her a lot." He laughed under his breath. "When I was in school, I had this girlfriend, Denise. After a couple months, we were more like friends. My mom used to say I wasn't happy unless I was chasing the girl. Not," he gestured randomly, "Like a girl who couldn't commit. Just a girl who kept me on my toes. She was right."

Rubbing his shoulder, he looked up. "You need a guy that'll push your buttons."

"Exactly!" Izzy agreed with a wry smile at Hayden. "I want someone that can get me all riled up, who will argue with me or tell me when I'm being an idiot. I'm an engineer, maybe not one that this world would recognize, but still an engineer. I think logically a lot of the time, I need someone that can snap me out of it and go toe to toe with me." That was something that Logan, for all his good qualities, just hadn't done.

She wasn't sure how much more Hayden would want to hear. They were both adults, but he was still a guy after all. "Being cute and good with his hands would be a nice bonus too."

Hayden pinched the bridge of his nose and laughed. "Yeah. I uhh. I hear it helps." When he pulled his fingers away, his eyes shined. He might be a guy, but he was a sucker for love, and he liked women that let their hair down, who were kinda rough around the edges. It helped him get along with Sonya and Faith. It would be hard for Izzy, who wasn't all that rough, to put him off. "Hey," he crossed his arms, "I know some guys in construction... Two or three offhand who'd kill to take a blonde out for a few beers."

One thing Izzy was not was a snob, so the idea of going out with construction workers didn't bother her in the slightest. At least they held down legitimate jobs, which was something her own father had never managed to do for any length of time. "Trying to hook me up Hayden?" She laughed but didn't dismiss the idea.

Her only real worry with the idea of going out with a 'regular' guy was trying to explain her past, how she wasn't from this dimension originally. There was also her magic to consider, what their reaction to that might be.

It could be one of the reasons she'd stayed with Logan as long as she had.

The tech-witch took another pull from her beer and then nodded her assent to the idea. "As long as they don't have any issues with 'witches' I wouldn't mind going out for a beer or two." She finished the beer and smirked, "They won't even have to kill for the opportunity to do it, I'll settle for the winner beating the competition senseless."

Hayden lifted his left fist overhead. "What, with like a club? Should they drag you back to a cave afterward, too?" He folded his arms and thought about it. There were a couple of guys he grabbed drinks or watched games with after work, so maybe one of them. Maybe Bastian. He'd ask around and see who was single. If nothing else, it'd get Izzy out of the house to let off some steam once they got Kris home. "That should get you riled up."

"Reckon it might at that," Izzy shrugged. "If he's handsome enough he's certainly welcome to try and drag me back to his cave afterward. Clubs could work, bare hands would also be acceptable. No blades or firearms though." It was difficult keeping a straight face, but she'd managed to pull it off. Not that she expected Hayden to buy it, but it was a fun way of distracting both of them from the elephant in the room which was the upcoming rescue mission.

"Yep," She slapped her hands on her knees and stood up to go toss the empty beer bottle in the recycle. "Time to get back on the horse, I've been moping around the house long enough." As soon as they got Kris back safe and sound she'd have to do something about it.

Still on his chairlegs, Hayden craned his neck to watch her. "I think you're selling swords a little short. Me and Kris were both carrying, the night we met. Tough to explain, but a good conversation starter. But hey, this is your date, what do I know?" He swallowed the last of his beer, then got up. At the door to the kitchen, he leaned in and tossed the bottle in the bin.

"The real question is... Where do you fall on power tools?" He kept his face innocently blank.

"Oooh...power tools!" Izzy's eyes lit up as she tossed her bottle in the bin, joke or no joke she loved her tools. "I don't know...they'd have to be cordless." The tech-witch moved to lean against the counter, keeping Hayden in her field of vision. "Cords just tangle up and get in the way of a good beat down. Power sanders leave nasty abrasions, drills are good if you're wanting to inflict maximum damage in a small space. Screwdrivers could work too I suppose, but saws are just too damn messy." From her days running around with her brother's gang she had more of a knowledge of how power tools could be used on human bodies than one might think.

"Nothing beats a good old fashioned baseball bat, though."

Hayden rapped his knuckles on the doorframe. "Got it. First date, battery operated devices only. I'll be sure to pass the word on to the guys." He gave her a thumbs-up, wondering if she caught his drift. If not, man, she really did need to get out. Or get something. He was too much of a gentleman to say it out loud.

Before he grinned and gave himself away, Hayden headed down the hall for the living room.

"Hayden Maragos!" Izzy called after him, a mixture of embarrassment and outrage in her voice. "Don't you dare!" Her face was a brilliant shade of crimson as she chased after him.

Joking about tools was one thing. Sex toys were a very different matter.

Still walking, Hayden pointed at the ceiling. "Ah-ah-ahhh, you said it, not me! I'm just the messenger." A balled-up sweatshirt was on the couch. He tossed it out of his way and collapsed on the middle cushion, propping his feet on the coffee table. "In fact, I've got some time on my hands. Why don't I make a few calls." Hayden pulled out his cell phone. He put on a focused face and scrolled through his contacts. "Andy. Kind-of a firearms guy, we'll skip him. Bastian. That might work."

"I was talkin' about tools fer'a beat down, not vibrators!" Izzy threw up her hands in exasperation. "Great gods below, what kind o' girl do y' take me for? Damn addle brained Yankee!" The louder her voice rose, the thicker her accent became.

She made a grab for the phone. "Gimme that thing!"

"Whoa!" Hayden laughed and put it behind his back. He fended her off with a pillow. "Since when do I live with Scarlett O'Hara?" Actually, she sounded more like Lulu Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard reruns, but he figured he'd skip that reference. "Enlighten me. What kind of... ow... stop!... What kind of girl uses sex toys?" He really hoped she said something like 'floozies' or 'hussies' or 'trollops'.

"Not me, that's fer sure!" Izzy's face was still bright red, and the tech-witch was this close to hexing him into next week. She took a pillow upside the head and fell back, but was undeterred and tried to outflank him using the spine of the couch as cover.

"I'm not gonna be made out t'be some kind o' trailer trash!"

"Trailer trash? What the fuck?" Was Izzy's alternate dimension a Puritan one? Hayden ducked and slid lower on the couch. By now, he had worked the cell phone into his hip pocket. He was pretty damn sure it was safe there. Still laughing, but in a bewildered way, he said. "You owe some of the women I know an apology. No wonder you guys lost the spark. No imagination." He raised his empty hands and wagged his fingers.

At least it wasn't in his hands anymore, and Izzy calmed down some. "A girl doesn't need that sort of thing if she's got a good man," she huffed, "and only trailer trash puts out on the first date, or gives a show with those kind o' toys. I'm not gonna have those kind o' things said about me."

"And lack o' imagination has never been a problem."

Hayden put up his hands. "Alright, truce! I put the phone away, I was just pulling your leg. Man..." He shook his head and resettled against a pillow. "Seriously, though. You should rethink this whole sex toy thing. Real men don't get intimidated by a piece of silicone and a coppertop. They see possibilities." Picking up the remote, he turned the television on and prepared to surf to the History channel.

Izzy settled down and had the graciousness to look a little embarrassed. "Sorry. I didn't mean t' go off on you like that." Hayden had dredged up issues Izzy had tried to forget about. "It just brought up bad memories. My mom and I lived with a real floozy for a while when I was growin' up, practically a prostitute. Guess it shaped me more than I realized."

She flopped down in the nearby easy chair and stared at the image on the television, making a point not to look at Hayden. "Just don't want to get that kind o' reputation is all."

"It's alright." Hayden rubbed the back of his head and flipped channels, until a special about ancient civilizations filled the screen. "Your reputation's safe with me." He crossed his arms and settled in, just trying to keep his mind off the phone in his pocket for a few hours.

He smiled to himself. She said 'floozy'.