Author: JustSkipIt
Rating: PG
Feedback: Yes, please. Please leave feedback on the Love Comes to Long Lick - Revisited thread on the Kitten Board.
Disclaimer - Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own Willow, Tara, and the Buffyverse and Angelverse and all characters and locations from those universes. No copyright infringement is meant by this fic and I will not make any money from it.

Rose let herself into the apartment at exactly 5:55, fulfilling her promise to Grand-me perfectly. The older woman was asleep in her chair holding the daily newspaper across her chest. Rose gently lifted it off her grandmother, saw that the crossword was filled in, and set it on the end table before doing the same with the woman's glasses. Then she went into her small room and set down her books and computer, plugging the computer in to charge.

Her room was filled nearly to capacity with a bed, desk, small second-hand dresser, and three dented filing cabinets. From her bag she pulled three xeroxed sheets of paper and placed them into the appropriate folders in her file cabinets. Next she stood for a few minutes looking at the wall. Or rather she gazed at the expanse of paper stuck to the wall with thumbtacks, tape, staples, and gummy stuff.

One entire wall was covered with large sheets of butcher paper. That paper showed a timeline ranging from 1871 to present day with great detail of the first years. Pencil and pen scribbling surrounded small sketches and symbols written across the timeline as well as above and below it on the paper. A family tree filled another piece of butcher paper mounted above the first. Another wall, just over Rose's computer desk, was filled with photographs and news clippings of none other than socialite, troublemaker, and media presence Maclay Willingham. The wall was quite crowded, overcrowded even, with pictures, headlines, and clippings of the young woman's exploits across the globe. The collage was bordered with a few very rare pictures of James Willingham. Also on the wall were a few pictures of Prudence "Tip" Mercury, daughter of one of the Sunnyland executives and apparent some-times girlfriend of Maclay Willingham. Years ago, Rose had assumed that the dark-haired girl was Maclay's girlfriend but she had since concluded that she was either not her girlfriend or if she was she was the world's worst doormat or perhaps the best paid doormat because Maclay Willingham ... well, the expression couldn't keep it in her pants might have seemed an apt one if the heir to the Sunnyland fortune were a young man. Instead, Rose thought, somewhat more generously, that she liked the ladies and the ladies seemed to like her.

Not that that interest was likely to ever make a difference to Rose Jennings. Given that she didn't frequent expensive nightclubs, Ivy League schools, charitable balls, or the coast of Greece, her chances of meeting Maclay Willingham were pretty much limited to the young woman running her over with one of her many cars as everyone knew she had done last year in Belgium, only to have gotten off scot free when her best friend "admitted" to driving the car that had injured a teenage boy and killed his dog.

Rose reached up to brush her fingertip along Maclay's jawline in the latest picture. This one she had cut from a gossip magazine someone had left at the Library that had been placed in the lost and found bin. "How's my money today, Willingham? You taking good care of it? You know you're not. You use money like we use air. But that's not always going to be the way. I'm going to find my proof. And then we'll see who flies to Greece on a private jet."

She looked down and took a deep breath. "And now I'm talking to myself. Shit. I really need to get a life or a girlfriend or something." She looked back at the materials on both walls and then smiled. "Any day now."

She quietly opened the door and went into the bathroom to wash her hands before entering the living room. Her grand-me had her eyes open and sat up and looked at the younger woman as she walked in. "I thought I might have heard you come in."

Rose crossed the room and gave the older woman a kiss on the cheek and stepped back while holding her hands, effectively helping her from her chair without seeming to do so. The two walked into the kitchen to visit while rewarming the lasagna from the night before and putting together a salad. "You know, you don't have to be home by 6:00 every evening."

Rose smiled. "I know but I like eating dinner together."

"I'm just saying that if you had an engagement, that would be ok. I can feed myself."

"An engagement?"

Winnefred smiled at her granddaughter. "You know what I mean, Rosie. If you had dinner plans. A date?"

Rose laughed again. "Well, as a matter of fact I do have a date tonight."

"You do? That's wonderful."

Rose smiled as she carried the salad plates to the table. "You'd like her, she's smart, sweet, mature, and she can almost beat me at jeopardy."

Winnefred swung her napkin to playfully swat the younger woman. "I can beat you at Jeopardy and don't you forget it."

Across town Maclay Willingham waited to meet with her father. She'd received a text message from his secretary asking her to meet him for dinner and she knew that meant a late meal. James Willingham rarely stopped working or left the office before 8:00 at night. While she fondly remembered his dedication to leave the office by 6:00 every night when she was younger so that they could eat dinner together and he could help her with any homework, she always knew that after tucking her into bed, he went to his office in the hotel suite and worked from there until late at night. Now that she was older, he stayed at the office much longer.

Mac turned on the flat-screen television in her rooms, flipped the channels, and then turned it off in disgust. She took a sip of her drink and paced as she waited for dinner. She wasn't afraid of her father but she was nervous about their meeting. It had been three months since the last time she'd seen the man, and she remembered the remorse and embarrassment she had felt and expressed at that time. He hadn't yelled; in fact he never yelled at her. But a glance from James Willingham could make her feel as if she were six years old and had licked each jar of jelly in the pantry to compare the tastes. That last time she had sworn better behavior and a commitment to her schooling but here she was, back in Sunnydale.

She genuinely did want to please him, to be that child he always thought he would have. The dutiful one. The brilliant one. The one to follow in his footsteps and take over the company, just as he had done. Just as his father and uncle had done. Just as their fathers had done. Ever since her great-great-grandfather or how every many greats he might have been, Ethan Rayne had founded the company, his sons had gone into the family business, building it and growing it through the depression and wars and into the current economic recession. And now it was down to Maclay Willingham to take the company over from her father someday. She'd been to the factories, to the fields. She'd seen the thousands of workers dependent on Sunnyland Farms for their livelihood, for their ability to feed and clothe their children.

So she always headed back to school intending to learn so that her company could continue to provide for those thousands, even tens of thousands of employees and their families. But it never lasted. There were always women, parties, photo shoots, open bars, and the promise of a few hours away from the pressure of knowing that so many people were dependent on her. Sometimes she felt like a parent with thousands of helpless children all clamoring for her attention.

She shook her head and finished off the drink in her hand. Knowing her father's feelings, that drinking was to be done only in moderation and only in appropriate situations, she set the glass on the credenza and continued pacing, turning the television back on if only to have some noise in the suite as she waited.

Tip had stopped by earlier and informed Mac that she'd be out at Zenith if dinner ended in time. In time. In time to Tip meant before she left the bar. Not alone. Never alone. Tip's interests were much more varied than Mac's but no less voracious and Mac had seen her leave a bar within five minutes of arriving if she'd caught the right guy's or girl's (or both) attention. Of course, when she stopped by she hadn't told Mac what had happened at her meeting with James earlier. They were still at lunch when Tip took the call from James's secretary informing her that he would like to meet with her at 4:00 and she had, of course, been quite prompt. As always, she was tight lipped about what had been said.

What might he have said. Surely Tip had taken some heat for Mac's latest exploits but there was always an understanding that she moderated those exploits, that without her, things would be even more embarrassing. The blonde was just considering pouring herself another small drink when her phone rang. Her father's secretary, Trent, said that her father was ready for her and Mac took one last look in the mirror before exiting her suite. As she walked to the other end of the hall, she took deep breaths. By the time she got there, Trent had the door open and was calling her name warmly. He gave her a hug and they kissed on both cheeks.

"You're looking good, Trent."

Trent looked her up and down. "As are you, darling."

He took her by the hand and led her into the study where her father sat watching MSNBC and speaking on the phone. He waved her to take a seat and Mac took a chance to look around. A new cigar lighter sat on the table nearest his chair but nothing else had changed. She assumed that the lighter must have been a gift from a business associate because her father never shopped for anything, never bought anything. The room was unchanged and she suspected that nothing in the entire suite had changed since she left for college. When she was young the two of them shared the entire top floor of the hotel in a large living space. After she left for school it was remodeled so that his permanent residence took up just over half of the top floor. The other portion was still rented as a penthouse but with the understanding that her rooms would be available at as little as 15 minutes notice from either of them. Of course, the fact that a Sunnyland subsidiary had bought the hotel along with 19 others throughout California made the management particularly interested in keeping them settled.

He hung up and stood to hug his only daughter. "Hello, sweetheart."

Mac stepped back from the hug and looked her father up and down. "You need a break, father. And a new suit."

James smiled at his daughter. "I'm sure I do." He crossed to the bar and pulled out a bottle of water offering Mac one which she accepted. "Let's eat and you can catch me up on what's been going on with you." At her look he added, "What I don't read in the newspaper that is."

Mac raised her eyebrows. "Didn't you meet with Tip this afternoon?"

His demeanor softened as he looked at his daughter. "Yes, and she told me about the problem you had. But she didn't tell me how you're feeling. Things with Virginia... didn't work out? Are you..."

Mac resisted laughing for her father's sake. Here was a man who had fallen head-over-heels in love with his wife when he was 17, married her, had two children, and was now a widow still in love with her. While Mac frequently questioned whether she was even capable of those type of feelings, she would never demean her father through a thoughtless response.

She took his hand. "I'm fine, Father. Please let's go eat."

Their meal was an unhurried affair with multiple courses and just enough attention from the staff to never feel the need but little enough to provide a good amount of privacy. James visited about his daughter's experiences at school without touching on the trouble that had brought her home this time. Rather he seemed to be asking and listening for what she liked and didn't like about her studies. It was times like these she she especially appreciated him, not as the head of a multi-national corporation, but as her father who could make her feel like all her screw-ups weren't such bad screw-ups.

By the time they finished eating and retired to James's study to continue talking, Mac felt reasonably sure that it was too late to meet Tip at the bar. Either the woman had already left or she would be in a cranky mood and no fun to party. Either way, Mac concluded that perhaps getting a good night's sleep and beginning her work on the bet in the morning might be a good approach. She was so lost in pondering the bet and how she might best approach Marian the Librarian that she nearly missed her father's first query regarding her wishes.

"Excuse me?"

James laughed. "I can only guess what you were thinking of. I said how would you feel about taking some time off school?" He watched her for a moment and then explained, "I don't mean like your gap year. I'm not proposing you travel around Europe with a Tip and a backpack full of travelers checks leaving dogless boys and heart-broken debutantes in your wake." He shook a playful finger at her as if admonishing her for her bad behavior, making her laugh even as she felt like a 5 year-old who had broken the cookie jar while sneaking a late night snack.

"Hear me out, sweetheart. Now we both know that I can't possibly control you. I can cut you off and you'd still never go hungry. The money your grand-father set up in trust would see any reasonable and most unreasonable people through life with never a care." He went on to suggest that school wasn't doing her any good or at least not the good it was intended to provide. He suggested instead that she stay home for a while, at least three months but perhaps a few years. She could select a part of the business she would like to learn. He even suggested that she might like to work in the hotel chain. It would be an apprenticeship of sorts, giving her a good idea of what people did to earn the money to keep her in style and perhaps giving her a chance to find something that she liked to do. They discussed the idea for a few hours and finally agreed to talk about during the next few days. When his phone rang and he kissed her on the cheek before answering it and speaking in German into the headset, she knew she had been dismissed.

She entered her rooms and glanced at the clock, 11:35. It wasn't too late if she wanted to go out although Tip was surely already gone from the club. She leaned on the bed to pull off her shoes and then put them away before changing out of her clothes into some Yoga togs and bringing up a Yoga video podcast on the computer. By the time she went to bed around 1:00 she had stilled her wandering mind but not settled on a course of action regarding her father's suggestion. The unspoken agreement gave her a few weeks before he would ask for her plans which also gave her some time to work on winning the bet.