FLORIDA, OCTOBER, 1996

That the call came through at all was a shock to her. Yes, she'd read for the part. Yes, she definitely wanted the part. But combine her reputation with all the publicity surrounding the launch, and they had to know what they were up against.

"No, I'm sorry. Mister Whedon, its like I told you when I read. This project is going to keep me away for--well, I think you've read the papers."

The training drills and rehearsals had been far too intense. To contemplate another job, even for a role as potentially meaty as that of Buffy Summers, was to risk falling back into the trap of addiction she'd only narrowly avoided being destroyed by. She'd never been that bad. But she could easily have gotten there, had her family not so noisily intervened.

"I know, I know. But I read basically as a lark. I never thought that you'd ever choose me. To be frank-I'm not sure I would have chosen me. My approach has never had the angst a role like Buffy's really needs. My training as an Annie makes me a mite too optimistic. Wait--wasn't one of the others Kendall from 'All My Children'? Well, there you go! No, she was the entire reason I watched that show. Ms. Lucci had a run-in with my mother at a party. Said we were all space-cases--ha-ha. If you pick her, you've got that whole, friend to some, fiend to others aspect down pat. Cordelia? Trust someone who's stupid enough to read her own reviews, Mister Whedon. If you put her in that role, people will say 'Kendall 2', and that will be that. I really think so. Well, good luck to you, too, though I hope we're depending on more than just luck. This, as they say, is really Off-Off Broadway."

Hanging up, she found her 9-year old brother nearby, looking through the script fragment for the series she'd just refused.

"Is she some kind of modern-day Xena?"

Grateful that he nowadays cleaned his hands after eating peanut butter and jelly, she nodded. "Its a bit more complicated than that. This producer has some deep plans for the storyline, if it should all pan out."

He shook his head.

"He made up some of these demon names."

Gently, she took the script back, and tweaked his nose.

"Not all of us can be kid geniuses."

He smiled, glad that he got along better with this sister than the one closer to him in age.

"Well, you'dve been great for the part, sis. Too bad we'll all be asleep if and when this show really hits."

As he left, that thought hit her, too, as it had before. Cryo-stasis for as much as a century, although hopefully more like a quarter-century. The mind boggled, and her mind was sharper than most. At least, she chuckled inwardly, it would force the kid sibs to act civilly towards each other for once. Seeing the mission pilot in the distance, she determined once again to catch his eye, 'jail-bait' comments aside.

"After all, this script would have had me falling for a brooding, handsome, older man."

Putting aside all thoughts of Buffy Summers and fighting monsters, Doctor Judy Robinson went to chat up Major Don West, all in the sight of the spacebound Jupiter 2.