Days Of Wine & Roses: What's In A Name?
by Fairfax
Dawn looked anxiously at her sister. Buffy was curled up on the couch surrounded by scrunched up bits of paper, facial expression contorted in furious concentration. She threw another piece into the air, which Dawn caught and opened up.

‘Joan?’

‘I’ve always liked it.’

‘This is crazy. You can’t just pick a new name and sign up for Watcher training. Even if it works, Giles’ll find out in a nano-second and be really pissed.’

‘Don’t care.’

‘Yeah you do.’

Dawn flopped down amongst the swirl of rejects.

‘I hate it when people argue.’

Buffy let go of her pen.

‘Me too, Dawnie,’ she said as she stroked her sister’s hair.

‘I’m the Slayer, it is still my fight. I need Giles to realise it’s serious. I can teach the Potentials, make a contribution to the next phase.’

Dawn shook free of Buffy’s caress.

‘Then tell Giles,’ Dawn insisted. ‘Get him back here, or go there and talk to each other.’

‘Right now, I have nothing to say.’

‘I saw the blood on the floor,’ said Dawn accusingly. ‘‘Sorry for smashing your face in’ would be a good place to start.’

Disgusted, she stalked off. Buffy frowned, then after a moments thought, began to write.

********************

‘Rupert Giles’ office, how can I help you?’

Buffy smiled to herself, she’d teased Giles often enough about his accent, but the guy on the other end of the phone sounded impossibly aristocratic.

‘Are you Mark?’

‘Yah, and you are?’

Hoping you’re as stupid as Giles claimed, she thought. Buffy tensed up, she only had one shot at this.

‘My name is,’ she grabbed the nearest piece of paper. ‘Elizabeth Winters, and I’m still waiting on my itinerary. Do I just show up on the day or what?’

‘Itinerary?’

‘Watcher training. Wood recruited me in Cleveland, he said everything would be taken care of.’

‘One moment Miss Winters, I’m just going to put you on hold.’

Buffy heard a series of clicks, then discovered she wasn’t on hold as she could hear Mark muttering frenziedly to himself and the sound of a keyboard being struck too hard.

‘Oh Christ, she’s not on the list…she’s got this number and knows Wood but she’s not here…I must’ve buggered the list up…come on think, think…Rupert will kill you…no he’ll sack you, Dad’ll kill you…’

‘Miss Winters,’ Mark sounded wholly unruffled.

‘That’s me.’

‘I do apologise for the delay. I’ll get those documents sent to you immediately. In the mean time, as a security precaution could you please give me your details so that I can confirm them against the ones we already hold?’

A few minutes later Buffy hung up with great satisfaction – she was on her way! Realistically she doubted whether she’d make it through a single day undetected, but that didn’t matter as long as her point was proved. The Chosen One would chose when it was time for her to quit and no one else.



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