There was silence for a moment. It was the older Willow who broke it.
“Well, uh. OK. Give me a minute. I mean, six years… Wow. Where do you start?”
The others from the future looked at her as every last piece of their history seemed to shriek for attention. It was Dawn who spoke first as it had been at the crater.
“Mom.”
Buffy nodded at her sister. “Yeah, let’s start with Mom.”
Younger Buffy looked up. “What about Mom?”
”No, let’s not.”
”What?” Both Buffy’s barked that out and turned to look at the younger Giles, an identical expression of annoyance on their faces.
“I… I’m sorry but I can’t just accept that you are who you claim to be without… well without some sort of proof. I can name half a dozen sorts of demons, spirits or magicians who could produce doppelgangers of us with a view to spreading confusion or giving us just one piece of misinformation embedded in a lot of truths and partial truths. I mean….Well, how can we know? Can you prove any of this?”
As one the visitors turned and looked at their Giles who had his glasses out and was polishing away at them, bizarrely mirroring his counterpart on the far side of the room.
“Well, ultimately, I’m afraid… no. All you can do is… ah, suck it and see. We could be some sort of black propaganda effort by the Dark Lords or someone. Or we could be what we say we are. Lots of the things we will have to tell you will come as shocks and you’re going to get all six years worth in a few hours, with no time to adjust and mature and…and…grow up. Take it with as large a pinch of salt as you want but do please take it.” He paused and popped his glasses back on. “I can think of one thing, though that can be confirmed pretty much right away, if that would help settle your mind.”
Dawn blinked ”You can?”
“Oh, yes. Kendra.”
Dawn grinned. “Yeah. Kendra. I can see people’s brains starting to work. I’ll go and get started on the coffee. Buffy, you deal with telling….Buffy about Mom.”
The elder Giles continued his explanation. “You see, Xander, when you performed CPR on Buffy this evening you really did bring her back from the dead. Her heart and breathing had stopped and that was enough to trigger the spell that passes the power of the Slayer along to the next in line. Her name is Kendra. She was a Potential, a Slayer in training, in the West Indies under the tutelage of a Watcher called Sam Zebuto. And just about now he and she should be realising what has happened. His number is in the Council Handbook. You should give him a call.”
As the younger Giles stalked over to his office and people began to cluster around to listen to the conversation the older Buffy took her counterpart to one side and sat her down.
“So. What about Mom?”
”Two things. First you’ve got to tell her.”
”What? Are you…. You know what happened the last time I came home telling her there were vampires in the school and I was the Chosen One…”
”Yeah, yeah! I remember. Straight-jackets, tranquillisers and group therapy. Thing is I think that was mostly Dad. He doesn’t deal too well with weird stuff. And this is Sunnydale. If you’re willing to look, you can find a way to show her that you’re not crazy and there really is all sorts of nasty stuff out there….”
”Even if I did manage to tell her, she’s not going to want her little girl to go out hunting down the creatures of the night….”
”She’s going to get all protective and clingy, it’s true. God I remember the time she insisted on coming out patrolling with me… She brought a flask and sandwiches! Don’t giggle! God knows what woulda happened if we’d met something really nasty… Not that what we did find… Never mind. Point is, once she knew I never really regretted her finding out. She was the best ally, the best friend I had, once I let down the barriers. The sooner you tell her the longer you’ll have with her knowing and helping and watching your back. And with luck you won’t ever have to stand at her grave regretting the years of lying to her.”
“What? Say what?”
”That’s the second thing. See… Mom didn’t make it. Not all the way. Middle of my second year at college, she started to complain of headaches….”
Over at the librarian’s office, Giles was in the middle of a long and strange telephone call while Dawn pottered around making coffee and tea. The other Scoobies hung in the door eavesdropping.
“…yes, yes, quite remarkable! No, no, I don’t think there has ever been a similar case, not in all the years of Watching… Indeed, yes! We must bring them together, they would have so much to teach each other…. Well, if you would perhaps approach the Council, you are senior to me… How did I know? Well that’s a bit of a story… Perhaps when we meet… Yes, thank you Doctor Zabuto. And my best to your Slayer too…. Goodbye.”
The tweed wearing Giles put the phone down carefully and then turned to see the faces watching him from the doorway. It was Xander who broke the silence.
“Well?”
“He…He confirms that Kendra is now a Slayer. I suppose…. Ahhh. Humph. Well, we must…. Humph, Xander would you fetch us a supply of pens and notebooks. We should write everything down.”
A short while later people were setting up tables and chairs as the younger Buffy wandered over to her Watcher.
“So, you’re, like, buying this?”
”For now. Provisionally and cautiously. We don’t know…. You must expect to hear… uhhm, things that will shock you. It…It’s likely enough that anyone’s teenage years will bring changes… pro…profound changes. Especially a Slayer’s teenage years, living on a Hellmouth.”
”Uhhh. Yeah.”
”What did you and she talk about?” He nodded to where the older Buffy was helping break up the Master’s bones and put them away in cardboard boxes.
“Stuff. Private, family stuff. Giles, you know my mom?”
”Yes, we’ve met once or twice. What? Why that look?”
On a police car, she said. TWICE on a police car. He so does not need to know about that! Not sure I did!
“Well, she says it would be smart to tell her. Let her know what’s really going on. What do you think?”
Giles began polishing his glasses again. “Buffy… Look, Slayers often…. Having a mother, an active family life complicates matters. The Council believes in keeping the things they are doing a secret. There are good reasons…. Don’t…. Now, don’t use that wounded look on me. I am hardened! I am!”
”It’s not something I’m going to do tonight. Just something to think about….”
Across the room the older Buffy clapped her hands. “OK, everybody set? Xander, make sure Giles has a pen and notebook. Good! Willow, where do we start?”
”I know where I want to start.”
Everybody in the room turned to look at Angel.
“I want to know why Whistler was so afraid of you. What did you do to upset…”
”The guy who recruited you? The guy who found you in the gutter and gave you something to live for?”
”The guy who speaks for the Powers, Buffy. Why did he run away like that? I mean he’s one of the Good Guys.”
”He says….” That was from the older Xander. “Thing is, Deadboy, Buffy’s been a bit teed off by Whistler ever since he told her that she was going to have kill you.”
Silence again. Angel looked at Buffy.
“Did you? Am I… gone in the future? Is that why I’m not….”
”No, no. You’re still with us. I saw you last night, no more than eighteen hours ago. And I didn’t have to kill you. What I had to do was worse than that. I had to…” She choked. Willow finished it for her.
“She had to send you to hell. She had to drive her sword through you and use you to seal a portal that you had opened that was going to suck the world into hell.”
The vampire protested. “What? Why would I…”
”Well, when I say it was you, I wasn’t being quite accurate. It was Angelus who opened the portal. But it was you who suffered the consequences.”
Giles stopped writing and looked up. “Angelus returned?”
”He’s never been away, G-Man.” Xander pointed at the vampire’s head. “He’s right there inside Angel, watching and waiting. Probably memorising all of this for later use. See, there’s a flaw in the curse the gypsies put on him. Never was quite sure if it was a bug or a feature. Way it works is: if ever Angel experiences a moment of perfect happiness then his soul departs again and the monster returns. Buffy didn’t know that, see…”
”It was… It was my seventeenth birthday. You all gave me a surprise party. Afterwards I went back with Angel. Back to his apartment. To his bed.”
Perfect silence fell in the room as Buffy paced back and forward, looking at the floor, not daring to look up at them.
”I wanted him to be my first because… I wanted him to be my always. And it was perfect. Not just for him. We… In the middle of the night he got up and left. And the next thing I knew there was a new monster in town. He started going for the people I cared for…. That’s his M.O. Angelus likes to cause emotional pain. He has an obsession about families.”
Angel sat down hard. “Yes, yes. That’s the way. Right from the start. The family.”
”We can even give you confirmation on this one, Giles.” The Watcher looked up at Xander. His one eye was focussed on a quiet figure seated slightly away from the rest. “We can confirm it by asking the local agent of the tribe who put the curse on. Can’t we, Janna of the Kalderash?”
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