Disclaimer: Same as usual. Joss owns what he owns and I own what I own.
Chapter 40
Buffy turned the shower off and stepped out from the cubicle, hands reaching for her fluffy white towel. Steam billowed from the enclosed space, finally able to escape to fog up the mirror. Buffy wrapped the towel around herself and grabbed another to dry her hair. She scowled at the misty mirror and decided to use the one in her room instead. That one was fog free.
Padding to her room, she dropped the towel and got dressed for the day, completing her daily routine; Lotion, clothes, moisturizer, makeup, hair, perfume, jewelry. It was a soothing routine, a sign of normalness when she needed it. At this point in time, she needed it. Things had been going crazy lately and the routine momentarily made it all go away.
Sometimes she regretted the move to the demon town. She would have dropped Willow off anyway but she and Giles could have gone elsewhere. She knew that there was at least one more Hellmouth, located in Cleveland somewhere, so why couldn’t they have gone there? Things had gone from bad to worse since they’d arrived in the hellhole called Sunnydale. It seemed, finally, that things would be coming to a head sooner rather than later though. Would she be able to handle it?
It had been two days since Angel had left to go find information. Giles had searched his books, Willow and Xander too and they still hadn’t found the one Giles was after. Maybe someone had taken it. Someone knew what they were up to, what they were looking for and took any mention of it so it could stay in the game. Whatever. Buffy didn’t really care about some new big bag on location. It was when they started wearing her friend’s faces that things started to get personal.
She went downstairs and belatedly noticed the house was very quiet. Giles wasn’t home. Where was he? She shrugged. He’d come home soon enough. If he wasn’t home by nightfall… well, they’d deal with it if it happened. If it happened.
She sighed and shook her head. Unwanted thoughts were coming and she hastened them away. Now was not the time for useless thoughts like that. Giles would come home. She knew that. He knew she needed him.
Buffy sighed, a long, expressive sigh and rubbed her forehead soothingly. So many things seemed to be happening and they were beginning to do her head in. Craziness was not a good trait to have in a Slayer. A sane Slayer was a good Slayer; for everyone concerned. All the events of the past countless months seemed to be linked somehow, but Buffy couldn’t see the pattern no matter how hard she tried. The knowledge escaped her. What was the link? What did all of it have to do with her?
She sat at the dining table and put her head in her hands. There was supposed to be a meeting there that night, Giles wanted to see what progress was being made. After that, he would plan what the next steps would be for they would not give up. Not when so many signs were pointing that the battle to end all battles was coming. Buffy had a feeling it was closer than anyone knew.
The front door opened and Buffy rose to see Giles hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. She breathed a sigh of relief and shook her head. Her worries had been groundless. He was fine.
‘Ah, Buffy,’ he smiled as his gaze lit upon her still form. Buffy smiled back. Her Watcher may be exhausted, worried and overworked, but he still put her and the others above everything else. ‘Is everything alright?’
She nodded. Tears threatened to fill her eyes but she forced them back. Now was not the time to fall apart. When is that time going to come? We can’t hold on forever. Surely we would crack. ‘Where’d you go, Watcher-mine?’ she asked lightly, examining the small tartan bags he carried with him. She couldn’t see what was in them, but it didn’t appear to be something like milk and bread.
‘Ahem,’ he coughed slightly, ‘well, yes. I have been gathering supplies. Willow found a spell that may give us that edge we are sorely in need of. The spell will allow us to see exactly who or what it is we are opposing, be it big or small.’ He shuffled past Buffy and set the bags down on the dining table. Buffy took a different seat than before and watched with growing interest as he began to unpack.
“I thought you didn’t like Willow doing magic,’ she said quietly, watching his reaction closely.
‘And I still do not,’ Giles conceded. ‘But things are beginning to get bigger than what we can handle. This spell may come in more use than any of us could even imagine. Willow has assured me she can do it and… I trust that she knows her limits,’ he finished while avoiding Buffy’s gaze.
He was worried, too, and Buffy knew he had every right to be. Willow was still new to the world of magic. She was the equivalent of a trainee and Buffy didn’t think that Willow knew her limits. Buffy didn’t think that Willow was thinking at all. But, as usual, Buffy steered well clear of magic. She didn’t trust it, no matter who was using it. Past experiences had taught her well.
Giles seemed to read her thoughts. ‘You don’t like magic, do you?’
Buffy smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘No. Not at all.’
‘May I enquire as to why not?’ he pulled out a chair and sat down, watching her intently. She could feel his interested stare on her and she met his gaze.
‘You read that file on me, didn’t you?’
‘I read what was required of me,’ he admitted. ‘But not all of it. I refused to pry into a Slayer’s past, knowing you as I do now, I am glad that I didn’t. You are your own person, Buffy. Far be it from me to know everything about you before you are ready to divulge in your own time.’
Buffy looked at him in amazement. All this time she had assumed that Giles had read the file from cover to cover, when all he’d done was read parts. She briefly wondered about what parts he had read but thought better of asking. Another time, perhaps.
‘What’s up, G-man, Buffster?’ Xander asked as he and Willow appeared from the kitchen. Buffy hadn’t heard them enter and judging by the surprised look on Giles’ face, he hadn’t either. Wow, some pair of demon hunters. Didn’t even hear two teenagers walk through the back door.
Giles clucked his annoyance. ‘Must you insist on addressing me by that infernal name?’
‘Hi Buffy,’ Willow waved madly. Buffy just smiled. ‘What’s going on?’ The redhead looked from Buffy to Giles and back again. ‘Did we interrupt bonding time?’ she asked quietly.
‘No, Buffy shook her head. ‘You didn’t.’ She sighed deeply and turned back to her Watcher. ‘This is pretty much everything so listen closely. I had just been called as a Slayer. It was a very confusing time or me and I was easily misled. I met some people in one of the parks I was patrolling. They knew I was the Slayer, said they had “seen” me coming,’ she shook head and gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t even know why I went with them. Merrick was being a pain in the ass, my friends had just dumped me because I wasn’t who I used to be; I was vulnerable, I guess.’
Giles nodded as she spoke, listening intently. Willow and Xander were listening too, knowing that this was leading somewhere important.
‘One night, after I’d been there a few times, just to watch, they asked if I wanted to take part in one of the spells. I, of course, said yes. It was all still new to me; I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. Luckily we started off slow; I only mixed herbs and stuff like that. That wasn’t the only time. As time wore on, I began to do more and more,’ Buffy paused for a small breather. He mind was already reliving that night, all that time ago. ‘Then this one night came. It was supposed to be a special night; it was one of the younger girl’s birthdays. She was so excited.
‘We started off with a simple spell, one for long life and happiness. She was rapt. Then, after she had left for the night, one of the elders decided to give her one final gift. They cast me as one of the major participants. I don’t know exactly what the spell was supposed to do, but whatever it was, was not what happened.’
‘No one had counted on the fact that my being the Slayer would change things. If they hadn’t known before, they knew it after. The spell went crazy and we were unable to control it. No one knew what to do. It got worse, much worse.’
The tears she had been holding back began to flow. She didn’t even attempt to wipe them away. They were long overdue.
‘The spell morphed, it turned, so to say and it began attacking anyone within range. After that, it sought people out,’ Buffy heard Willow gasp but she didn’t stop. ‘It killed everyone in the building, even the young girls who hadn’t left yet for the party. It got everyone… except me. Bodies littered the ground around me, all with looks of horror and pain frozen on their faces and I couldn’t handle it,’ now, Buffy paused. Her breathing was slightly laboured, as she cried silently for the people who had lost their lives that night.
‘It turned on me after that. It was just this sparkling red cloud of nothing drifting towards me, yet it was the scariest thing I had ever seen at that moment. It stopped in front of me, just hovering for what seemed to be hours. I didn’t know what to do. This thing had just killed everything in the building besides me and I was sure that I was next. Nothing happened. It just hovered there. Eventually, frustration got the better of me and I screamed at it to leave me alone, to go away. It disappeared, faded away as I had told it to and it was then that I realized what had happened. The spell had gone wrong because of the power of the Slayer. The power corrupted it. No one had foreseen that. I broke down.’
She closed her eyes against the memory of the next part. ‘I ran, and I didn’t stop, I ran for what felt like years, not knowing where I was headed. When I stopped, I was still in L.A. and right near my house. I did what any child would do, I ran to my mum. I told her everything, about vampires, being the Slayer, magic and I thought that everything would be okay.’
‘It wasn’t though, was it?’ Willow said quietly, tear marks lined her face also.
‘They put me in an institution, saying I was crazy. Vampires didn’t exist, there was no such thing as magic. It was the ultimate betrayal.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Giles slumped back in his seat in shock. Buffy saw his floored expression and noticed similar looks on her friend’s faces.
‘I was a guest of the mental hospital for over a year, where I stupidly kept telling them they were real, not delusions as they wanted me to think. In the end, I started to believe it. Not long after that, I was released into my parent’s custody and everything seemed to return to normal. A couple of months after that, and this is something you already know, I was passing a friends house and I noticed that there were a lot of people around. I thought it was odd hat he was having a party without me, when I noticed that something was wrong. The “guests” were not having fun. There was something wrong with some of their faces, too.’
‘I didn’t understand at first, and when one of them grabbed me, all I did was scream. They took me over to where the others were and I noticed there were wounds on their necks. Something in the back of my mind began to tick and I felt like I had forgotten to do something. The niggling sensation grew as I watched the vamps murder my friend’s sister. I was terrified, but not as much as I should have been. It took three more people form me to remember. The moment I did, I screamed. The memories were rushing back and for those few moments, I was incapacitated. The vamps took that distraction and used it, tearing into my friend like he was nothing, it was vicious.
‘When I finally came back to myself, a vamp had me by the neck and I was thrown to the ground, next to Carson’s remains. I wanted revenge. I took out all fifteen vamps. The papers said wild dogs had torn the place apart. I couldn’t tell anyone, obviously, until Pike showed up a week later. He’d been out of town for a few weeks and had just seen the papers.’
‘Wait,’ Xander held up a hand. ‘Pike had been out of town? I thought he had been you closest friend when you became the Slayer. So where was he while you were rotting away in the nuthouse?’
Buffy winced at the harsh words but she understood where he was coming from. ‘He had tried to find me, but my parents refused to tell him where I was. They said he had been encouraging my delusions and he was not to try to contact me anymore. He didn’t stop trying. His parents eventually dragged him out of town for a few weeks and while he was gone, I was released.’
‘Oh, Buffy,’ Willow shot up from her seat and ran around the table, wrapping her arms around the spent Slayer. Xander followed suit.
‘And that’s the sad and tragic story of everyone’s favourite Slayer,’ Buffy quipped, but the joke fell flat. ‘Now do you understand why I didn’t want to talk about it?’
‘Good Lord, Buffy,’ Giles removed his glasses and polished them frantically, he stared into space as he did so. ‘I had no idea, no idea. I saw the contents of the file, but I never thought…’
‘Yeah,’ Willow agreed slowly. Buffy knew what Willow had seen, as she had busted the redhead with the file. ‘What I saw, I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think, I mean, how could you even begin to guess?’
‘You couldn’t,’ Buffy examined her hands intently, not meeting anyone’s gaze. ‘What you saw Willow, was not what you think I was. Most of it, like the psych evaluations and all, was related to that story, but some of it wasn’t. The picture? With me all banged up? That was due to something entirely different. That was taken by my mother after I fought and defeated Lothos. She wanted to keep it in case something ever came up. It was used to condemn me and put me away.’
‘Lothos? Wasn’t that the dude who killed your first Watcher?’ Xander asked apprehensively. Buffy confirmed his suspicion. ‘Damn,’ he sat back in his seat. Buffy could almost see his mind sorting through the new information learned that night. ‘Damn.’
‘It’s worse than you could possibly imagine,’ a voice broke in from the door to the kitchen. Buffy almost slapped herself. People were entering her house and she didn’t know it. She needed to hone her skills some more.
Angel stood braced in the doorway, weariness making his features. He looked at Buffy and she knew he had heard everything. Good. That meant she didn’t have to repeat it later.
‘Worse?’ Giles queried, laughing humorlessly. ‘How much worse could this possibly get?’
‘This thing we’re fighting? I think it’s The First.’
‘Good Lord.’
Hey guys.... Sorry I've been non-communicado as of late. So many things have been going on it's not funny. I know it's no excuse but sorry anyway. Another problem is that I've been finding it hard to get in the right mood to write. My writing course has been getting me down and I just wasn't in the right mood.
Please review, gets my spirits up. Maybe I'll write faster. There are a lot of you who read this and don't review, just remember, i know where you live....
and it's nowhere near me! Ha!
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