She woke up in her lover's arms.
This is one of the reasons I know we're meant to be together, she thought drowsily. Even when she was asleep, her body knew what it wanted, and she always found herself snuggled up close to him in the morning.
A voice broke into her thoughts, deep, soft, and seductive. "Mornin', Sunshine."
Buffy Summers smiled, and murmured sleepily to the man who was curled up behind her, "'Sunshine.' Funny endearment for a vampire to use."
She felt him disentangling himself from her. She turned over and started to protest, but found herself silenced by the cool lips that covered her own.
"Mmmm," she hummed happily when Spike finally let her speak. "Now that's what I call a 'good morning.'"
God, sometimes I still can't believe this is real. I'm engaged. To Spike. And I'm deliriously happy about it. If this is a spell, please, God, don't let anyone break it.
He just lay there, staring at her. She asked, "What? Do I have awful bed-hair or something?" She put her hands to her head, self-consciously.
He shook his head. "No. Just remembering the only time I ever saw you in the sunlight, and wishin' I'd had something better on my mind than fighting you."
It took Buffy a moment to remember, with her mind still full of sleepy cobwebs, but she got it. "Well, as I remember, you were also making nasty remarks about my boyfriends. Jealous, much?"
Spike snorted. "Maybe I was." He sat up enough to lean on one elbow. "I don't know exactly when I fell for you, Slayer. Could've been the first time I saw you, dancing at the Bronze. Could've been the first time we fought, or the second, or the third. Could've even been that day, fighting with you in the daylight -- you were so bloody beautiful, a genuine golden girl, and you actually beat me, Gem of Amara and all. Bloody most amazing thing I ever saw."
"So kicking your ass really is your idea of foreplay?" she said with an impish grin.
"No . . . but it's a good way of figuring out who gets to be on top." He started to reach for her.
She laughed, and pushed him away. "Sorry, blondie. I've got things to do today, remember? Finding a way to stop the newest Apocalypse? Meeting the woman who's going to teach my little sister how to be a psychic? Oh, and keeping the students of UC Sunnydale safe from scary monsters like . . . you," she finished with a grin. Her new security guard job was about as boring as flipping burgers, but at least she didn't have to wear hats with goofy animals on them.
He took her hand before she could get out of bed. "I heard Dawn get into the shower just now, and you know how long she stays in there on weekends. Might as well stay in bed until she gets out."
She smiled slowly, and let him pull her close again. "Might as well . . . "
* * *
"I just hope this one is better than the last," sighed Buffy, as she shifted from one foot to the other in impatience.
"She'd have to be," she heard her sister mutter. "That last guy was a fraud, and a dirty old man!"
"I-I d-don't know about that, Dawn," said Giles, who was standing between them. "I know he acted somewhat strangely, but-"
"Oh, come on, Giles," the blonde Slayer interjected. "I'm not psychic like little sister here, but even I could tell what was going on in that sleazoid's mind. I just wish I'd had the chance to beat him up a few times before he left town."
Giles muttered, "So do I -- pillock scarpered off with five hundred dollars."
"What was that, G-man?" Xander, standing behind the three, asked.
"Um, nothing. And for the hundredth time, don't call me that, Xander. And Dawn, I'm sure Miss Melville will be eminently suitable. She was my first choice to be your teacher from the beginning."
The members of the so-called "Scooby Gang" -- except for Spike, who was waiting outside in his blacked-out De Soto -- were at Sunnydale Airport to meet a new teacher for Dawn. Although Giles had already taken over teaching the new Slayer to fight demons, he had no idea how to train her in the use of her new-found psychic powers. Neither did any other member of the Council of Watchers, for that matter.
Not that Buffy would have let any of those manipulative prigs within a continent of her sister. She'd disliked nearly every Watcher except Giles that she'd encountered over the years. And the Council as a whole had always treated her like she was a tool, a thing. She'd be damned if she'd let them get their hooks into Dawn.
"Then why didn't you contact her first, Giles?" pouted Dawn. "Then I wouldn't have had to see what that geek Weyland had on his mind!" She shuddered. "I'm just glad I only got one or two flashes -- that guy was seriously twisted."
Giles sighed. "I did contact her first, Dawn. But Rachel Melville is a very . . . special individual. She has an exceedingly wide range of talents, and is in constant demand all over the world. Only an organization like the Council can afford to hire her for any length of time. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised when she returned my call and agreed to come teach you."
Buffy felt her brow crinkle. "Is she really that good?"
Giles took his glasses off and began to clean them. "She is a talented psychic, an experienced worker of magic, and-" But before the Watcher could continue extolling her virtues, he was interrupted by a voice. A low, sweet, female voice.
"Rupert Giles? I'm Rachel Melville."
Clearly embarrassed that their guest had arrived unnoticed, the Englishman hastily put on his glasses, turned to greet her -- and froze.
Buffy had to hold back a chuckle. She felt sure that however much Giles knew about this woman, he had never seen a picture of her. Because if he had, he wouldn't have been standing there with his mouth hanging open and his hand -- starting to come forward for a handshake -- frozen at his side.
Rachel Melville was as tall as Giles, with dark brown hair that fell to just below her shoulders. Her face was heart-shaped, her mouth wide and expressive. The thing that really caught a person's attention, though, was her eyes. Huge, sapphire blue eyes that seemed to glow with wisdom and power.
Those have got to be contacts, Buffy thought with a slight twinge of jealousy. That color just does not occur in nature!
As Giles finally stammered a greeting, Buffy couldn't help but grin. Oh, wow. I haven't seen him this flustered since I showed up at his apartment in Faith's body. Then she took pity on him and stepped in. "Hello Miss Melville. I'm Buffy Summers."
"Hello, Miss Summers. And please, call me Rachel. That goes for all of you, and I hope you won't mind if I call you by your first names," she said, glancing around at the whole group. "I'm a very informal person, and being called 'Miss Melville' makes me feel like a college professor or something."
She certainly doesn't look like a college professor, Buffy thought. Or, for that matter, like a high-powered businesswoman who regularly deals with organizations like the Council. In fact, she was comfortably dressed, in the same kind of flowery, hippie-looking dress that Tara was wearing.
"All right, Rachel. And I certainly won't mind if you call me Buffy, everyone does."
Everyone introduced themselved in turn. Buffy was surprised that Xander, who was almost always a babbling fool around pretty women, actually tripped over his tongue less than Giles had. Then again, he had Anya, his new bride, standing right next to him. And from the way he was wincing and leaning to one side, Buffy suspected that she had given him a shot or two in the ribs with her elbow.
* * *
By the time the introductions were done, Giles had recovered himself enough to state, "Miss Melville, if we can collect your luggage, we should get you settled in."
"Of course. Though I'm a bit confused; why did you insist that I stay with one of you instead of at a hotel?"
Giles removed his glasses again. He knew he could trust someone like Rachel Melville with at least most of the truth, but he did not want to bring up certain things in public. "I see you've never been to Sunnydale before, Miss Melville. This town has only one hotel worthy of the name -- the others are small, unsanitary hovels, which have earned derogatory and often obscene nicknames from the local residents.'" He sighed. "And the one decent hotel is simply too far away for safety these days."
"'These days,' Rupert? Is there something going on that I should know about?"
Blinking at her casual use of his first name, and cursing his little slip of the tongue, he could only say, "Um, y-yes. Yes there is," as he fumbled to put his glasses back on. Then he added, "But I think we'd be better off discussing it in a more . . . " he glanced around significantly at the airport crowd, "private setting."
She nodded. "All right, then. Let's collect my stuff and get out of here so you can tell me all about it. I just hate waiting for bad news," she finished with an ironic grin.
* * *
They had had to bring two cars to the airport, and even that might not have been enough if Xander had not recently given in to Anya's demands to buy a minivan. It was big enough to hold the newly married couple, Giles, Rachel (and her luggage), Willow, and Tara. This group headed for Xander and Anya's new house, where Rachel would be staying in the guest room. Buffy and Dawn rode with Spike to the Magic Box, where everyone would be meeting later on.
On the way to the house, Giles and Willow began to explain the facts of life in Sunnydale: the Hellmouth, vampires, demons, and so forth. Rachel was already familiar with the basics. She didn't need to say things like "There's no such things as vampires," or "Chosen One? Buffy Summers? Chosen for what, the cheerleading squad?" However, as Giles had feared, her expertise meant that she was able to ask the really hard questions.
"But I thought there could only be one Slayer at a time? How could Buffy and Dawn both be Slayers?"
"And just what is 'The Key?'"
"But if Buffy died, then . . . Oh my God! Someone did a resurrection spell, didn't they?"
When Giles began giving her half-answers, trying to hide certain strange (and very personal) details, Rachel stopped him. "Rupert, your Council hired me to teach Dawn, but that doesn't mean I won't help out with other things, if I can. And if anything I know can be of use, it would be foolish of you to hold out on me."
With a sigh, he proceeded to give her the whole story. Spike. Drusilla. Shared souls.
"Waitaminute. Buffy, a Slayer, is engaged to a vampire?"
Giles let Willow handle that question. He might have accepted his former student's relationship with Spike, but he was damned if he could explain it.
* * *
"And that's where we stand," he concluded, after Willow finished talking about the confrontation with Drusilla. "We've been slogging through every book of prophecy we can find, but there's nothing that seems to match this particular set of circumstances. Not to mention Drusilla's absurd reference to 'twenty-eight duckies' being the key to averting this disaster."
Rachel looked thoughtful. "You say you started with the Pergamum Codex? The one that's almost all prophecies about the Slayer? I've never read it."
Giles nodded. "And the works of Telamon, the Recklinean Oracles, the Delian Codex, and the Scroll of Ghanli."
Rachel gave an unladylike snort. "The prophecies in the Recklinean Oracles have already all been fulfilled. You won't find anything there." She thought a moment. "Wait. Willow said that Drusilla said that 'The Last Day' was coming. Is that a direct quote?"
Giles' brow wrinkled. "Yes, I believe so. I went over every word that Buffy and Spike could remember and they both agreed on that. 'The Day is coming.' 'What day?' 'The Last Day.'"
"Then the answers may be in the prophecies of !Kannl. It's the strangest book I've ever laid eyes on, but I'm pretty sure it repeats that exact phrase several times, in association with the Hellmouth."
"!Kannl?" Giles frowned, and shook his head in disbelief. "He was mad. I read his book once, and I couldn't think properly for three days. Just trying to make sense of it tied all of my thought processes in knots."
"I'm not surprised. You can only understand it completely if you've got some psychic ability. Somehow, !Kannl managed to imprint his thought-patterns into the pages of the book, and you can only get the whole meaning by reading those thought-patterns at the same time as you read the words of the book."
Willow frowned. "So it's like he created his own personal language. And in order to learn that language, you need to think like him."
Rachel nodded. "Exactly! And it also means that only the original copies that were written by him will do; the copies done by later scribes won't have the imprinted thought-patterns. I knew of only one of those, and it was stolen a few years ago from a museum in Egypt."
Giles held up one finger. "I know that the Council has a copy of the book; that's the one that I tried to read. I will verify that it is indeed one of the originals, and ask that it be brought here to Sunnydale. They will fight me on that," he sighed, "but there are no psychics on the Council. They may be stuffy and hidebound, but I think they learned their lesson the last time they tried to hold out on us. If there's the slightest chance Buffy and Dawn need to have that book, we'll get it."
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