Title: The Assistant, part 29/?
Author: Sweetdoggie
Email: (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: G
Summary: Buffy and the Initiative.
Spoilers: Up to 5
Disclaimer: No permission has been granted to use the characters. They are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB, and Mutant Enemy. This story is non-profit and is intended solely as entertainment. No copyright infringement is intended.
The month of waiting preceding their trip flashed by with all the speed of a tap-dancing elephant. Buffy liked her new psych teacher. Dr. Malvin was much more personable and way less scary than Maggie Walsh. His class was also easier and the man was known to make a joke now and then. She told him she was going to be gone for two weeks at Thanksgiving to visit family in England. He was cool with the plan, saying he would give her some extra work ahead of time so she wouldn’t be behind when she returned.
Riley sought her out over lunch about a week after the big fight. He was still healing and looked pretty awful. His nose had been straightened and the bandage he wore to hold it in place made him look cross-eyed. She noticed he walked rather gingerly and carefully didn’t move his upper body very much.
“Giles broke your ribs, didn’t he?” She said as he sat down at her table.
“It was my fault. I just wasn’t expecting a man his age to be so fast.”
“Well, he does feel sort of sorry now, if that’s any consolation.” She spooned up a bite of Jello.
“Not so much, really.” He tried to grin but stopped when it put pressure on his nose. “I’m sorry Professor Walsh made you leave our class. She didn’t need to.”
“On the whole, it was probably a good idea. I miss Willow and everything, but I really like Dr. Malvin’s class a whole lot better.”
“Oh, well, I’m glad something is working out then,” he paused for a moment. “I was wondering, I mean, um, if you were in any kind of trouble with your husband, you could tell me, you know?”
“Trouble?” she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“When we were sparring that night, I, um, I noticed some bruises on your body. And in class, I saw several times that you appeared to be injured in some way—I mean you were walking really carefully and holding your side a couple of times.”
“Riley, I lead a very physical life and sometimes I get a little banged up. I told you I was into martial arts—a few bruises are the price you pay for not being fast enough.” She shrugged. “It’s no big.”
“Buffy, you are the fastest thing on two feet I’ve ever seen! I can’t imagine that there’s somebody out there, especially in a town the size of Sunnydale, that’s faster than you!”
“There’s lots of things faster than me in Sunnydale,” she said quietly without elaboration.
“Nothing human,” he specified.
“No, nothing human.” She stood up. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry about you getting hurt and everything, but considering how my husband feels about you, probably it isn’t a good idea to hang out together much. I’ll see you around sometime.”
He stood up and grabbed her wrist. “You know, don’t you?”
“Know?” She pulled her wrist out of his grasp. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“You know about Sunnydale and the strange stuff that goes on here.”
“Riley…Look, I’ve lived here three years and I’m not blind or stupid. Of course I’ve seen strange stuff. My first day in school, some girl found a boy’s body stuffed in a locker. There was a mass murder at the Bronze less than two weeks after I moved to town. Fellow students ate the principal of my high school, for God’s sake. Did you think this had somehow slipped my attention?”
He shrugged. “A lot of people don’t notice anything strange here at all.”
“Yeah, well, a lot of them die too. Didn’t it ever occur to you that for a town this size, ten cemeteries is a lot? Or how about the fact that we now have fifty churches of various denominations and that they are always full? People pray a lot here and it’s not because they’re particularly religious.”
“Why then?”
She looked at him steadily. “Because they’re terrified out of their minds by what’s out there, waiting, in the dark.”
“How do you know what’s out there? It could just be, well, gangs and stuff.”
She laughed. “Riley, I know what’s out there because I’ve been fighting and killing them since I was fifteen. I’m what the things that go bump in the night are afraid of.”
“What are you?” he whispered.
“I’m the Slayer.”
He looked puzzled. “That’s just a myth. There is no such thing as the Slayer.”
“You know that vampires, demons and werewolves are real, but you draw the line at the Slayer? Boy, you sure have an interesting belief system in place. Must be nice to be able to pick and choose what mythology is real and what’s just a fairy tale.” She leaned close to him for a moment. “By the way, they’re real too.”
“What’s real?”
“Fairies.”
“I think you need to talk to Professor Walsh.”
Buffy shrugged. “She won’t believe me.”
“She believes more than you might think. How do you think I learned about all this, this stuff?”
Ten minutes later they were seated in Maggie Walsh’s office. The professor was astounded to learn about the existence of Slayers. After listening to their explanations for a few minutes, she shook her head. “It just seems so far-fetched. One girl in all the world born to fight the forces of darkness? Could you be just a little more dramatic, dear?”
“I’m not the first Slayer, you know,” Buffy told her. “I didn’t create the mythos. I’m just a cog in the wheel of the Powers that Be.”
“The, the Powers that Be?” Professor Walsh inquired with a superior smile. “Do you mean God?”
“No. That’s different. The Powers that Be aren’t divine, but they are Powers—ancient entities who bend reality to their whim. The Slayer is their champion. Look, Giles knows much more about this stuff than I do, you should talk to him.”
“Giles? That would be your husband?” Maggie Walsh asked.
Riley interrupted. “That old man? What does he know?” he said dismissively.
Buffy frowned at him. “Riley, that ‘old man’ as you call him killed his first demon before you were born. He’s a Watcher—since you probably don’t know what that means, I don’t think I’d criticize him if I were you.”
“Well, what does it mean?” he asked truculently.
“It means he’s a Master.” She was willing to drop the conversation there but he persisted.
“A master of what?”
“Of the arts, both martial and mystical. He is a scholar and a Mage. He’s a Watcher.”
Maggie Walsh looked Buffy over carefully. “I believe I need to speak with Mr. Giles.”
Buffy frowned. “OK, let’s go to my house. He’ll be home.”
Riley drove them since he knew where Buffy lived. He was a little hesitant about getting out of the car and was very careful to keep the professor between him and Buffy as she led them into the living room. Giles had been sitting on the couch studying when he heard the door open and multiple footsteps enter his home. He had a sword in his hand and was standing out of sight of the doorway when Buffy entered the room trailing her two guests. He quickly propped the sword against the wall, but they had already seen it.
“Buffy, what’s going on?” He looked at the visitors. Riley he knew, but the blonde woman was a complete mystery.
Buffy performed the necessary introductions and then told Giles that they knew about the Slayer and about Sunnydale.
Giles, being by nature much more suspicious than his Slayer demanded to know how they had come by their information.
Maggie Walsh looked like she was making a hard decision, but finally she spoke. “I belong to a top secret military project known as the Initiative. We’ve been in Sunnydale for about two years, exploring the parameters of this phenomenon. Young Riley here isn’t just my graduate assistant, he’s actually captain of a crack military unit designed and trained to bring down sub-terrestrials. We’ve been studying them, you see.”
Giles felt his lips quirking at the mention of sub-terrestrials. He looked at Buffy who guessed his amusement. “They mean demons and all,” she informed him.
“Really it isn’t correct terminology to call them demons,” Maggie Walsh lectured.
Giles pinched the bridge of his nose. “We call them demons, vampires, and what-have-you because for millennia, that is what they have been called. In fact, aside from racial designations, it’s what they call themselves.”
Dr. Walsh sniffed disapprovingly. “Well, the U.S. military calls them sub-terrestrials.” She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean by racial designations?”
“Demons are quite widely varied in form, abilities and temperament,” Giles explained. “They come in a virtually unknowable amount of species and races, from various planes and dimensions. Surely you knew this?”
She frowned. “I can see that we are going to need to talk more. You should see our operations. I’ll make arrangements for a visit. In the mean time, perhaps Buffy would like to patrol with my boys from the Initiative?”
Giles nodded. “At least once.” He wanted to know what they were up to. He didn’t like this Maggie Walsh. He didn’t like the thought that demons were captured and studied scientifically. It was one thing to kill them, but to cage them as if they were lab rats—that was something quite different. They needed to infiltrate her ridiculous military stronghold and see just what was going on.
“I’m assuming we can trust you to say nothing of our program here in Sunnydale?” she asked him with a condescending smirk.
“Of course, provided you practice the same courtesy for Buffy and myself.”
“Granted,” she chuckled. “No one would believe me anyway.”
She herded Riley out the door. “We need to begin some in-depth studies of the Slayer and the Watcher, Riley. This is big. We may be able to use them to further our knowledge.”
Giles watched them drive off. “I don’t trust them for a single second.” He turned towards the phone. “The Council must know of this.”
“But I thought we weren’t going to tell anybody else?” Buffy said.
“Buffy, the Initiative is dangerous. It is upsetting a balance between man and the otherworldly that has been in place forever. The Council must know.”
She nodded her agreement. “Did I do wrong to tell them about us?” she asked, her voice small.
“No. We desperately need to know about this organization, their purpose and goals. You have given us a key to their door, so to speak.”
“Since it’s the government and all, I suppose we should assume that they are watching us pretty closely then.” Buffy said slowly
“Yes, assume that every conversation is being overheard, never talk on the phone about anything important. I’ll prepare some charms for all of us that allow us to converse without being overheard, even electronically.” He turned toward the study and began pulling books off his shelf.
“Call Willow and Xander, would you and ask them to come over as soon as possible?” He didn’t look up from whatever he was doing. “Remember not to say anything about the Initiative. Just get them here tonight.”
Buffy nodded and went to call their friends.