Title: The Assistant, part 40
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: R
Summary: More about the Initiative
Spoilers: season 4
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.
When Maggie Walsh got back from D.C. her temper, already nearly at boiling point, jumped about a hundred degrees when she found out her victims had escaped. Her funding was permanently gone, her skeleton crew had two weeks to close down her project, her soldiers were going to be reassigned and all-in-all, life was not looking good for her right then.
When Riley had dropped his bombshell that all the sub-T’s were gone, she had been strangely silent, merely content to walk through the ruins of her lab and remember its former glory. She called her office staff together and dismissed all of them but Dr. Angleman. After that, she told Riley to stop patrolling and take a break, issuing orders for him and his men to have a week-long furlough.
“Get rested up, go home, see your family,” she told him, feigning interest.
“Thanks Dr. Walsh. We really appreciate this,” Riley told her enthusiastically.
As he was turning to leave, she realized she had one more question. “Oh, Riley?”
He faced her again. “Yes, Professor?”
“You asked the Slayer for help, what did she say?”
Looking slightly embarrassed, he shuffled his feet a moment before replying. “Um, she, well, actually, she didn’t really give me an answer yet. She said she’d let me know. I got the impression that she wasn’t totally on board with our mission.”
“I see.” She nodded and dismissed him before setting back in her desk chair and slipping deep into thought. Somehow, someway, the Slayer and her little group of fools was responsible for the downfall of her department. She could feel it in her bones. They had torn apart her life’s work but they hadn’t got what was in room 314. Only Dr. Angleman knew about that project. She hadn’t even told her superiors in Washington about it, though it might have saved her funding. The project was hers: he was hers, her Adam.
She went down the silent corridor to the room that held him. His body lay unmoving upon the lab table, cool to the touch but more alive than any being had ever been. Her hand slowly rose and stroked his cheek. Some might say he was monstrous, but he was the ultimate soldier, pieced together from the body parts of a dozen different species, governed by a human brain augmented by computer technology. He was unstoppable and he was her creation.
“My Adam,” she crooned softly.
The thing on the table snapped it’s eyes open. In an inflectionless voice, it called her ‘Mother’.
“Yes. I’m your mother, your creator. We have enemies, my boy. Do you know of the Slayer?”
Buffy felt great. As she told her husband, she could have done cartwheels the length of Sunnydale. The demons, no matter that most of them were inimical to human life, were free, the Initiative was nearly gone, and Giles was finally over his Olivia fixation. They were sitting on the porch swing that afternoon rocking gently and basking in the sunlight when a car pulled up outside their home. Maggie Walsh stepped out of it and marched up their walk till she stood slightly below them on the steps.
“Dr. Walsh. To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” Giles asked her rather coolly.
“I thought you’d be interested to hear that all the sub-T’s we had captured managed to break free the other night. Now they’re out there, roaming Sunnydale, ready to kill innocent humans again. Riley told me he asked Buffy to patrol with him. I’m frankly surprised that she hasn’t taken him up on his offer.”
Buffy managed to look surprised. “Oh. Word on the street is, most of them have left town. The Initiative isn’t really all that popular around here, for some reason.”
“Why won’t you patrol with Riley?” the doctor persisted.
“You guys come here, stir the demons up, nearly incite a war and then leave. I’m here forever. I don’t get to go away. Frankly, I don’t really want to be associated with the military. The Slayer works alone with her Watcher. It’s how it is,” Buffy explained with a shrug.
Maggie’s eyes fixed on Rupert. “Her Watcher. Tell me, Buffy—do you feel trapped by your relationship with a man old enough to be your father? It’s not like you two have anything in common besides your work, after all. I know my Riley was interested in you—you should be dating young men, not tired old scholars like Mr. Giles.”
Buffy looked at the Doctor, surprised by the verbal attack. “Riley’s a nice guy, Dr. Walsh. Someday, he’ll make some girl very happy, but it won’t ever be me. I love Rupert and he loves me. Anything else just doesn’t matter, you see. Rupert could be forty years older than me instead of just twenty and it wouldn’t make any difference to the way we feel. As for having things in common, well, you’d be surprised. And for your information, there is nothing tired or old about my scholar.”
Giles spoke up, feeling rather testy from her personal attack. “Excuse me, Dr. Walsh, but when did my wife’s and my personal life become something on which you feel free to offer your opinion? I don’t recall asking you for advice.”
She didn’t answer but her eyes looked wild as they focused on Buffy. “I don’t know how you did it…I’m not sure I want to know, but somehow, you are responsible for my project being cancelled. You think you’ve won. Well, I still have a few aces of my sleeve, you conniving little bitch! I’m going to make you sorry you ever heard of the Initiative.”
Buffy shrugged. “OK, you win. I’m already sorry I ever heard of them.”
“First, you tried to take my Riley away and when that didn’t work, you somehow got the government to cut my funding. Your disgusting old pervert husband beat my Riley up and I still didn’t understand that you are the enemy. Hostile 17 even knew you and I didn’t get it. Are you one of them?”
Buffy looked mildly peeved at Giles being called a pervert, but was willing to let it go. She’d never seen anybody go totally off the deep end before but she had no doubt that Maggie Walsh’s last trip on the sanity bus had just ended. “One of whom?”
“A sub-T. You must be. I don’t know how you got so much power in the government, but I’m going to bring you down, little girl. One of these days you’ll be looking out of one of my cages, I promise you. I’m going to find out exactly what makes a Slayer tick.” The crazed doctor turned her back and marched back to her car, got in and burned rubber driving away.
Buffy and Giles exchanged looks. “Wow, psycho much?” Buffy commented.
“Hmmm. I do see your point,” Giles conceded.
Buffy stood reluctantly. “I guess we’d better let people know that she’s totally freaked.”
“I agree. She is both brilliant and totally insane. Not a good combination to have running about loose on the Hellmouth.”