Title: Family Matters
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
Pairing: B/G
Rating: FRM
Summary: Why Buffy's dad never showed up again.
Spoilers: None
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.
“Dawn! We need to go! Now!” Buffy yelled for her sister to get a move on. They were late and she needed to drop her off at school before heading into work. Dawn responded with a cry that she couldn’t find her left shoe.
“Well, wear another pair!” Buffy wanted to strangle her. They were going to be seriously late for school, which would entail a visit to the principal's office to get Dawn excused for being tardy. The office staff would look at Buffy as if she were a scofflaw and a bad guardian. She hated those looks.
Dawn finally came downstairs triumphantly wearing both shoes and they opened the front door to run to the car. A man in a dark, conservative-looking suit and carrying a briefcase was walking up their walk. ‘Crap!’ Buffy thought. ‘I don’t have time for a salesman.’
“I’m looking for a Miss Elizabeth Anne Summers?” He looked questioningly at Buffy as if there could possibly be some doubt as to her identity.
“That’s me,” she sighed in resignation. “We are kind of in a hurry here, so if you could cut to the chase?”
“My name is Frederick Bryerson. I’m a lawyer. To be more precise, I’m your father’s lawyer. Is there someplace we could talk privately?” He looked grave.
Suddenly, Buffy was frightened. This wasn’t going to be good, she thought. “Come in the house,” she told him with a sigh. “Dawn, you might have to walk to school.”
“This is your sister, Dawn Summers?” The man asked. “She should stay. What I have to say concerns both of you.”
Buffy opened the front door and showed him into the living room. “Can I get you some water or tea?” she asked, hoping that the façade of polite hostess would somehow mitigate the bad news that he was clearly waiting to deliver.
“No, thank you,” he said. Sitting down, he laid his briefcase on the coffee table and popped it open. “I’m sorry to be the one to bring you this news, Ms. Summers, but your father is dead. He was killed in a freak auto accident in Spain three days ago along with his wife. I have been appointed executor of his will.”
Buffy sat stunned. She looked at Dawn who gazed back at her waiting for understanding. She could feel the sodden weight of grief hovering over her head ready for her attention to wander so it could slip in and crush her with pain.
Quietly, she turned to the lawyer. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. There isn’t any doubt.” He was sympathetic but detached. Why shouldn’t he be, she thought. It wasn’t his father laying dead somewhere. And what was this business about a wife?
“His wife? You said his wife was killed too? We, uh, we weren't aware that dad had married again.”
He nodded. “Yes, Maria Carlotta Sylvestra de Vaca. She was Spanish. The marriage was quite recent.” He looked away, almost ashamed to tell her the rest of the news. Why hadn’t Mr. Summers told his children about his marriage? He didn’t know, but it reeked of irresponsibility. “You’re father’s firm made arrangements for their bodies to be flown back to the United States for burial.”
Buffy looked blank. Finally she shook her head. “I guess. Sunnydale has plenty of cemeteries. We could put him between mom and his new wife.” She saw that Dawn was quietly sobbing.
“Ah, yes.” He cleared his throat. Apparently, the bad news was just beginning, Buffy thought.
“Since you were unaware of your father’s recent nuptials, I can assume that you were also unaware that he and Mrs. Summers had a child?”
She reeled. “What?” she asked in a very polite tone of voice.
“Your father and his wife celebrated the birth of their son, Henry James Summers, less than a month ago.”
“D, did the baby die too?” Dawn asked him.
“No. And that is the second piece of business that I must discuss with you today.” He cleared his throat. “The child has been left in your custody, Ms. Summers. Your father named you as guardian in the event that anything happened to him and his wife. In addition, he has left you and your sister two thirds of his estate, the remaining third is to go to the child, Henry. You will have an ample income from the interest alone. I doubt you will ever have to touch the capital.”
She nodded again, not knowing what else to do. “Where is the baby? Where are the bodies, for that matter?”
“I left the child in the hotel under the care of his nanny. The bodies have been deposited at the Sunnydale mortuary and will be released to you after you have signed a few forms. You do understand that you will be expected to raise your half-brother?”
“Yes. I understood that,” she felt strangely distant. Maybe this was really happening to somebody else and she was just witnessing it, she thought. Or maybe this was a dream and she would wake up at any moment. Instead, the horror of the situation just kept mounting. She turned to her sister. “Dawn, I’m going to need your help on this. Can you do it?”
They younger Summers girl nodded shakily. “We’ll do what we have to do.”
He pulled out a sheaf of papers and had Buffy read and sign everything. It took almost two hours. “Oh my gosh!” Buffy said. “I didn’t call into work or school for Dawn. Can you excuse me for a moment?” she politely asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Buffy called her job. They were deeply upset that she was not only late, but not coming in at all for the foreseeable future. She explained that there had been a death in the family and they basically told her to either come in or be fired. She looked at the phone in her hand. “OK, I quit,” she said and hung up. Worrying about a job was the least of her problems, she supposed.
Next, she phoned Dawn’s school. They were more sympathetic but still wondered when Dawn would be attending class. “I don’t know,” Buffy told them. “Our father is dead. I don’t know what’s going to happen. When I know something, I’ll get back to you. Uh, I’ll call a friend to come pick up Dawn’s class work, if that’s all right?”
The secretary told her that would be fine and once again offered her deepest sympathies.
Buffy hung up the phone. She knew she should call Giles and the gang, but she really couldn’t deal with any more people right now. Still, maybe someone could come and help her with Dawn while she went and picked up the kid. She took the phone in hand one more time. Who to call?