Title: Lost Slayer 3/4
Author: Sweetdoggie (stirling_summer@yahoo.com)
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.
Buffy finished her shower, glad that her new bathroom didn’t have the pay-as-you-go water heater. Giles could say what he wanted about it, but she wanted the convenience of turning on a tap and having hot water whenever, not just when she had spare change. It might have been a very American attitude, but she didn’t care.
Stepping out of the bathroom, she pulled her new nightclothes on. Giles had insisted on a pair of flannel pajamas and when she felt how snuggly they were, she was glad she had listened to him. Buffy slipped in between the covers and sank into the soft mattress. In seconds, she was asleep.
Her dreams began to coalesce in her mind. Zombies, vampires, and an army of evil creatures shambled across a mist-enshrouded graveyard towards her. Giles’ face swam in and out of the vision. Her mental ramblings took her to a high school. She knew that’s what it was somehow. It was a bright, sunny place, but she could feel the evil that pulsated just under the surface, beating like a giant heart. Faces of teenagers entered the vision; a girl with red hair and abominably bad taste in clothing, and a black-haired boy, handsome and smiling. She knew they were her friends, or that they would be her friends, or something like that. Suddenly, her mother appeared in the dream telling Buffy that she needed to straighten out her life, that this was a chance to start over and she needed to quit her weird behavior. The dreams went on for what seemed like days but when Buffy finally managed to tear herself out of them and into full consciousness, her glance at the clock revealed that it was barely midnight.
She woke in a sweat, only remaining calm by taking deep breaths. Setting up, she clicked on her bedside light. A few moments later, there was a soft knock at the door she shared with the master bedroom.
Giles pushed open her door and looked in on his Slayer. He hadn’t been able to sleep without the comfort of her soft form in bed with him and had seen her light click on. Taking in her disheveled condition, he asked her if she was all right.
“Yeah. Just had some really strange dreams—you know the kind..”
“Prophecy?”
“I think, yeah.”
“Can you tell me about them?” He looked deeply interested.
She pushed back the covers on one side of her bed. “Yeah, come on over here. It’s cold, and I could use a friend.”
He didn’t argue about the propriety of joining her in her bed, but simply slipped under the covers, drawing her close to him.
Buffy snuggled in his arms and told him her dreams.
Giles thought about her words. “And you think this place was in the States?”
“It seemed American to me, plus it was really sunny and familiar. It might even have been California.”
“You say you knew the children?”
“I did. I mean, in the dream we were friends.”
“And you were being attacked by an undead army?”
“Well, that’s what it seemed in the dream.”
“Hmmm.”
“What does it mean?”
“Lord! I haven’t a clue. We shall have to wait and see if you remember anything else, or possibly if you dream again.”
She pouted slightly. “I don’t want to dream about that stuff.. It scared me.”
“I shall be with you, dear. Always.”
“Would you spend the rest of the night with me? I know I have my own room now, but it doesn’t feel right not being with you. It’s like you’re part of me and I’m part of you now. I don’t understand it, but I don’t want you to be away from me.”
He hesitated, thinking of Nanny finding them in bed together, of what his friends would say, of the possible repercussions should the Council find out about their growing feelings for each other. He balanced that against the feel of her in his arms. “I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.”
He flicked off the bedside lamp and burrowed down into the covers a bit more thoroughly. “Goodnight, Buffy.”
“G’night, Giles.” She rolled into her accustomed position in his arms and was asleep in seconds.
The warmth and scent of her comforted him and he too drifted into slumber very shortly thereafter.
Nanny wondered why Rupert and Buffy hadn’t risen yet. It was nearly eight and it wasn’t like young Rupert to lay about in bed all morning. She knew they hadn’t been up late. Determined to investigate, she marched upstairs and tapped softly on Rupert’s door. There was no answer so she opened the door and peeped around the corner. His bed, while mussed, was empty. That was odd. Where was that boy?
She moved next to Buffy’s room and gave another almost imperceptible knock before opening the door. Her jaw dropped when she saw her young master and his ward sleeping together in the same bed. Not that they didn’t look sweet and young, but it wasn’t proper, for all she could see that it was totally innocent. Backing out, she gently closed the door behind her. She would have to talk to both of them later. For now, she would just let them wake up normally. Maybe the situation would take care of itself.
Buffy woke slowly to the feel of somebody stroking her hair. Her eyes fluttered, then opened fully to look into her Watcher’s green orbs.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“Morning, Giles. Did you have a good sleep?”
“Excellent, thank you. And yourself?”
“Rock-like.” She stretched. “I’m starving.”
He chuckled. “I’m not surprised. Why it must be almost ten hours since your last meal.”
“Gee! No wonder I’m practically faint.” She bounded up out of the bed. “What kind of training will you show me today?”
“I thought, perhaps, a crossbow.”
“Oooo. Flying fatalities. Neat. Let’s get cracking, Watcher-mine.”
Neither of them noticed the looks Nanny kept giving them, or if they did, didn’t know what to attribute it to. Giles took Buffy into the training room. Targets were set up at one end, mats and exercise equipment at the other. One wall held a bank of assorted weapons. Buffy inspected them closely.
“Can you teach me all of these, Giles?”
“I can give you a basic familiarity with most of them. I know the theory of use for all of them, though I’m hardly an expert.”
“Great.” She watched him take down a crossbow and some bolts.. He spent an hour showing her the mechanics of the weapon, making her learn the names of the parts and their functions before he let her try it.
Her first shot went off of where she was aiming by at least a foot, but she quickly corrected for the weapon’s eccentricities. By lunch time, she was proficient enough to score a bull’s-eye nine out of ten shots, with the tenth being off by mere millimeters. By supper, she was able to hit the target square on lying down, running, from a crouch, standing backwards looking into a mirror, and even from a one-handed hand stand. They cleaned up the room together and he slipped his arm over her shoulder companionably.
“Excellent job, Buffy. You have quite a gift.”
“Sweet-talker!” They exchanged a grin. “Seriously, thanks.. I feel more secure knowing that you can teach me all this stuff.”
“You are more than welcome, dear. Shall we adjourn to the library?”
“OK.”
Nanny found them both ensconced over some old books some time later. Giles was instructing Buffy in the wide variety of demons that plagued the world. She stood and watched them unobserved for a few minutes. Rupert was sitting very close to the girl, pointing out something in a book.
“That’s just gross. Why does it do that?”
He rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. “That is simply the way these demons discorporate.”
“Yik!”
“Well, yes, rather. You need to remember that should you ever encounter one.”
“I guess. How come these things have to be so disgusting?”
“They are evil, it’s their business.”
She just chuckled and looked up to catch Nanny’s gaze. “Oh, hi, Nanny. Giles was just showing me the grossest thing.”
“Is that so, young Rupert?” She pinned him with an eagle eye..
He straightened up, trying to look dignified. “Certainly not. I’m merely trying to give my Slayer a bit of education.”
“Och! You always were such a one! Any other man when in the presence of such a bonny young lass would do his best to make a good impression! You show her awful monsters.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where I went wrong with you.”
“Nanny!”
Buffy was rocking back and forth laughing. He smiled at her. Nanny caught the look in their eyes. Oh dear. This was verging on serious. She loved young Rupert as if he were her own son and to see him fall in love with a Slayer, a girl destined for an early death, saddened her. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the poor Slayer seemed to return his regard.
Nanny put her hands on her hips. “Now, you two settle down! It’s time that you were both off to bed.”
Giles tried to get his face into a serious look that was not entirely successful. “Right you are, Nanny.”
She turned to go, stopping only to toss a last comment over her shoulder as she stepped out the door. “Do try to stay in your own bed tonight, Rupert.” She closed the door gently behind her.
Buffy turned to him, her eyes dancing. “Uh oh. We are so busted!”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. Do you think you might be able to sleep alone tonight?”
“Don’t know. Why should we even try? I like sleeping with you.”
“Buffy, you are an eighteen year old young woman and I’m a thirty-eight year old man. It really isn’t seemly that we sleep together.”
“But it makes us feel better. Why should we pay attention to outdated viewpoints and people shaking their fingers at us? We aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt by people’s attitudes. You deserve to have a young man.”
“I deserve to have a man who loves me. That I love. Anything else is just…icing.”
“Do you, do you think you could possibly see me as that man?”
“Very easily. I know it’s early days for us, but you make me feel good. You feel right.” She leaned in closer to him. “You smell right.” She kissed him softly. “You taste right.”
“You taste like sunshine to me.”
She pulled back and looked at him. “How can a person taste like sunshine?”
“A question I have been asking myself. Nevertheless, you do.”
“Is that good?”
“I believe it is excellent.”
She cupped his cheek with her hand and kissed him again. Pulling back after a moment, she lay her head against his shoulder. “Maybe Nanny is right. Maybe we should stick to our own beds till we’re ready for more. I’m not entirely sure I trust myself around you.”
“I would never take advantage…”
“Shh. I know that. But I might. This is the closest I’ve ever been to another person. I think I might be addicted.”
“I know you said you’d never had a boyfriend. Do you mean to say you haven’t ever, er, had sexual relations?”
“Nope. Pure as the driven snow.”
“That is a serious matter for a Slayer.”
“You sound like you mean more than just normal ‘first time’ worries.”
“Yes, I do. The Slayer is a mystical being. As such, your aura attracts other mystical beings, vampires, demons, etc. Many of those beings are also attracted to virgins as they also possess magical potential.”
“Virgins? Just any old virgin? I mean, you don’t have to be a Slayer or something?”
“Exactly. The magic of virgins is well known in the occult world. The longer you remain in a pristine condition, the more danger you will be in. Though, my lands are warded and you should be relatively safe here.”
“Hmmm. Interesting problem. Kinda puts us on the spot for moving things right along, doesn’t it?”
“Well, we have less time than I was anticipating, I suppose. Still, you’ve managed to survive three years as the Slayer and as a virgin, so perhaps we aren’t pushed for time quite as dearly as we might otherwise be. If you weren’t an exceptional Slayer, we might be rather more rushed.”
She looked flattered. “You think I’m an exceptional Slayer?”
“Of course! You survived for three years on your own under circumstances that would have tried the strength of the most knowing Council member. Couple that with the fact that you were barely more than a child, and I think exceptional is the least I could name you.”
Buffy grinned. “Cool. Have I mentioned how glad I am that you found me?”
He put his arm around her again. “Not so glad as I, dear. Not nearly so glad as I.”
Buffy had the strange dream again that night. She fought off the temptation to visit Giles’ bed and kept her light turned off so that he wouldn’t know how disturbed she actually was. When morning came, the dark bags under her eyes indicated to him that her night had been less about rest than unrest.
“Did you dream again?”
“Yeah. Same thing.”
“I wish we could pin this down a bit better.”
“I guess I do, too. It seems like a pretty weird dream. I mean, even if we were back in the States, I’d be too old for high school.”
“You couldn’t tell it from looking at you. I thought you were barely sixteen when I found you.”
“I suppose it’s because I’m short.”
“And the fact that you have a very innocent face.”
She didn’t respond to that, not really knowing if innocent was the thing she wanted to look like.
That day, he trained her with clubs. Once again, she took to the training like a duck to water.
Their days took on a pattern. Breakfast, discussing her dreams, training-each day a new weapon, lunch, more training, and evening spent going over books about various demons and how to kill them, a few minutes cuddling and then bed.
Giles seemed to become tuned to her nightmares. Whenever she had one, he joined her in her bed and held her, sometimes dropping off to sleep, sometimes staying awake and finding his way back to his own bed when she calmed down. Nanny looked on with some disapproval, but she knew that nothing was happening between the two. She couldn’t deny that Buffy always slept better when she stayed with Rupert.
At last the day came when he thought she could safely be presented to the Council for assignment. They bid everyone at the farm goodbye and with the car packed with their combined luggage, made their way back to his apartment in London.
Buffy breathed a sigh of relief to be off the roads. She didn’t like driving in snow on the wrong side of the road though it didn’t seem to bother Giles. She shed her heavy coat with relief as he turned on the heat and pumped a couple of coins into the hot water tank with a wry glance in her direction.
“I’m glad to be here again,” she told him. “Now we can sleep together without feeling guilty if Nanny finds us together.”
“That is a benefit,” he admitted. “I’ve been giving our situation some thought and I believe I may have come up with a solution, if you approve.”
“Really?” she seemed excited. “What?”
“If you would consent to marry me, I believe we would solve a large majority of our problems. If you were my wife, I wouldn’t feel like I was robbing you of your innocence.”
“We could sleep together whenever we wanted?”
“Every night.”
“I don’t know if I’m in love with you, but I do love you. I can hardly stand to be away from you now, if we were married, I could never leave you.”
“And I love you. I realize it’s very early in our relationship to be talking marriage, but…”
“No, I understand. Our lives are precarious.” She paced around the apartment for a few moments.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
“We won’t be able to have a large church wedding—I’m afraid it must be the registry office for us. Time is rather of the essence here.”
“’S’ Ok, Giles. Big weddings are for people with lots of family. Besides, it’s the vows that are important, not the size of the service.”
“Very true, Buffy.”
They went to a registry office that day and found out that it was going to take two weeks once they obtained their license. Giles was somewhat disgruntled. “It’s much easier to marry in the United States.”
“Who knew England wouldn’t be as accommodating?” She grinned and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s OK. We have plenty of stuff to do in the mean time.”
He nodded. “True enough.”
They spent the next several days at the Council headquarters. Buffy made quite an impression. A lost Slayer was very rare and to find one after such a very long time was unheard of. When Giles explained that they were getting married, the Council gave its nod of approval. Anything that bound a Slayer to her Watcher was sanctioned.
Buffy was tested and approved on her combat training. She was put through magical testing as well. The Council mages were stunned to view her aura. She glowed with a nearly white hot heat. They didn’t know what it meant, but knew that she was a very powerful Slayer.
Quentin Travers, Giles’ immediate supervisor, told them that there was a suspected Hellmouth opening in California. There were numerous deaths and disappearances, many throat trauma wounds reported in the local papers, a high number of missing persons and a total absence on the part of the authorities to notice anything unusual occurring. It had all the marks of a potential Hellmouth, though perhaps it wasn’t fully activated.
“If it were completely open, we would be aware of it,” Travers concluded with a nod. “The death rate would be even higher. It seems to center around the local public high school.”
Buffy read the reports with dismay. This was worse than anything she had faced on her own. Those poor people! “We need to help them.”
Travers nodded. “Yes. That was my conclusion as well. Er, there is something you should know. We tracked down information on your parents as Mr. Giles requested. They divorced shortly after you disappeared. Your father bases himself in LA, but is frequently out of the country, and your mother…”
“Yes? What about mom?”
“She moved to a small town in Southern California.” There was a small silence.
“Don’t tell me she moved to Sunnydale.”
Travers nodded, his face showing his concern. “Yes. She opened an art gallery. She lives alone, dating occasionally, but nothing serious.”
Buffy turned to Giles. “We have to go there, protect her, protect them all.”
Giles looked to Travers who nodded solemnly. “We have arranged a cover story for you both. If the High School is the center of the mystical convergence, then that is where you will both need to be. Buffy will attend the school as a student and you, Rupert, will become their new librarian. Buffy can pose as your ward.”
“I’m too old to go back to high school!” Buffy protested.
“Your personal records have been adjusted. You will have to pass for three years younger than you are.” Travers eyed her dispassionately. “It won’t be that difficult. You need to consider how many lives you can save by making this sacrifice of your time. The school has lost an average of thirty students per year for decades. Young people with their entire lives ahead of them, snuffed out by vampires, turned into the very definition of evil. You could put a stop to it.”
“What if my mom spots me?”
“Your mother has been spelled. If she sees you, the spell will be triggered. Basically, what we have done is encapsulated her memory of the last three years. She remembers about your previous high school and that you ran away, but doesn’t equate that with the fact that you have actually been gone three years. It simply won’t occur to her to question the time frame.”
“So she still thinks I’m fifteen?”
“Not exactly. She simply will not wonder about the situation. It will seem perfectly normal. It was the least intrusive spell we could find.” Travers gave a slight shrug. “I would have had her memories wiped clean of you, but that was deemed inadvisable.”
“What do you think is going to happen when she finds out I’m living with Giles?”
“We were rather hoping nothing. If the spell works, she won’t question it. It should work.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like in Bizarro Land. What if it doesn’t work?”
“You are the Slayer who survived for three years with no teacher and no training, are you not? Deal with it.”
Buffy’s eyes met Giles’. “Oh man, what if she tries to get you fired from your teaching job?”
Travers cleared his throat. “That will not be possible. The Council has secured Dr. Giles’ position. It will not be in jeopardy.”
“Well, I guess if worse comes to worse, we can always explain that I’m the Slayer. Since I’m going to be married to Giles, he can keep me out of the nut farm.”
“Your identity should remain secret.”
“I don’t want to be caught out flat-footed.”
Giles nodded. “Nevertheless, Buffy, I believe that Quentin is correct. We can not plan for every instance. Sometimes we will have to extemporize.”
Buffy simply nodded. “I know and I can do that, really. But it’s different lying to your family than it is to complete strangers. I’m not all that good at lying either.”
Quentin stood, effectively ending the interview. “I’m sure you will do fine, Ms. Summers.”
Buffy sighed and exited the room, telling Giles “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Giles ruffled her hair playfully. “Quit being such a worrywart.. I’m your Watcher and I say everything will be fine.”
She glared at him and fixed her hair.