Learning the Rules
By Mackatlaw
It's late. She's reading a book in the library, because that's what she does. The librarian won't kick her out, because he's Giles, and in this strange new world, she's researching vampires for him. Well, really for him and Buffy, but Buffy never seems big on the research. She just wants to know how to kill them. Willow likes her new friend, this blonde girl who burned down her last high school's gym, who dresses like one of the popular people but hangs out with the unpopular, and who kills vampires for a mission. Vampires aren't human, though, not anymore, so it's not killing. She knows that now. She sighs and scrubs her face with her knuckles, trying to drag some awarenessback into her head. It feels full.
Down the hallway, in Giles' office, she smells coffee. She'd like some, maybe a sip, but then she'd be up all night and she has to go to school in the morning. She'd never call in sick, because good Jewish girls who want to get into the good colleges don't skip class. It's a rule. That's why she's always reading all the time, why everyone calls her names like "nerd" and "geek." To be more honest, she reads because she likes to read and because she wants to be somewhere else, or did. Life before Buffy used to be sane, where the most difficult decision each day was what to read for pleasure, her own personal television. School was fun, she did it well, and then she got to travel wherever she wanted.
All the world was out there in the library or in her books, and she knew how to get there. But somehow when she wasn't looking, the adventures came to her. She arrived at a world where libraries had hidden books full of occult truths, and where the words meant life and death. She turned the corner and can't go back. She doesn't really want to anymore.
Sometimes, though, she wonders. She looks at the heavy grimoire on the reading stand on the table. It's bound in leather, published three hundred years ago by a man in Germany who went insane after composing it. Or maybe he went mad during the writing, she's not sure. The pictures are not glossy. They are woodcuts of vampires, of brutal torture by stern-faced inquisitors burning out the darkness from the damned, of victims who are weeping when the vampires drag them out from their houses. Never invite a vampire in.
Willow has got that part down now. She finds it comforting that the monsters have rules. Follow them and you can be safe. Vampires can't enter houses freely. They can't take over your body unless they give you blood and kill you first. They're not really the person anymore and it's okay to turn them into dust. They're a demon who evicts your soul and then takes up residence. Before all this, Willow Rosenberg hadn't believed in a soul. Now, she's coming around to that line of thinking.
She's still not convinced that the soul is what her Jewish mother, secular-tending though she was, had told her during synagogue. The Christians weren't necessarily right, either. But there was something there, something she couldn't see, that held the essence of the self. Maybe not the mind, maybe not the personality. She wasn't sure. More testing would be needed. Maybe she could get Buffy to let them interrogate a vamp someday before she staked it?
Behind her, someone cleared his throat. She jumped in her chair and turned around, theories of immortality forgotten for the moment. "Giles! I didn't see you there!"
"Well, yes. That normally happens when one is concentrating heavily. However, though not a Slayer, you should not focus so intensely that you are unaware of the local environment." He looked stern, all tweedy and librarian-ish. The British accent still thrilled her, full of overtones of academia and discipline and an orderly world, but she was happier when it wasn't directed at her like an unruly pupil.
"Would you believe me if I said I knew I was safe here? Look, I'm doing valuable research! The doors are locked and you're here and we're all safe, right?"
He sighed. "The school is a public environment, so vampires can come and go as they please. I appreciate your dedication to the task, Willow, and Buffy has come to rely on your counsel. Still, our world is not a safe one, and a certain amount of vigilance is required. We must keep our wits about us and our minds sharp. If you can't do that…"
She nodded even before he finished his sentence, eager to please this new teacher and scared he might take away the books. "I can, I can, I'll try harder, I promise. Just let me keep researching? It's starting to make sense now."
Giles looked more tired than solemn now. "I certainly don't mean to stop you. You're our best researcher aside from me, Willow, and you know that. I have high hopes that someday you will surpass me. Just try and be more careful, especially when it's night and the Slayer is not here."
"I promise," she hastened to assure him. She felt the Star of David dangling from her neck, and wondered if it would stop a vampire. Why should crosses sometimes work, but not Jewish holy symbols? Was it purely psychological on the part of modern undead? More study was surely called for. "I'll start carrying a stake around in my purse, and I'll keep my eyes and ears open."
"That's the best I can hope for, then," Giles said, and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Buffy will be back soon, and I'm sure she'll need that research. I'll be back in my office until then perhaps I can bring you some tea?"
She smiled, glad that Giles was happy again, and turned her mind back to her books, the conversation absorbed and already shelved in the deep recesses of her memory. Bad things happened in Sunnydale, but not to her. She knew the rules. What she didn't know, she'd have to learn.
The End