Title: A Fresh Start
Author: Jeo492
Rating: PG-13 (I wouldn't want my nieces to read it)
Disclaimer: The characters and setting do not belong to
me, only the story.
Summary: A happy-ending story, with all our favorite
characters plus one. Buffy is depressed,
Dawn isn't good at math, and a new resident has some odd abilities.
Author's
Notes: This takes place after "The
Gift." Thank you to MAO and TLM for
their technical and grammatical expertise that was essential for my first Buffy
fan fiction. Constructive criticism is
not only welcomed, but also encouraged.
Dawn sat alone, watching a rerun of
"Friends". Her sister, Buffy, was out
killing off bad guys in the seemingly happy town of Sunnydale, California. It had been two months since the battle with
Glory, in which Buffy had been killed.
Fortunately, Willow and Tara were able to bring her back to life, using
some spell Dawn could never hope to understand.
She
sighed. Buffy was alive, technically,
but she did not show the life and happiness once present. She lived her life like she was some robot,
methodically taking care of Dawn and the house during the day, and slaying
vampires at night. Rarely did she
smile, and when she did, it would leave her face too quickly to be replaced by
a look of guilt. It was as if she was
afraid her happiness would keep her from doing her job of taking care of her
sister and protecting the world from evil.
The door opened, and her tired
looking sister came in. "Hey, why are
you still up?" she asked.
"I couldn't sleep."
"You know you don't have to wait up
for me. You should get more sleep, it
will help you at school."
Always concerned with Dawn, never
herself. "What about you? Don't you need more sleep, Buffy?"
Buffy walked over and hugged her
younger sister. "You know, for being a
brat, you can be pretty nice sometimes."
Dawn noticed her sister sidestepping the question. "Come on, let's go to bed."
Dawn nodded, and followed Buffy up
the stairs. She lay down in her bed,
and tried to not think about all the things that had gone wrong in the past
year. Things had to get better. They were improving already. All she really wanted now was for her sister
to go back to normal.
Dawn watched as Anya paced the room,
stopping every few seconds to stare at the door. The Magic Shop hadn't seen any customers since Dawn's arrival
after school, and she could tell this was upsetting Anya. "You know, a watched pot never boils."
"Great. What is that supposed to mean?"
Anya stopped walking, thinking about it. "Of course it would boil, eventually."
Dawn laughed at Anya's
literalism. "No, it means that nobody
is going to come through those doors as long as you're staring at them."
"You people and your sayings." Anya turned away from the door and faced
Dawn. "They aren't ever true."
Of course, just as soon as she'd
stopped looking at the door, someone walked in. It was a young woman, and she looked very lost.
"Hi, welcome to the Magic Shop! You should buy something." Anya obviously did not catch the lost
look. Dawn made a mental note to remind
her that not everyone entering the store would want to spend lots of cash.
"What is this place?" the confused
woman asked.
"This is the Magic Shop," Anya
repeated. "We have all sorts of nifty
things to rid yourself of demons and so forth.
That hammer over there," she pointed to the hammer Buffy had used to
beat Glory, "was built by Gods and can be used against them! Are you a witch? We have lots of nice things for witches!" Someone was going to have to cut Anya off
the caffeine.
"I'm not actually here to buy
something. My apartment isn't ready for
me to move into yet, and I was just walking around town."
"You should be careful just walking
around town," Anya said. "It gets
dangerous here at night."
"I'll keep that in mind." The woman glanced around the store, not
seeming to be very interested in the merchandise. Her eyes did stop on Dawn, however. Actually, it was the dry erase marker board Dawn was using to do
her math problems that seemed to catch her attention. "Algebra?" she asked.
Dawn looked back at the board, and
then the stranger, and nodded her head.
"It's not going so well."
Anya looked annoyed her customer had
stopped paying attention to her.
"Excuse me, the board isn't for sale.
However, all this stuff over here is."
She pointed towards the shelves.
She started walking backwards, like a tour guide, explaining all the
different items. The woman followed,
looking amused. Dawn tried not to
laugh.
As Anya rounded the corner around
one of the shelves, her foot got caught on an extension cord, and she went
flailing backwards into a shelf. Most
of the contents of the shelf, including the God smashing hammer, started to
fall out onto the now prone saleswoman.
Dawn gasped as she saw the hammer falling towards Anya's head. It would surely kill her.
Just a few centimeters above Anya's
head, the hammer stopped. The customer
had caught the extraordinarily heavy hammer with just one hand. She placed it back on the shelf, and helped
Anya to her feet.
"Wow," Anya said.
Dawn asked, "Who are you?"
"Uh, my name is Sandy." Sandy now had a very concerned look on her
face. "I bet my apartment is done by
now. It was nice talking with
you." She all but ran out of the store.
"That was odd," Anya said.
Dawn agreed. Out of their group of friends, only Buffy
was strong enough to lift that hammer.
She stared at the door for a few minutes, wondering what kind of person
would be able to do that. Finding no
answers, she returned to her math.
"Hey, wake up, Dawn." It was her sister. She must have fell asleep while she was working. She lifted her head enough to see Buffy, and
then laid it back down.
"I told you that you needed more
sleep. Let's get you home."
Dawn stood up and packed her things,
then followed Buffy out of the store and back to their house. She thought about telling her sister about
Sandy and the hammer, but decided her sister would probably make a big deal
about it. There was no need to give her
anything else to stress about, so Dawn silently went to bed.
Days passed, and Dawn continued to
worry about Buffy. Willow kept assuring
her that time would make it better, but it had been two months already, and she
was showing no sign of improvement on the happiness front.
Dawn's attendance at school had
improved, but she couldn't understand math, no matter how hard she tried. After several failed attempts of meeting
with her teacher and various tutors, Buffy announced to her she'd gone to the
University and found a math major who was volunteering her time to help younger
kids.
"I think you'll really like her,"
Buffy said.
Dawn frowned. "Why would I like someone who understands
math? They must speak another
language."
"She speaks English, just like
you. You'll like her because she's
always telling jokes and stories. She
seems really friendly."
Dawn sighed. She didn't want to meet her new tutor, but
she needed to improve in math. People
kept saying that it was important, but she could find very few uses for it so
far.
The next day, Dawn walked to the
library on the University campus and found the room where she was supposed to
meet her tutor. Buffy, in her
excitement about helping her sister, had neglected to inform Dawn of her
name. She went in, and found that the
tutor had not arrived. "Great," she
said, throwing her books on the table.
"I hope whoever this nerd is isn't late."
"I'm not a nerd," said a voice
behind her. "I'm just socially
challenged."
Dawn turned around to see her tutor,
Sandy. Sandy obviously recognized her,
and smiled.
"So, whatcha learning, kid?"
"Nothing. I can't do any of this stuff."
She opened her book to the section her class was on, and let Sandy take
a look.
"Ooh. Fundamental Theorem of Algebra.
That's always fun. They've got
one for Calculus as well, but we won't need to worry about that one for
awhile."
"I can't wait." Dawn sat down at the desk, prepared to be
very bored.
Sandy went to the dry erase board
and proceeded to spend the next two hours explaining the past few sections to
Dawn. Dawn hardly noticed the time
going by though, as she was having a lot of fun. Buffy was right about Sandy, she was full of jokes and funny
stories, and related them to almost everything.
Looking at her watch, Sandy said,
"Well, it looks like the two hours are up.
Any other questions?"
"Where do you get all your stories?"
"Oh, just around. It's amazing what you can read on the
internet." She grinned.
"How'd you end up in Sunnydale?"
"Well, I am from LA, and a friend
told me about the math department down here."
She shifted uncomfortably.
"Anyway, you should get going."
Dawn wondered about Sandy as she
left the library. Why would anyone come
to Sunnydale for math? The department
isn't well known.
She went home and told Buffy all
about her day, leaving anything odd about Sandy out of the picture.
"I'm glad you like Sandy," Buffy
said. "She's meeting us at the Bronze
tonight. Turns out the poor girl didn't
even know the town had any sort of hang out.
Willow had some serious issues convincing her to come, but we think
she'll have a good time."
Dawn wondered how many "issues"
Willow had convincing Buffy to go, but decided not to ask. She was just happy her sister was going to
go out.
For the next three weeks, Dawn met
with Sandy every other day for a few hours to study math. Her grades were already showing improvement,
and she felt she now understood what she was doing. Sandy, Buffy, and the gang, were regularly going out to parties
and having a good time. Dawn was
enthralled to see her sister on an upswing.
She was concerned about Sandy,
though. Buffy hadn't mentioned to the
funny, yet shy, girl anything about her extracurricular hobby of killing bad
guys. So far, everyone Buffy had
befriended either ended up fighting the baddies with her, or getting killed by
one. Dawn doubted Sandy could fight. She was really strong, but was extremely
uncoordinated, which put her in the category of "Buffy's soon to be dead
friend." Dawn tried not to think too
much about it.
While Dawn was using the restroom
just before a tutoring session with Sandy, she saw that she was bleeding. Initially panicked, she calmed herself and
realized she had just started her period.
She remembered reading about it when she was younger, and was not happy
to have started it now.
Dawn rushed into the study room, and
said, "Sandy, I think I started my period."
She was trying to act as calm as an adult would, even though she was
terribly embarrassed.
"Whoa. Um, we should call your sister."
"We can't tell Buffy!" Dawn knew Buffy was out on patrol by now,
and had better things to do than deal with Dawn's entrance to womanhood.
"No, this is definitely a sister
thing," Sandy said. Dawn realized Sandy
was now more panicked than she was.
"Definitely a sister thing."
Dawn watched as Sandy started
packing up both of their backpacks.
"What are you doing?"
"We've got to go find your
sister." She finished zipping up the bags. "Where is she?"
This was going to be a mess. Buffy was probably in some cemetery. Dawn tried to think of a plan. "Um, could you maybe run to the store and
get whatever stuff I need to deal with this?
I'll call Buffy and have her meet us at the Magic Shop." Good plan.
She could call Buffy on her cell phone, they could meet at the Magic
Shop, and Dawn could explain to Buffy before Sandy got there. If all worked out well, Buffy wouldn't look
very Slayerish when Sandy arrived.
"Sure, okay," Sandy responded.
Dawn took both their bags, and
headed outside to use a payphone. Sandy
left for the store. Dawn dialed Buffy,
but didn't get any answer. She ran to
the Magic Shop.
Bursting through the door, she saw
Giles. "Where's Buffy?" She stopped, and leaned over to catch her
breath.
"Dawn! All you alright?" He ran
over to her. "Oh my God, you're
bleeding!" She realized it must be
showing on her jeans. He continued,
"Were you attacked? Nevermind, don't
answer, it'll be okay, I'll call Buffy!"
Dawn tried to speak, to tell him she
was alright, to tell him it was her period, but he kept telling her to lie down
and try to be calm. He ran to the phone
and called Buffy. Of course, she did
answer when he called. He told her that
Dawn was bleeding, she must have been attacked.
Dawn was trying to talk to him, but
Anya had appeared out of the back room, and was now screaming. Dawn tried talking to her, but Anya kept
pointing to the blood, and screaming,
"Why would anyone attack such a little girl?" This wasn't working out well, Dawn decided.
Soon, Spike, Xander, Willow, Tara,
and Buffy arrived. Buffy, obviously
thinking her sister was in danger, had called the gang together. They walked into the shop, and saw Dawn on
the floor, bleeding. Dawn again tried
to speak up, and tell them what was going on, but was cut off by Bufffy.
"I'll kill them! Who did this to you?" She grabbed a massive ax that was on the
wall. "Where are they?"
"I was in the library, getting ready
to study with Sandy, and…"
"Where's Sandy? Did they do anything to her? Did she do this to you?" Buffy was enraged, and Dawn knew this wasn't
going to work out well.
In the middle of Buffy's tirade,
Sandy walked in with four paper bags.
She was holding them up in front of her face, and it was unlikely she
could see what was going on.
Cheerfully, she announced, "Hey, Dawn, I got the goods." She peered over the sacks to see the faces
of the gang and one very upset Buffy with an ax.
"What the hell happened to my
sister?" Buffy demanded.
Dawn watched, with horror, as the
terrified Sandy dropped all four sacks to the floor. All four sacks were filled with various sizes and types of pads
and tampons, which quickly fell out onto the ground, for everyone to see. Apparently, Sandy wanted to ensure Dawn had
everything she might possibly need to deal with this new event.
The room fell silent as the group
took in the scene. Sandy looked
exceptionally relieved when Buffy sat the ax on the floor. The rest of the gang didn't say anything,
but it was apparent to Dawn they had figured out why she was bleeding.
She was grateful when Sandy tried to
cover for her. "I, uh, it's that time
of the month, and I, uh…"
"Am a really heavy bleeder?" Spike said.
"Spike!" Buffy was trying to defend her sister, Dawn could tell. Unfortunately, after Buffy had determined
her sister was no longer in danger, she had determined the situation was
funny. Immediately after berating
Spike, Buffy erupted into laughter.
Soon, all the others, minus Sandy, in the room were laughing, and Dawn
just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.
She looked over at Sandy, who was
not laughing. "Uh, guys, I hate to
interrupt, but Buffy, do you attack all customers with that thing?" She pointed to the ax.
The embarrassment Dawn was feeling
almost faded when she saw the others stop laughing. Now, Dawn tried not to smile as she watched her sister's anxiety
grow. How would she deal with this one?
Fortunately for Buffy, she didn't
have to answer. Before she could get anything
out, Spike said, "She's very protective of the little nibblet." He smiled.
"It's getting late, why don't I walk you home."
Oh good, Dawn thought. Spike has another cute little crush. At least this one didn't know he was a
vampire. He might stand a better chance
than with Buffy, at least until Sandy wanted to go out with him during the day.
"Um, okay," Sandy said. She glanced around the room one more time,
never making eye contact with Buffy, and then followed Spike out.
Dawn, realizing she was going to be
the center of their attention again, grabbed one of the half-emptied bags of
supplies, and walked out the door.
Buffy followed her, and the two walked home without talking. Dawn was sure she heard Buffy stifle a
laugh.
Dawn recovered from the
embarrassment she had felt within a few weeks.
She was watching TV one night when Buffy came in.
"Hey, do you want to spend the night
at Sandy's?" Sandy did finally start
speaking to Buffy a few days after the incident, after Buffy said she was sorry
several times and thanked Sandy for helping Dawn.
"Why, do you have a guy coming over
or something?"
"No, I do not have a guy coming
over."
"A girl?" Dawn snickered.
"No! Dawn, nobody is coming over.
Listen, we found a building with a lot of vampires in it, and I'll be
out late taking them out. You two seem
to get along."
"Okay, okay. I'll go over there. Let me get some stuff together." Dawn went upstairs, packed some stuff, and
then went with Buffy over to Sandy's.
Sandy had a two-bedroom apartment in
the middle of town. Dawn immediately
noticed it was sparsely decorated, very clean, and it looked like the queen of
organization had been through.
"Hey, kiddo," she said to Dawn. "So, Buffy, who's the hot guy, and when do I
get to meet him?"
Buffy smiled. "Thanks for keeping Dawn."
"Oh, I know. She's such a trouble maker." Buffy walked towards the door. Sandy said, "See if he has a brother, okay? Or even a cute friend."
Apparently, Buffy still hadn't
explained the whole slayer thing and was using the date as an excuse. Dawn put her stuff down, received the
"official tour," and sat down to spend the evening watching TV with Sandy.
Meanwhile, on the other side of
town, Buffy was leading the charge against several vampires. Spike, now a regular part of the gang, was
taking out almost as many as the Slayer was.
Xander and Anya were making slow progress, and stayed on the outside of
the fight. Willow and Tara were using
this time to leisurely practice the art of throwing fireballs. Within moments, the vampire party was
reduced to its two leaders, who stood in the middle of the room.
Buffy approached them, stake in
hand. The taller one said, "Its
surprising to see you here slayer, when you have a Galtan soldier to worry
about."
"What are you talking about?" she
asked.
"We just figured you'd have better
things to do, with such a powerful demon to contend with," He paused. "Or did you not know?"
"You'll never find out, will
you?" She slammed the stake into his
heart, while at the same time kicking the other square in the chest. The other fell backwards, right into a stake
Xander was protectively holding in front of him. "Good job, Xander," she said.
"Back to the Magic Shop; lets find this demon they were taking about.
At the Magic Shop, Xander and Anya
set themselves to the task of researching the "Galtan Soldiers," while Tara and
Willow were looking up spells they might use to find the demon, and to fight
it.
An hour later, Xander and Anya
appeared. After responding to a few
guesses from Spike as to what took them so long, the two started their report
on the Galtan Society.
"The Galtan Society is a group of
demons, whose goals include helping other bad guys out, and fighting with the
Turlars, which we'll get to later. They
have a big thing with keeping themselves hidden from humanity. That," Anya put special emphasis on this
statement, "is why we were so long. We
had to email Angel up in LA for information, since its so hard to find."
Xander continued, "The demons are separated into
classes by their abilities. A select
few are chosen to serve as their leaders.
Others, including any of the females they don't kill at birth, work in
various offices and organizational units.
The strongest and brightest demons are trained as soldiers. These soldiers travel the world in search of
any Turlars that they may encounter."
"Okay," Buffy said, "Who are the Turlars?"
Anya said, "I told you, we'll get there. Anyway, these soldiers are really lethal,
and really bad news. Angel couldn't
figure out why anyone like those vampires would still be alive if they knew who
this demon was."
"To answer your question, the Turlars are the humans
who follow the belief they were sent here by God to destroy the Galtans,"
Xander said.
"Why do they think that?" asked Spike.
"Well," Anya said, "they are the only humans known
to have been born at birth with the ability to destroy things with their
minds. Kinda like the Jedi in Star
Wars, only not following the no emotion clause."
"Great," Buffy said. "Any idea why this Galtan might be here in Sunnydale, if there is
one?"
"Probably to kill things," Anya said.
"Glad you're here to clear these things up," Spike
said. "I don't know what we'd do
without you."
"Shut up, Spike," Xander said.
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Okay, so anyway, Willow and Tara? Ideas?"
Tara said, "Um, we could maybe do some spell to find
out where this demon is, now that we know what it is." Willow nodded, and they started reading
their spell books again. Just a few
minutes later, the two were chanting away at a spell.
When they were done, Willow said, "Buffy, we've got
good news and bad news. Good news is we
found it. Bad news is its really close
to Sandy's apartment."
"Dawn."
Buffy ran out of the store, grabbing the ax as she went. The others followed her, and they all ran
towards Sandy's apartment.
"So, what do you want to watch now?" Sandy asked
Dawn.
They had just finished watching "Dawson's
Creek." Dawn could tell Sandy didn't
really care for it, and decided to not point out that another "Dawson's" was on
the next hour on a different station.
"I don't know. Let's flip
through the channels."
Then the door was kicked in. Buffy practically ran in, ax in hand. "There's a demon around here. We need to find him."
"What is it with you and axes?" asked Sandy.
The rest of the gang now flooded into Sandy's
apartment. "Hi, Sandy," Willow said.
"Uh, hi. So
what's with you all, anyway?"
Buffy sighed.
"No point in hiding it from you.
I'm a vampire slayer, Spike is a vampire who is helping us, and Tara and
Willow are witches. There's a demon,
probably here, and I need to kill it."
"Vampire Slayer?" Sandy repeated. Her face was white.
"Yeah. I
kill bad guys. It's alright," Buffy
said. "So, the demon, you seen one?"
Sandy suddenly ran at the window. She jumped right threw it, and fell to the
ground a few feet below. Dawn watched
as Sandy ran down the street, never looking back.
"I don't think she likes us," Spike said.
"Yeah," Willow agreed. "Must be too much for her."
"Okay, find the demon, guys," Buffy said.
Spike started looking around the apartment, and
Willow and Tara started up their spell again.
Dawn watched as Spike started digging through Sandy's desk.
"Spike!"
"Sorry."
"The demon is gone," Willow said. "Its over in the direction Sandy went."
"It must be after her. Spike, stay here with Dawn," Buffy said. She led the rest out the door.
"So, nibblet, what did you two girls do tonight?"
Spike asked, and threw himself down on the sofa and started flipping through
the channels.
Dawn started to walk around the room, nervous about
her friend and her sister. She started
looking at the few posters and decorations Sandy did have out. She had a poster from someplace in England
and another from a concert in LA. She
had some cute little dragon ornaments out on her desk. Dawn reached for one, and accidentally
knocked off a folded letter sitting on the edge. She picked it up, and didn't pay much attention to it as she put
it back on the desk, but the signature caught her eye. It was signed by someone named Angel!
"Dawn, weren't you telling me not to
go through her desk?" Spike said, as he
grabbed the letter, and unfolded it.
"Araia, I think they've found you were here. Its time to leave.
There's another school in the California system that you can go to in
Sunnydale. They'll accept your credit
there, and I think you'll blend in more down there." Dawn saw him scanning to the bottom of the page. He noticed the signature, and looked up at
her.
"Yeah. That's strange," Dawn said.
Spike nodded, then continued. "I wanted to let you know before you left
what we found out. You are the child of
a Turlar noblewoman and a Galtan soldier, one of their best. That explains your strength and your
intelligence. The Turlars raised
you. Fearing you would become a demon,
like your father, they did not teach you their ways, which is why you never
learned how to fight or use the mental abilities we are sure you have. At the age of twelve, they sent you from
their palace after erasing most of your memories. Galtan soldiers have been on the lookout ever since. They killed your parents, and will kill you
if they find you, and I think they have."
Spike paused, and looked at Dawn.
Dawn now understood why Sandy was able to catch that hammer.
Spike went on. "Sunnydale is filled with many odd
types. Just stay low, and try not to go
out at night. Thank you for trusting me
enough to let me help you. I know its
been hard. I'm sure you'll find friends
there you can count on. Angel."
Spike put the letter back down, and
Dawn thought about Sandy. Or Araia,
now. A thought came to her. "Spike, if Buffy finds out that Sandy is a
demon, she'll probably kill her without letting her explain."
"Bloody hell. Let's go, nibblet." Spike stood. "'Bout time the other Summers saved somebody's life." Spike and Dawn now raced out the door and
down the street where their demon friend had run, hoping they'd find her before
Buffy did.
After a few blocks of running,
without any sight of their friend, Buffy stopped the group. "Let's split up. Xander and Anya, you go that way," she said, pointing one
direction. "Willow and Tara, you go
that way," she pointed in the other direction.
"I'll keep going this way, and hopefully one of us will find her. Bring her back to this spot when you find
her, since its pretty populated.
Hopefully whatever is chasing her won't want to be seen here."
The group took off in their
directions. It didn't take long for
Buffy to find the dark alley where Sandy was hiding. She looked down, and saw two vampires starting to feed on her
friend. She ran down the alley towards
them, but knew it was too late.
Suddenly, the vampires sat up, and
spit the blood out. Buffy watched in
disbelief as Sandy's neck healed itself.
"What the hell?" one of the vamps
said.
The other said, "Must be that demon
chick the others talked about. I think
we should…"
He was cut off when his head was
chopped off. The other quickly suffered
the same fate, and now Buffy stood over the demon she was hunting, ax in hand.
"So you're the Galtan soldier. What are you doing here?" Buffy asked.
Sandy, too scared to talk, just
started shaking her head.
"What were you doing with my
sister? Were you going to do something
to her?" Buffy lifted the ax, ideas of
this demon threatening her sister the same way Glory did in her mind.
Finally getting the nerve to speak,
Sandy said, "I didn't know you were the Slayer. I'm not a soldier. I'm an
accident. I'm sorry. I wouldn't hurt Dawn."
Buffy stared down at her. "Why should I believe you?"
"She's telling the truth, Slayer,"
Spike said from behind her.
"Spike! What are you doing here?
I told you to take care of Dawn…" Buffy's eyes hit Dawn, and she was now
even more furious. "Why did you bring
her here? Sandy is a demon, and she
could kill…"
"She's not a bad demon, Buffy," Dawn
said. "We found a letter from Angel to
her, explaining it all." She held the
note up for Buffy to see.
"Probably something she just wrote
up to fool us. She tried to trick
me. She didn't even fight the
vampires."
Spike said, "She can't fight,
Buffy. She doesn't know how. Put the ax down, and read the letter."
Buffy looked at the still cowering
Sandy, and put the ax on the ground.
"Don't move, or I'll kill you," she warned. Sandy nodded her head.
Dawn watched as Buffy read the
letter. It was undoubtedly from Angel,
his handwriting was very unique. Buffy
returned the letter to Dawn.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Buffy
asked of Sandy. "And are you Sandy, or
Araia?"
"My name is Araia. I go by different names in different towns
so I won't be found by anyone who might be following me. I didn't tell you because I didn't know you
were the Slayer. You can't just tell
most people, 'Hey, I'm a demon, its okay,' because they wouldn't understand."
Willow, Tara, Xander, and Anya ran
down the alley. "What's up?" Xander
asked.
Dawn answered. "Basically, Sandy is a demon named Araia,
but we don't need to kill her because she's a good guy. Long story."
"Right."
Buffy helped Araia up. "Are they still looking for you?"
Araia said, "Probably. Hopefully they won't look too hard. I usually run into one every year or so, so
I have a little while longer here before I have to leave."
"Why can't you stay, even if they do
find you?" Dawn asked. "I bet my sister
would help kill any bad demons that came into town."
Araia smiled. "Nothing against Buffy, Dawn, but I don't
think I want to put her or any of you in that kind of risk if one of these guys
shows up."
Everyone was silent as they walked
back to the Magic Shop. Araia explained
everything to the gorup. "I'm sorry I
misled you all," she said, when she was finished.
"It's okay," Buffy said. "I think we can understand."
Willow asked, "So, you're super
strong, but just don't know how to fight.
And you've probably got some hidden, powerful mental abilities you can't
find by yourself?" She winked at Buffy,
who instantly caught on.
"Yeah, basically."
Buffy said, "How about the next time
one of these guys shows up, you just kick his butt instead of running away?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you've got the demon
skills, you'd already be on the same level as him. Add the Turlar skills, and you'd mop him up," Buffy said.
"I know somebody who can teach you
to beat things," Willow said, pointing at Buffy.
"And between Willow and Giles, I bet
you could find your mental powers too," Buffy said.
"You all would do that?" asked
Araia.
Buffy smiled. "Sure.
Any bad guy you kill is one less that I have to."
Dawn was happy. Now her friend, Araia, was going to learn
how to defend herself. Buffy was happy
again, and would probably be even more happy now that she had someone to
train. Life was going to get back to
normal.