Disclaimer: The plotline is mine but everything else belongs to Mutant Enemy/Mr Whedon.
Summary: Jenny Calendar is dead but her daughter is very much alive—and in Sunnydale. What happens when she hears the news? And how will the Scoobies react to her? Takes place shortly after Passions.
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Chapter One: What Do You Come Home To?
"Everything is fine today, that is our illusion." – Voltaire
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"Last stop, Sunnydale; thank you for travelling with Excel bus lines, have a good day." The bus driver's monotone voice over the intercom rouses me from my glassy-eyed reverie.
I heave myself out of the uncomfortable grey and orange pinstriped seat and quickly glance around at the other seats. Empty. The bus driver glances at me through the rear-view mirror, cocks his eyebrow and looks impatiently at his watch. I smile apologetically and grab my duffle bag from the luggage compartment overhead, hurrying down the narrow aisle and out the door, giving a stiff nod goodbye.
Stepping off of the bus and into a blanket of darkness, I inhale deeply. Clean air. This is much more pleasant than L.A., except there is a vibe; what kind of vibe however, I'm not yet sure. I turn slowly in a circle looking for her but there is not a soul in sight yet I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm being watched...
I do my best to shrug off the peculiar feeling despite the chills running down my spine and pull out a wrinkled scrap of paper from my pants pocket. The address to her house is scrawled across it in my embarrassingly awful chicken scratch.
52 Rosewood Ave.
No answer, try Magic Box.
I pick a random direction and begin walking, asking a strange, putrid-smelling man for directions. It took everything in me not to vomit on the sidewalk right then and there. He gives me a toothy, yellowing grin and I smile nervously and rush off in the direction he points.
I take a left on the next street like the foul man indicated and walk a couple of blocks. Taking another left, I pass a long, dark alleyway. A garbage bin clatters somewhere within the darkness causing me to shake violently and quickly spin around. Someone emerges from the shadows. His hair is a mess of greasy black tresses and his eyes are dull and lifeless. The thing that identifies him though, is his face: bumpy in all the wrong places, fangs dripping with fresh blood. He grins and in that moment I know exactly what he is.
"Vampire," I breathe.
"Good guess, sugar," he snarls and stalks toward me, a permanent smirk plastered across his ugly face. Before I have time to blink, he is an inch away from my face, caressing my pale cheek and brushing my deep chestnut curls out of his way, lowering his face, his fangs, closer to my smooth neck. His breath is sweet. "Yes," he murmurs, "this will only hurt for just... a second...".
I silently close my hand around the ornately carved stake in my coat pocket and in one, fluid motion, I pierce his heart. "A real live Hellmouth," I sigh to myself, brushing a layer of dust off of my patchy leather coat. "I guess I can't say she didn't warn me..." I wander down the street seemingly in vain, convincing myself that she gave me the wrong address when I finally see the street sign. This is the street. Her street. With renewed hope I rush down the street, hoisting my bag further up onto my shoulder.
I approach the small, beige house with the number 52 next to the door in black, cursive blocks. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Please let this not be a mistake. I exhale and march myself up the stone path, knocking loudly on the door so as to demonstrate my anger at being abandoned at the bus stop. When there is no answer, I knock again, even louder this time. The door opens suddenly mid-knock and I gaze up curiously at the old man standing in front of me.
"Well you're not my mom," I say, cocking my eyebrow.
"I beg your pardon?" the man says, taken aback.
"Well, I'm just sayin', you're obviously not my mother. First off, well, you're a guy. And you have an accent. Am I at the right house?" I look back down at the creased scrap of paper in my hand, "52 Rosewood Avenue. Sounds right. Is my mom around?"
"Your mother... You must have the wrong house..." the man replies rather slowly, guarded almost.
"Well here, this is her address. You tell me if it's the right house," I frown and hand him the paper.
He studies it carefully, raising an eyebrow. "Yes. Yes, this is correct..."
"Well then, it's settled!" I smile, hoisting my bag higher onto my shoulder.
He gives me a peculiar look and opens the door wider for me to step inside. I throw my luggage down next to the door and look over expectantly at the man. "Anna," I introduce myself, sticking my hand out awkwardly for him to shake.
He takes my outstretched hand cautiously. "Rupert Giles..."
"Ah, so you're Rupert! My mom, she talks about you constantly! That explains why you're here and not gonna lie, I'm a little less creeped out now. So where's my mom at?"
"Oh dear Lord," Rupert mumbles. "J-Jenny... You're her daughter?"
"Well, yeah. Who did you think I was?" I laugh.
"She never told me..." he mutters.
"Told you what? That she has a daughter? Figures. She's like that, which is why I'm just visiting now."
He gazes at me, smiling slightly, his eyes swimming. "You look like her."
My eyebrows furrow, trying to piece together why he is acting so strangely. "Rupert... " I whisper as a feeling of dread creeps down my spine, "where's my mom...?"
"Oh Anna... I-I wasn't expecting to have to do this..." he blinks rapidly, fighting off tears. "Y-Your mother... J-Jenny... She was murdered, j-just two days ago."
I stare at him, not processing. Numb. "Dead? She's dead?"
A tear runs quickly down his cheek while he polishes his glasses on his shirt. I notice for the first time that he looks rather unkempt which is, to my mother's description, not right.
"R-Really dead? G-Gone?" I mumble, not truly asking, but he nods anyways.
I slump down on the couch and stare at him. He has bags under his eyes the size of Texas. "How?" I whisper.
"She was... Well, she was trying to help someone who really did not want it. He got angry and..." he trailed.
"Let me guess: Angel?" I glance at Rupert whose expression is one of astonishment. "She told me. Said she was trying to restore his soul. He wasn't supposed to lose it; it wasn't part of the plan. She was only here to keep an eye on him, not get herself killed." Noticing the bewildered look on his face, I continue, "We're part of the Kalderash gypsy clan. Well, not really part of it. I'm not, at least. But she told me about Angelus and the curse. It was like a bedtime story to me. It's so bizarre that he's here... He's fiction. I staked a vampire on my way here tonight."
"You what?" Rupert's voice raises an octave or four, clearly unimpressed.
" Not my first time, either," I snort, an eyebrow raised. "I may not go looking for some dusty action, but I do know a thing or two. I grew up in L.A."
He nods his head, still uneasy. "Well, I was really just here to pack some things... Er, if you didn't want to stay here alone though, I have a guest bedroom at my house. And no, that was not intended to sound, erm, creepy, as you put it."
I stare fixedly at the polished crucifix hanging over the door and shake my head. "I think I'll pass. Thanks for the offer though Rupert." I focus back on him and smile weakly.
He nods understandingly and grabs a pen and a post-it from beside the phone by the couch. "Here's my telephone number and directions to my house, just in case. I can drop by tomorrow if you like."
"Sure. That'd be nice."
"Alright. Good night Anna."
"Night," I say quietly after he shuts the door. It's only after I hear him start the car and pull out of the driveway that I bury my face in the nearest pillow and let out a cry of frustration.
I stand up and glare at a photo sitting on a small shelf above the television, of me and her in Jefferson Park when I was 4 or 5. I snatch the picture off the shelf and whip it at the wall. I do the same to two other pictures before my anger dissolves and a feeling I've never experienced before hits me like a freight train. I collapse onto the floor in a heap, sobbing out the hurt and the longing for my mother.
Time doesn't exist. I lay on the floor for so long that I feel as if I am one with the laminate tiles. I finally work up enough energy to peel my face from the floor and peek at the pink sticky note etched with Rupert's tidy cursive.
And so, with tears still streaking down my cheeks, I force myself off of the floor. I grab my duffel bag and the note, crumpling it into my pocket and I flick off the lights, taking once last glance at the lonely house and gently close the door.
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xxx, aMT