The Slayer stalked through Restfield cemetery on a warm September night. Her short, black, flowy skirt paired with red halter top and fashionable brown leather boots seemed very out of place in the dreary cemetery. The young woman of sixteen who had spent the last year and a half being the boogie man to the evils of the world walked through the head stones keeping her senses alert for any sign of trouble. The stake she always carried with her was securely tucked in her waistband with a back up in her boot. Tonight though, she was also lugging an obviously full backpack through the cemetery with her.
Most nights she has a patrol route she takes that is pre-approved by her watcher, Giles, and on occasion she would take him, her friends, or even Angel with her. Lately though, she had been careful to take at least four nights a week completely on her own. Buffy had had to dodge Angel three times in the last two months since she had been back from L.A. visiting her father after her death, revival, then ass kicking of the master before she lost her temper with the souled vampire. She told him that she appreciated his help, but to stop being "creepy stalker guy". Buffy thought about the fact that Angel had yet to offer to patrol with her since she chewed him out as she walked deeper into the forest of graves. She never said to stop helping her all together, just to be out in the open and to tell her when he was coming instead of just showing up randomly. Apparently that was too much to ask of her crush because she hadn't seen him in two weeks except when he would stop by the library during school to pass along his cryptic messages.
With Angel on her mind, Buffy took a turn heading for the older part of Restfield towards the bigger family crypts that make up that part of the grounds. She stopped only once, tossing the book bag with a heavy thud off to the side, to dust a vampire that was still covered in dirt with his game face at the forefront. After a quick slay, not even enough to break her stride, Buffy sighed and frowned as she brushed herself off. She then picked the bag up checking to make sure its contents were not damaged before sliding it back on. When she got to a relatively large crypt, she stopped and looked around once more then closed her eyes. Throwing out her slayer senses she made sure there weren't any unwanted taggers along before she continued to the door of the crypt. She was only able to pick up the feeling of two vamps that were both inside the crypt, right where she knew they should be. With a small grin growing on her face, Buffy placed her fist on the crypt door and knocked five times in quick succession, before she pushed the heavy metal door open with a loud creak.
She only cracked the door to open enough to allow space for her and the backpack to fit through before she slid in and closed it behind her. The interior was dim, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low light that was being given off by the scattering of candles along the walls and on top of the two stone sarcophagus. The table in the center of the space was square and slightly smaller than a pool table, it housed a few candles along with a stack of several large, old looking books. Buffy headed over and pulled out a chair. She placed the backpack down on it and looked around. She spied a large red cooler over by one of the sarcophagus and let out an "aha" before she walked over and brought it back to the table. As she unziped the backpack and opened the cooler, she called out to the seemingly empty crypt.
"Dalton, Tony! Is it you guys down there?" she yelled while she pulled out four blue gel icepacks from the cooler and placed them onto the table. She then reached into the backpack to pull out four new ones and replaced the old ones. "I brought you guys some diner, sorry though, they were low on pig so I had to get some chicken too," she informed the unseen occupants. Just as she pulled out a packet of blood from her bag, a slab of stone by the back wall slid over and a balding head popped up from the formally hidden hole underneath of it.
"Buffy, we thought you were coming by earlier. I was getting worried. Another twenty minutes and I would have sent out Tony to look for you," the older man with glasses said as he climbed up out of the hole. Not more than a moment later, he was followed by a young man with light brown skin and short curly hair who looked no older than twenty-five at most. Buffy's face lit up like the sun with excitement.
"I knew it was you two. I'm getting sooo much better at telling your vampy vibes apart from each other. And yeah, I know, late, sorry. I had to wait for Angel to leave the butcher's before going in. Apparently he spends more time talking to him than to me." Buffy pouted as she put the last pack in the cooler and closed the lid. "Where is Jenna though? I'm not feeling her vampy vibes around.''
"She went out to see about getting a job. She says sitting around all night reading or playing cards was slowly turning her brain to mush. She gets bored easily. She wants to get an apartment so we can have electric and cable. Dalton over here could care less as long as you still bring him books, but I'm with her. Probably going to look into jobs soon myself," the tall younger vampire answered as he came and took a seat in the chair opposite her. Dalton claimed the chair to her right as she reached into the bag and pulled out a small but ancient looking book about the size of a pocket dictionary.
"Speaking of books, I saw this in a box of books Giles was going to put away after a research party, and thought I may have remembered this as one of the ones you've talked about before," Buffy told the bespectacled vamp as he took the book and examined it. Tony just rolled his eyes, and shooks his head with a grin.
"You and those books man, I bet if we locked you in a library you wouldn't notice for a week." Tony crossed his arms and leaned forward placing them on the table. "You bring me anything, my lady?" he asked Buffy with a waggle of his eyebrows. Buffy laughed but rolled her eyes before unzipping the front pouch of her backpack, and pulling out a twelve pack of AA batteries along with a Gameboy. She handed them over to an eager vamp with a smile. Tony took them and immediately pulled out the game cartridge smiling.
"So I'm assuming Mario is okay then? It's all I had. The other games were given to my neighbor's kid as a last minute gift because my mom forgot to buy her something when we got invited to her twelth birthday party a few months ago. I never play that thing anymore anyway," Buffy told them as she moved the book bag to the floor and sat down. Turning to Dalton, "is the book one of the right ones?" she asked. Dalton looked up from where he was flipping through the pages carefully and nodded.
"Yes, this one may have mention of recalling lost souls so it hopefully will give you some answers. I still maintain that research would go faster if you at least told your watcher. He may have books that even you don't know about. He might know where to look for other research materials better than me. He does have the watchers council with all their resources," the bookish man told her, sounding as if he was repeating something he had said several times. Buffy just frowned and shook her head.
"No, Giles has a hard enough time dealing with Angel. Its not that I don't trust him. It's just that I don't trust that him looking into it might not get noticed. I mean one souled vamp is crazy enough, but three more on top of that, plus the fact that I made them that way makes for so much of the potential badness," Buffy insisted while she looked around as if to make sure no one else is listening. " I can see it now. Giles will polish his glasses until he pops the lenses out going 'Oh dear' every few minutes until I go crazy. The whole thing already gives me the wiggins as it is. I don't need Giles to go all wonky watcher on me too, or the council to find out about what I can do now and then doing who knows what to me. I don't know why, but ever since they let me sit in that hospital before I came here I don't trust them. I mean they had to have known I was there. They keep track of EVERYTHING." Dalton just noded at the argument he'd heard plenty of times before. The man knew that she would have to tell her watcher eventually, but he also figured that if he pressed her too much she'd close her self off from logic completely. He attempted a compromise by occasionally bringing it up to keep the thought in her head, but never pushed her to change her mind.
"Okay, Miss Buffy, but be careful with taking all theses books then," Dalton motioned to the books on the table. "He's a watcher and a librarian. He has to know he has missing books." Buffy just waved her hand dismissively.
"Yeah, but I'm supposed to be studying this stuff anyway for my training. Plus, Willow likes to borrow the books to learn new stuff too. As long as I don't keep too many out then he won't think anything weird is going on." Buffy then turned to face Tony, who was already playing the Gameboy with intense concentration. "On another note, where did Jenna say she was going to look for a job? Don't you need like, a social security number for that? One that doesn't belong to a dead person anyway," she asked him.
"This is Sunnydale, plenty of demon run businesses that don't ask for that kinda stuff. She said something about asking one of the demon bars about maybe needing a waitress or maybe that 24hr gas station on the outskirts that's run by a Voltera demon named Bart," Tony answered without even looking up. Buffy bit her bottom lip and noded.
"Okay, that's cool. I'm still trying to get used to the idea of peaceful demons running around with humans never noticing. I know you've proven it but its way weird that I've probably been interacting with you guys for my whole life and never noticed," she admited as Tony paused his game and looked up to meet her eyes.
"I understand. Gotta give you credit though, you took the whole 'didn't need a soul to love' thing really well. The peaceful demon thing will grow on you, I promise," Tony reassureed.
"Well, when I have an unsouled Jenna crying and begging me to give her her soul back, so she can be with you and have you not hate her, its hard to keep pretending that vampires can't feel love. Really Tony, she was more heartbroken than an all day lifetime movie marathon all rolled into one." Buffy sighed. Tony's playful grin turned sad.
"I didn't want to hurt her like that, but when you gave me my soul back all I could see when I looked at her was the last three years of sin we had together and the fact that she didn't regret any of it. I knew that if I stayed with her, my demon would be too tempted to continue right on doing what it craves. I may have a soul now, but the demon is still there. The soul doesn't change me, just makes me feel bad about what I am and what I do. I loved her without it and with it I still love her the same. I just can't stand the idea of hurting people anymore. I know she could have been good like she swore she could without it, but she never would have understood why she was being good," he said as he seemed to disappear into himself to dwell on his past.
Buffy remembered the day she first meet Jenna two weeks ago. The female vamp walked slowly up to her as she was coming up to the crypt that they were currently in. She had her hands up in the air in surrender, and it was obvious she had been crying for a very long time. It had only been four days since Tony had been souled, and he was finally coming out of the crazy guilt stage and into the quite brooding stage. It took a lot less time than Dalton because he had the other vamp there to help him through it. Had the woman approached Buffy three months prior, she would have staked her without a second thought, thinking it was a trick. But at that point, she had spent time with and had a chance to get to know Dalton. By then, her black and white world was already beginning to bleed with shades of gray. Buffy still had her stake out and pushed out her Slayer senses. She could tell it was only the woman with the two vamps she knew about waiting in the crypt behind her.
Apparently she had tracked down her lover, and he had rejected her. She had spent the last two days trying and failing to get him to come with her and being constantly sent away. Dalton had filled her in on what had happened to him and Tony, and she had been horrified but willing to do whatever she needed to be with him. So she approached Buffy that night, crying and begging the Slayer to make her acceptable to her true love.
"Please Slayer, whatever you did to Tony, do it to me too," the grief stricken woman begged with tears running down her face. "I can't live without him, he's my mate, were claimed. It would be agaony to leave him. I love him more than anything!" She sobbed as she fell to her knees and bowed her head, allowing the tears to fall to the ground. Buffy was struck speechless at her obvious heartache. The Slayer watched for several minutes as the woman just stood on her knees at her feet pouring her fear of losing the one she loved out in a very intense show of her inner ache.
"Tell me, what do I have to do? Please!" The grief stricken woman screamed when she looked up at Buffy, letting her demon come out while still staying prostrate before the Slayer. Buffy took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes, not sure what she was searching for. She found it though, the little spark of something that made this vampire more than just a souless thing, a little something extra that made this undead person so very much alive.
"I'll do it but I have to warn you that there is a fifty fifty chance that you'll just go poof, I'm not sure how this works exactly. If you're serious though, just give me your wrist." Buffy conceded and had to take hald a step back as the vampiress was up and holding her wrist out to her before she could even blink.
"He's worth it," she stated with hope and determination in her eyes. Buffy nodded and chomped on her tongue to bring the blood into her mouth as she grabbed her wrist and bit down thus returning Jenna's soul back to her in another nearly blinding flash of light.
The first time, the same night she got back from spending the summer with her father, it was an accident. She had been fighting a nest of vampires she had accidentally run across. Dalton had been a part of sed nest. She had taken a hit to her jaw by one of the last two vamps left that caused her bite her tongue hard enough to fill her mouth with blood. She remembers spitting out the sudden rush of copper tasting liquid before she pinned the vamp that hit her to the wall. Just before she raised her stake to take out the vamp, Dalton snaked his arm around her raised arm and neck to try and pull her off his sire. She didn't even think. She just bit into his arm hard enough to break skin so that he would let go. The moment her blood mingled with his though, she felt a burning in her blood. Buffy then felt something pass through her and into the vamp before the entire broken down house surrounding them lit up with a blinding soft blue light. Dalton dropped his arms immediately and started screaming while holding his head.
Buffy and the vampire she was about to stake both froze and watched in horror as Dalton began sobbing before falling to the floor and curled up in a ball.
"Monster, monster, I'm a monster" Dalton kept repeating to himself in horror over and over again on an endless loop. Buffy and the other vampire stared, suspended mid fight as they watched the broken vampire loosing his mind. The pinned vamp was the first to beak the silence.
"How did you do it?"He whispered in shocked yet terrified awe. Buffy tore her eyes away from the scene behind them to look back at him confused.
"Huh? Are you saying I did that him? Whats wrong with him?" She questioned puzzled. The vampire's eyes narrowed in rage and he sneered at her.
"YOU BITCH! You don't even realize do you? You gave him back his soul" he hissed at her right before trying to punch her in the face. Buffy saw it coming and before he could even blink she pushed him away from her. He came back to attack and Buffy ducked down and off to the side to spin around and catch the vamp in the back with her stake. As he turned to dust, Buffy walked slowly over to Dalton with her waepon still raised, ready to end him if it was just some trick. When he noticed her however, he looked up at her with haunted eyes.
"Please, just kill me before I hurt someone else," he quietly pleaded. For some reason, the slayer part of her and the human part of her were completely in agreeance, and she couldn't bring herself to do it. She stayed looking at his eyes and all she could see was the man behind them. She couldn't kill him.
She took him home with her that night. Thankfully her mom was on a buying trip that week. Buffy spent the next five days until her mom got home trying to pull the man together. She never figured out why she couldn't bring herself to tell anyone that first night. Something was telling her that she did this to him, so she had to help him and that if anyone found out it would be bad. Something told her that they would have staked the intelligent and kindhearted bookworm . He deserved better than that, and she was convinced that if they found out how it was she was able to recall the souls of vampires then maybe she could insure that her new friends would stay safe after the truth came out.
Now here they were, near the end of September and two more ensouled vampires later, still looking for answers. Over the last two months all of them had become very important friends to her, even Jenna who was their most recent addition. Dalton cleared his throat and Buffy jerked out of her inner musing as Dalton pushed a stack of four large tomes towards the young blond. Tony had gone back to his game when Buffy had zoned out into her own head and left her to her thoughts.
"I'm done with these if you wanted to bring them back to the watcher. It may be less suspicious if you're bringing books back as well as taking them." Dalton smiled at her as she pulled her self together and gave him a weak smile in return.
"You're right," she agreed, grabbing the books and placing them in the backpack along with the four older used icepacks. "I should get going soon anyway. I just stopped by to check up on you guys and bring by the goodies. Tell Jenna I'm sorry I missed her, and I hope she can find that job. If you need me, you know how to get in touch. My mom will be out of town again next week, so if you need to you can stop by as long as you make sure that no one is home but me first. I'll see you in a few days. I may have to bring extra supplies then though because I have to help with parent teacher night in a few days or Snyder will expel me. I may also need your help with some French homework Dalton, if you're up for it," Buffy listed off as she ziped up the backpack, stood, and threw it over her shoulder.
"That will be fine, Miss Buffy. I may be a bit rusty with my French, but it should be easy to pick back up," Dalton reassured the teen as she headed for the crypt door to leave. "Be safe on your way home, okay?" he threw out when she began to close the door behind her. She paused before the door shut all the way and turned her head around with a large smile in place to look at her vampires.
"Of course I will. I'm the Slayer." She pulled the door closed and walked into the night.