Prologue: Everything You Need to Know

-August 13, 2003-

"Giles are you sure Buffy's going to want to train this slayer?" Willow asked as they approached the plain house.

"It's not a matter of want, but a sense of duty," he answered her. She nodded even though she was sure Buffy would be upset about this.

Giles raptly knocked on the door and braced himself for a meeting that he was sure would be tense. The light came on inside and the door slowly opened. A dark blonde man and a brunette stared at Giles and Willow.

"Good evening, my name is Rupert Giles and I'm here to speak with your daughter, Mrs. Summers," he greeted formally.

"You want to talk to Wednesday? But, she's only six-years-old," the woman answered. Willow rolled her eyes. This woman was more of a loser than she had been giving her daughters these awful names.

"No, I meant your older daughter," he took a file folder from Willow, and in disbelief said, "Morticia Abigail Nichols."

"Oh, Tish, she doesn't live here. She lives with her father in a suburb outside of Sacramento," the woman explained.

"Can we have her address?" Willow impatiently asked. She knew they should have just done a locator spell.

"Is she in trouble?" Mr. Summers finally spoke. Willow looked at the man in front of her. He was her best friend's elusive father.

"No, she's not in trouble. We are looking to recruit her for a special program offered to high school girls," Willow lied.

"Oh well then, she lives at 2230 Nelson Street in Ruby Park, California," Mr. Summers rattled off, "Now if you'll excuse us, we have things to do." He shut the door in their faces and Willow briefly thought about magicking an earthquake to happen inside their house.

"They were pleasant," Giles commented as he removed his glasses and wiped them with a beige cloth.

"It seems like not only did Buffy's dad forget about his older children, but the new Mrs. Summers has as well," Willow said with disdain.

"Yes that would appear to be the case. Well we best be on our way. We need to get to Ruby Park."

Willow nodded her head as they walked back to the car. She got lost in thoughts about how Buffy was going to react to training her stepsister.

-August 20, 2003-

"They're back!" Dawn screeched from the front window of their new home. After their house had been sucked into the closing Hellmouth, Buffy had decided they move to Cloudstown, Ohio outside of Cleveland where the second one was located.

"I guess that's another teenage girl for the horde," Buffy mentioned as she went to get the door.

The new house was larger than their home in Sunnydale, but having six extra teenaged girls was still more than Buffy wanted to deal with at the moment. But she knew why they were here; she was training them, helping them understand themselves. She sighed as she watched Willow help a dark-haired girl carry her stuff to the door and thought about how she wished she'd had a mentor when she was fifteen. The girl looked up at the house and Buffy thought she may have recognized her from somewhere.

When they had all entered the front hall, Giles decided to introduce the unknowing stepsisters.

"Buffy, this is Morticia Nichols. Morticia, this is Buffy Summers. She and Willow are responsible for activating you," Giles explained missing the glower that the younger girl had set in her features.

"Like I've said a thousand times in the car, call me Tish. I'm not going to suffer for my mother's asinine name decisions," she corrected him, and then directed her attention to Buffy, "So you're Buffy Summers. Tell your dear dad, that I say hello."

Everyone gasped and tensed. Buffy looked as if Tish had smacked her. The mention of Mr. Summers tended to be taboo in the household.

"Why would I do that?" Buffy quickly recovered and asked in a voice laced with venom.

"Well I'm sure you see him more than I see my mother ever since they got married," Tish spat back with just as much steel in her voice.

"I haven't seen my father in about seven years…" she started to respond, "Wait! Your mother is married to my dad?"

"Yes, they got married seven years ago. I haven't seen my mother since. I ended up living with my dad in Ruby Park, but apparently we have a younger half-sister, Wednesday."

"We're going to have a half-sister on Wednesday?" Buffy asked confused.

"No, we have a half-sister named Wednesday," Tish retorted. She looked at Buffy like she was dense.

"Wait, we have a half-sister named Wednesday and your name is Morticia? Who was channeling the Addams Family?" Buffy questioned with a laugh.

"My stupid mother," Tish muttered. Buffy noted that it was a sensitive subject for her. She unfolded her arms from across her chest. She had been ready to get into a verbal spar with the teenager, but it seemed useless. The girl had been abandoned by a parent just like she had.

"Can I talk to the new slayer now? It's been like ten minutes!" Dawn shouted from the living room. Buffy had told her to wait until they gave her the lowdown on the house before bombarding her.

"Uh, yeah, we'll be there in a sec Dawn!" Buffy yelled back. She glanced between Giles, Willow, and Tish. She sighed again. This was going to be interesting. Time for her younger sister to meet their slightly younger step-sister and Buffy was not prepared for any of it.

-September 7, 2004-

"Aren't you going to tell me that you're glad to see me?" Angel asked from the brightly lit doorway. Buffy fainted.

"Buffy, what's the m…" Willow had started to ask until she saw Angel standing in the sunlight.

"Hi Willow," Angel greeted softly. She stared at him in disbelief. Giles had told her about the Senior Partners flinging Los Angeles into Hell in May, and how no one was thought to have survived.

"Angel?" She questioned.

"Yes."

"But, it's daylight, aren't you supposed to be all burning and dusty?"

"If I were still a vampire, then yes I should be dust. However, I am no longer a vampire, and am in fact human."

"The Shanshu Prophecy?" She questioned as she levitated an unconscious Buffy to the couch in the living room. They both walked into the room together. Angel looked around and saw three girls in their late teens, but only recognized one of them.

"Angel?" Dawn questioned from her seat on the floor. "What did you do to Buffy?!"

"He didn't do anything to her Dawnie, she fainted. You would have to if you had seen Angel standing outside in the sun not turning all dusty," Willow explained. The eighteen-year-old's face looked bewildered from the explanation.

"But, Angel's a vampire," she started to say.

"Not anymore," he answered.

"Tell me about it," Willow instructed.

"After the hell breakout in L.A., something happened to me. I don't think it was the Shanshu Prophecy because I signed away my rights to it. I think it was some other Powers That Be destiny for me. Especially since I had seen Cordelia when I was supposed to die, she told me that I needed to see you, and that she would see me soon."

"I could research it," Dawn suggested. Buffy had started to come to and one of the other girls sitting on the floor went to her.

"Was…was Angel really at the door in the middle of the day?" She asked her step-sister.

"Yes, and he's really here, too. You passed out wicked hard on the front hall floor, and Will totally floated you in here. Glad to see you're okay though, Sis," Tish rambled. At the mention of the familial word Angel snapped his head to Buffy and raised an eyebrow.

"Did you acquire another key?" He asked humorously and shot Dawn a grin. She smiled back. She was long past being upset over the whole 'I haven't always been a human' thing.

"No, she's my father's new wife's other daughter," Buffy said.

"Or in a much quicker and more to the point explanation, I'm her step-sister. My name's Tish. Nice to meet you, I think," Tish said as she held out a hand for him.

"Tish?" He asked as he took her hand. It was an interesting name.

"It's short for Morticia, but we're not going to talk about that because she gets all mad and punchy about it," Buffy explained to him. Tish glowered at Buffy. "Now, back to you being here and being human."

-January 13, 2006-

"Bloody hell woman!" Spike had yelled when Buffy had punched him. He had come in through their backdoor that connected to the dining room and Buffy thought she was seeing The First all over again.

"I come back a real boy and she wants to beat me to a bloody pulp," he had said once everyone present was staring at him.

"Who's he?" Tish asked the room. Unfortunately, her question went unanswered while Willow, Kennedy, Buffy, and Dawn gawked at the man.

"Oh great, not him too," Angel said as he came in through the archway that led to the kitchen.

"I see that once again, the great poof got here before me," Spike responded to the unwelcome greeting.

"Spike, you died, twice, what the hell are you doing here?" Buffy asked a little more harshly than she meant.

"Cordelia gave me this nice visit in wherever the bloody hell I was, and told me that I was going to be a real boy and to get my ass to your new house. She said something about telling us all about it in a couple of days," he answered with a smirk.

"Okay, that's really…vague," Willow finally spoke.

"No kidding Red."

"So Buffy, now that you have both of us here, ready to make a decision?" Angel questioned.

-January 15, 2006-

Dawn sat on the back porch of the house and watched as Buffy did combat training with Tish. She had decided to put college to the side for right now. Instead, she asked Giles to be part of the new Watcher's Council and he agreed. He had assigned her to Tish. Dawn listened while he said it would be good for both of them because they already trust each other and they were close in age. He quickly lectured on that not being a good enough reason for the two of them to go out to clubs and get in trouble together. Dawn had giggled and Tish had said something about her big sis not letting her go to clubs. She had almost forgotten that she was a year older than Tish and was considered a big sister until Tish had mentioned it.

Dawn continued to watch as Tish did a roundhouse kick into a bag Buffy had set up for her. Her thoughts went to different things. Her main worry was how the household was tense right now. Buffy was working out with Tish because Cordelia and Willow had done a Powers That Be ritual that activated Angel and Spike (as humans) into the new male form of a slayer. They were to be known as hunters. Cordelia had given the Scoobies birth certificates, driver's licenses, social security cards, and other various identifiers for the two newly human men. Dawn had been shocked to learn that two more besides them would be called upon and they would end up at their door.

"As if we don't have enough problems here," she muttered to herself as she watched Buffy try to get a jab in on Tish. "Good block Tish!" She yelled once Tish had successfully evaded getting hit. The problems Dawn referred to, in no specific order, were: Spike and Angel were currently passed out from the ritual, both were fighting over Buffy non-stop since they walked through the door (as humans), and Tish was going to have her first mission in Cloudstown soon. Dawn didn't have time for two random men to show up and have to be trained by Angel and Spike while they were bickering over Buffy. She sighed and wrote in her Watcher's journal. It was just another day as a Scooby.