She knocked on the door, trembling despite the warm rays of the Los Angeles sun bathing the back of her neck.
Joyce answered. God, she looked like mother, even after all these lifetimes, the family resemblance was still there.
She wanted to hurl herself at her. To throw herself into her open arms and drown her head in her welcoming bosom. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs
"MOMMY! IT'S ME! IT'S YOUR BABY! IT'S YOUR LITTLE GIRL! I'M HOME! I'VE COME HOME!"
It took every ounce of her self control not to.
"Yes?"
"Joyce Summers?"
"Yes, dear" Joyce looked at her quizzically.
"You're William's sister?"
Sadness flickered across her face. "Yes but I'm afraid he's dead. Ten years ago. Cancer"
"I know. He was my father. I'm your niece. Buffy"
It seemed a stupid name to her but she was playing the role of a typical American teenager. It was fitting somehow, a good name for a girl who had seen centuries of existence yet still looked 15.
Joyce looked suitably shocked. She stared at 'Buffy' unable to comprehend what she had just said. Buffy felt her gaze looking her over, taking in her features, her eyes, seeing the familiar traces of familial blood and heritage. She silently prayed she would be fooled.
"You'd better come in" Joyce ventured at last.
Her heart lifted in that moment.
Buffy played happily with Dawn and her dollies as Joyce read through the forgeries, the fake birth certificates, the altered pictures, the school reports that all claimed her as the secret child that her brother had never told her of
. She looked around the house. It was everything she imagined, warmth and softness, bright colours and pictures of happy parents with their adoring nine year old. How Buffy hoped that she too would one day be an unquestioned part of those pictures.
How many times had she done this? Tricked her way into a house? Fooled her prey into inviting her in. She looked at Dawn, knowing that once she would have ripped her throat out and taken great pleasure in listening to Joyce's screams, knowing that the last thing she would ever see was her child being torn apart by razored, merciless fangs and that she was helpless to prevent it.
But that monster was dead now. Killed by a gypsy's curse and the miracle of Mohra Demon blood. Now she was just a teenage girl again.
A girl who needed a home.
This home.
This family.
Her family.
Joyce put the documents down, accepting them as genuine. They had cost Buffy a small fortune, a large part of her stash she had stolen from her countless victims. But they were worth it.
"You must be hungry?"
Buffy stifled a laugh at the irony.
"I'm fine, I've plenty of money, when mom died her life insurance left me well provided for. I just wanted to know about my dad. You and Darleen..."
"Arlene" Joyce corrected.
"Sorry, Arlene" Buffy bluffed theatrically, Joyce accepting her deliberate mistake at face value, "You and Arlene are my only living relatives" The odd thing was it was true, they were the only descendants of her family that she'd been able to trace. But they could never guess she was closer to being their ancestor than their progeny. "You're the only people who can tell me about him. After that I'm not sure what I'll do, get a job or perhaps go back to school, stay in an orphanage in the meantime. Pretty much up to social services until I'm 18 and can live by myself, I guess"
Joyce looked uncertain. Buffy got up to go, adopting a sad expression, baiting the hook
. "This is obviously too much for you all in one day. I'll leave you my number at my motel. You can phone me when you're ready to talk"
She walked to the door. "Oh please, please, please, please "she begged silently in her mind, "Don't let me go, please, please, please..."
"Oh mom I like her, can't she stay and play for a while?" Dawn asked sweetly.
Buffy froze, crossing her fingers.
"Yes," Joyce concurred, "Why don't you stay for dinner? We've obviously a lot of catching up to do"
Buffy's heart soared. It was all she could do to stop herself from smiling. "If you're sure...?"
"I'll make up the guest bedroom" Joyce decided firmly. "You can stay here whilst we sort things out about your future, no sense wasting money on a motel"
" Safer too", Hank added "A girl of your age shouldn't be staying by herself" He seemed nice, she thought.
Buffy sat down and played with Dawn once more as Joyce went to fetch fresh linen and Hank busied himself in the kitchen.
"Why are you crying?" Dawn asked puzzled. "Do you have something in your eye?"
"Sort of" Buffy replied, smiling at her new 'cousin'.
"I deserve this" she thought to herself, "I've caused such suffering yet I've suffered too. I'll make it up to my victims, I'll make it up to them all, I don't know how but I will. But I deserve to be happy, deserve family, friends, light and laughter, a real life. And I'll make these wonderful, ordinary people happy, I'll be a good daughter, a good sister, take care of them as they'll take care of me, return the love they give me and so much more"
Buffy could never know of her much interrupted destiny as the Slayer, that she would soon be called upon to fight the forces of darkness and make amends for all the agony she had caused over all her years as a vampire. For now she would just enjoy the love and companionship of her new family and mourn for all those she had left behind.
For she was truly home.
At last.