Chapter 2... Handcuff's Are You're Friend

There was light...wonderful warm light.

"Some people have a destiny, ya know. They got things they gotta do, like looking after annoying-"

"That's not an excuse, you got lucky."

"She was like an angel...or something worse."

...

This isn't so bad. Buffy said to herself, more bickering then she'd imagined but maybe angels were cranky without caffeine? She always figured actual heaven would have more wings, and less hip hop music, but still, Heaven. Also, why did heaven smell like mothballs...Wait, what?

"She's waking up." said a young woman's voice that hovered nearby.

"Tyler shut that off." Gun yelled out down the hall.

"What... happened about me?"
Buffy said as she spoke up from her stupor.

Gunn stood nearby, wringing a cloth with blood into a small bucket nearby the bed.

"You're either the bravest valley girl in the world, or the craziest." He said eagerly, trying his best to sound magnanimous, and yet sarcastic at the same time.

"I vote both. You feelin' alright?"
Alonna asked worriedly.

"I'm ok, where... where?" Buffy said returning to sense. She was covered in a brown blanket, a small bandage over her shoulder, from where Lorna had attacked.

"Home, or what used to be one. Tyler found it, used to be a crackhouse or smackhut, or something like that." Gunn said taking a seat on a chair near the couch Buffy was lying on.

"Charles saved you from that blood sucker, after you saved him. Still, thought you might be one too considering what he saw you do."

"No... I'm just me." Buffy replied, still weak.

"And who would that be exactly." Gunn asked quietly, doing his best to be gentle.

"Me... I'm um... Anne. I'm no one. Thanks for, ya' know, saving me." Buffy said darkly looking away and out the window.

"Gunn, Charles Gunn, this is my sister Alonna. So you wanna try that again with less pausing between between your pronouns?"

"Ease off Charles, she's hurt, she's hand-cuffed, and she's not going anywhere."

Buffy looked down to see her ankle handcuffed to the couch. She was tempted to rip it free, but decided that she wasn't strong enough yet.

"Yeah, sorry about that. But after the things we've seen, you can't blame us the extra caution. Didn't know if you'd wake up in a non-killing mood." Gunn said bluntly.

"I- don't kill people." Buffy said as she attempted to sit up.

"Good to know, but you still ain't exactly human are you? This ain't exactly a damn pencil" Alonna said slightly worried, holding aloft 'Mr. Pointy'. The girl stood over Charles' shoulder, somehow protecting him and herself at the same time.

"I'm..." Buffy said nothing more, her silence deafening. She kicked her leg out and the arm of the couch came free as if it were balsa. She smiled with an awkward smirk at the reveal of her power.

"Yeah, kinda figured that wouldn't hold."
Gunn said as he leaned down to unlock the remaining mechanism.

"Sorry, about the couch." She said sheepishly. "I'm really good at destroying things."

Tyler looking on protested silently with his hands...

"Ain't nobody asked you Tyler, and besides... she wanted to hurt us, I'm thinking she'd already be doing it." Gunn replied briskly, silencing the already silent Tyler.

"So.. where'd you get the super strength, cause my Brother here owes you a serious thank you." Alonna declared.

"Come on, I would have had Jack. Just didn't anticipate the rest of the gang." Gunn said boastfully.

"You're welcome. I tend to save people, I'm kinda pesky that way." Buffy.

"So you're strong, you kill vampires, and you're name isn't Anne."
Alonna said musing.

"That's about it." Buffy replied trying to stop the speculation.

"Slayer." Gunn said thinking aloud.

"What, who told yo-"

"Jack said it, 'fore he ran off. So your name is Slayer? Yeah, I'd prefer Anne too-"

"No... I'm-" Buffy sat up fully yawning a bit.

"I'm Buffy," She announced as if it were a big deal.

"You're strong we know." Alonna said as she came closer and sat nearby. The rest of the house seemed to have squatters as well, here and there Buffy could see kids, teenagers younger and older. Most should have been in school, all of them should be at a home with parents, or parent as in her case. The place had crosses in every window, and there weapons hanging on the walls, stakes and wooden spears, as well a crude crossbow or too.

"No. My name is Buffy Summers... I'm a Vampire Slayer. She whose destined dark the fightness? I mean fight the darkness. Sorry Giles always said that bit."

"Buffy... the Vampire Slayer, that's new." Alonna said surprised at how well the words flowed together.

"Old actually, ancient, at least that's what I'm told", Buffy said, wishing she'd stolen at least one of Giles' books on the way out of town.

"So you come to L.A. to fight the good fight? Ain't we lucky. Who's this 'Giles', he your boyfriend or something?" Gunn said as he took her in with a glance.

"I'm not here to, I mean, I have to-, can you not tell anyone about the whole slayer thing?" She couldn't tell strangers, let alone friends.

"Hey, you saved my big brother, far as I'm concerned you could be Charles Manson and I'd owe you one. You running from something? 'Cause we know how that is." Alonna said touching Buffy on her arm reassuringly.

"We all come from somewhere, Tyler back there lost both his parents two months back, vamp's took 'em. Doctor's say he went mute, hysterical something or other. Everyone here has either lost someone, or is running from something. You could stay here if-"

"No, I... just have to get back. Besides I'll be fired... again." Buffy ignored the urge to tell someone about the hell she'd been through since she run Angel through with a sword.

"Alright, but you better let me drive you back."
Gunn said getting up to grab his keys.

"I can handle myself." Buffy said proudly.

"That we know. But unless you got GPS and a rocket pack hidden in that jacket, you gonna need someone who knows L.A. Besides, in this neighborhood, monsters and creeps don't just come out at night. Besides, I still have to thank you." Gunn said with a knowing frown.

"You'd better let him Buffy, when Charles gets it in his head to play shining knight he gets super stubborn."