Huge apology for the delay, but my Muse got all burned out while I was writing this, give her a moment and I'll get my second wind! Promise! To be on the safe side though, updates will be once a week, more than likely on Sundays.
"Buffy, a word please?" Giles asked as nicely as he could and Buffy got up from a circle of Slayers and bounded towards her Watcher.
"What's up?" she asked but Giles was interrupted by yet another eruption of laughter from the circle. It seemed the 'training' had been transformed into 'talking', which was then downgraded to 'gossiping'. It wasn't exactly what Giles had in mind.
"I'd like to talk about your training." Giles got down to the point right away.
"Oh, that," Buffy bit her lip, "I swear we're about to, Kennedy just had this really funny story and I didn't want to be rude or anything…" Buffy fished her mind for the best excuses but came up empty.
"You are ignoring your duties." Giles said with an accusatory tone.
"Giles I was talking, besides it's them that need the training… I've been trained. Remember? You were there." Buffy replied defiantly.
"You've been neglecting your calling so you can dally about with a group of pre- pubescent girls and chit-chat about boys!" Giles eyed her angrily and she crossed her arms.
"Who made you King of Slayer Hill?" Buffy mumbled under her breath.
"Now, I've been putting a lot of thought into this and –"
"Thought? Thought about what?" Buffy jumped quickly to conclusions.
"I've organized for you to meet with a Shaman, he'll re-awaken your slayer spirit, get you back on track… something I've quite clearly failed to do…" Giles said with a sigh.
"Oh, yeah because these Slayer journey's always end so well for us!" Buffy pointed out sarcastically and Giles gave her a rather fatherly look.
"It'll just be for a few weeks, and he's a trusted affiliate with the Watchers council, or rather he was considering there is no council anymore." Giles waited for Buffy's reaction.
"Where is this Shaman?" Buffy allowed him that much.
"Close to L.A, a small town in the middle of the desert, he'll meet you in the town square." Giles handed her a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.
"Hm, middle of nowhere, that's a comforting thought!" Buffy rolled her eyes and gave Giles another suspicious look.
"I'll go, but you gotta let these girls learn at their own pace." Buffy commanded
"I think a fast-paced approach might be easier for them though…" Giles corrected her but Buffy gave him her age-old stubborn you-are-not-changing-my-mind look.
"Believe it or not Giles, not everyone likes being pushed around." She said then bumped shoulders on her way outside.
--
THREE DAYS LATER
"Excuse me? Miss Summers?" a noticeably aged Texan accent greeted her, she spun around to meet the stranger with cautious eyes. He wasn't overly tall and he had a fair amount of excess weight, though his face looked trustworthy enough.
"That's me." Buffy smiled politely.
"Rupert informed me of your arrival today… come on in, no need t'be shy!" he ushered her inside from the doorway he stood under. He looked remarkably pale for someone living in the middle of a desert. Buffy just shrugged it off, assuming that since he was a shaman he probably didn't get outside much anyway.
"So how long have you been slaying vampires?" he asked casually.
"About 8 years now… almost nine." Buffy guessed, it was hard to understand if he meant how long had she been successfully slaying or how long she'd been called for.
"How interesting." Though he hardly sounded as though he were.
"Guess so," Buffy shrugged "so are we gonna do this Slayer recharge or what?" Buffy asked, clearly uncomfortable, they reached a long flight of stairs that went down, Buffy wondered if it were leading to a basement or a cave or something.
"Have you ever loved a vampire?" he asked in the silence as he led her down the stairs
"What?" Buffy seemed completely offended by the question "how does that have anything to do with me being a good slayer?" she creased her eyebrows together in anger.
"Answer the question Miss Summers." He demanded
"Don't order me around." Buffy retorted, no longer feeling the need to be nice to this man, if he was going to be snappy then so was she.
"So you can talk about your hate towards vampire-kind but you cannot talk about your love?" he observed and she flinched at the comment.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she questioned through clenched teeth.
"That you fear openness. You're comfort lies within what you know, what you fight against, what your sure of… outside of that zone you feel conflicted and boxed, a feeling that you fear." He stated and she glared at the back of his head.
"Can we just do this thing, I'm not into small talk with strangers." She mumbled and he nodded knowingly as they continued down the stairs into what would be one her last days on this earth as a human.
--
"You bloody git!" Spike glared at Angel who returned the look with equal annoyance. Buffy however was sitting on top of the desk downstairs watching the tow bicker over the most trivial and pointless matters.
"I have it under control!" Angel replied and glanced at Buffy "and I'm sure Buffy can handle herself, she's a strong girl!" Angel said and Buffy jumped off the bench.
"Hey, I'm not involved in this…" she said and Spike nodded.
"She's a new vampire, what do you think the scent of human blood's gonna do to her? I mean did you even think about this?" Spike bellowed and Angel crossed his arms.
"Yes, unlike you I can actually think!"
"Oh yeah that's really mature Forehead." Spike rolled his crystal blue eyes.
"Stop it both of you!" Buffy said pushing them both away from each other, a hand placed on each chest. She then huffed and looked at Spike.
"We don't know what affect blood will have on me, besides I doubt Faith would let me hurt her like that," she said purposefully to him "and you," she raised her voice a few levels and turned her attention to Angel "would be wise not to mention the 'B' word in front of me before I start drinking from you... Okay?" she looked back and forth between them making sure they'd understood.
"Yeah…" Spike said with a prolonged exhale.
"Fine." Angel forced himself to say the word out loud.
"Good." Buffy said brushing herself off "now if you'll stop being stupid for five minutes I need to use the phone." Buffy said walking towards it.
"To call who?" Angel said quickly taking the phone off the receiver before she could get to it. Buffy cast him an annoyed look.
"To make a prank phone call, I'm calling Dawn, Dawn my sister." Buffy snatched the phone from him grasp "unless of course that's against the rules?" she added grumpily.
"What? Oh… no… Dawn's okay to ring I guess…" Angel replied much less confidently than he had previously been talking.
"Well I'm gonna go outside and look around…" Spike announced looking outside in the empty darkness. It would have been scary but L.A was so completely lacking in human life now that it posed no threat – demons didn't come to uninhabited towns like these.
"Take your time." Angel said with a quick glance at Buffy who was listening intently to a dial tone with a nervous expression. Spike ignored Angel's jibe and continued on his way outside, he went to alley they found Buffy in just mere days ago. Kicking up a small chunk of rubble from under his shoe he tipped over a trashcan and covered his face up with his hands. Keeping as silent as one could, he cried. Something he's been holding in since he'd found Buffy. The one person he loved (apart from Drusilla) had just been killed and given a life of eternal torment and there was nothing he could do to save her. It wasn't fair, however when you'd been around as long as he had, nothing was ever fair. The only thing that came to mind to help Buffy was to get back at Giles. There wasn't really a way to do that without hurting Buffy though, so he couldn't. He couldn't do anything and he hated himself for it.
--
"Angel?" Buffy asked, after putting the phone down. Dawn had of course been shocked as upset when Buffy revealed the details of her whereabouts but reassured when she knew she was getting cared for. Angel looked up expectantly hoping he could help Buffy out somehow, he wanted to do something… anything at all to get his mind off things.
"Yes?" he asked, closing the book he was previously lost in.
"When did Spike come back?" she asked and his heart sank a little.
"About a year ago." He admitted and her eyes sparked for a moment with something that greatly reminded Angel of the look Cordelia got when she was pissed off.
"And when did you plan on telling me about this?" she asked angrily.
"I… I just didn't think it was that important… not with everything you were dealing with after all." Angel was making it up as he went along now, anything to repress the wrath of Buffy.
"Not important? Spike came back from Hell but you didn't think it was important?" she placed her hands on her hips "You're just super helpful aren't you?" she spat out.
"You were busy!" Angel fought back defensively
"Yeah and now I'm dead!" she fought back the tears in her eyes.
"That has nothing to do with Spike! And why are you yelling at me?" Angel wished someone else was here to get him out the situation but knew he was going to have to settle this on his own.
"Because you're supposed to help me! You're supposed to be the champion!" she screamed, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
"I'm trying, if you haven't noticed I'm not exactly an expert on slayers-turned-vampire!" he growled at her and she flew at him.
"For God's sake Angel help me!" she sobbed, hitting weakly at his chest in a desperate attempt to make him help her. Clutching at his chest as the feeling in her legs went numb
"It's okay." Angel said, placing a hand on the back of her head.
"No it's not! I'm not supposed to feel like this! What's Dawn gonna do now that she can't come near her own sister because I might accidentally kill her?" she asked, thrashing wildly in his grip "and what about Giles, I'm a vampire now… he'll stake me Angel! He won't care if I'm the Slayer or not, he's got dozens of replacements now doesn't he!" she wailed and sobbed into his dress shirt as he hesitantly hushed her like she were just a small child.
"No ones gonna hurt you…" he assured her "not with me protecting you… not with…Spike protecting you… I promise." He said hoisting her back onto her own tow feet, she looked up at him hopefully.
"You mean it?" she double checked quickly
"Gotta fight for something… since the city's gone… you're our priority now…" he said, a bit annoyed of including Spike, but knowing the more people on her side the better she would feel right now.
"Thank you." She whispered into his shirt as they pulled each other into a tender – yet friendly - embrace.
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