"No." Spencer sniffed and smiled gratefully at her.
"See…" Tilting her head, she looked at Spencer, completely ignoring Carmen's scowl. "What's her name?"
"Carmen." She glared at her ex.
"See Carmen, my girlfriend doesn't want me to leave so… whatever…" Ashley snaked her arm around the younger girl's waist for added effect.
"Girlfriend?" Carmen questioned…not realizing her ex had moved on so fast.
"Yeah… so if you have anything to say to me you can say it in front of her." Spencer said interjecting.
"When…. Did? This isn't over." Carmen replied as she stormed out of the store.
"Oh my God." Spencer chuckled as she turned to the girl. "Thank you so much, you didn't have to…" Before she could finish, she felt soft lips on hers. The moment was over before it had started, but it wouldn't be one she would forget.
"That should give her something to think about." Ashley giggled, tilting her head towards the open window.
Turning her head, Spencer could see her ex walk away. "How did you know she would look back?"
"Been there, done that…"
"Oh…" She gasped. "You're…" She said as her eyes widen at the sudden realization.
"There she is." Ashley grinned "I guess you don't get to use your gaydar much here do you?"
Shaking her head, the blonde blushed and looked down at her feet. Biting her lower lip, she noticed that their hands were still intertwined, but it didn't last. She missed it the second the brunette slowly slid her hand out of hers. "So what did you need?" She cleared her throat, trying to change the subject.
"Huh?" Ashley's mind had drifted away for a minute.
"The store… You came back here for a reason?"
"Oh right...The boys are boring me… and your mom is kind of too old for me to hang out with so that leaves the lovely Spencer."
"You want to hang out with me? Why?" the blonde hung up her apron on the back of the door. It was time to close up the store.
"Do you really have to ask?" the brunette raised an eyebrow.
"I think I just did." pulling out the moneybag from under the counter.
"Can I be frank with you?" the traveler said asked.
"Please do." Spencer started counting the money that was in the register.
"Well…" the brunette hopped up on to the counter. "It's simple. You're hot."
"Excuse me?" the girl stopped mid count and stared at Ashley.
"Oh come on… can you honestly tell me no one has ever called you that?" From the look on Spencer's face, she could tell the answer was no. "Well you are… And I was hoping maybe you'd show me where I can find the fun in this town. Plus there's something about you… feels like I've met you before, in another life, you know?"
Looking up from what she was doing, the blonde tilted her head, trying to decide on whether or not she should tell her what she was thinking.
"Okaaay." Ashley said drawing it out. "I guess it's just me!" She hopped down from the counter.
"No, no, no." Spencer called her back "Honestly..." She didn't know where to begin, running her hand through her hair she said. "Are we still being frank?" Ashley nodded in reply. "I do know what you mean. I get that same feeling about you...actually, I kind of had a dream about you."
"Really?" Ashley frowned.
"Kinda... I didn't really see your face or anything… It was as if you were saving me or something. I know, it's silly really…I just met you…the kiss from earlier…I know it was just an act. But… it didn't feel like a first kiss." She said shaking her head, fighting to find the words. "It felt like the-"
"Millionth time." Ashley finished the sentence for her.
"Yeah." Spencer bit her lower lip as she tried to gauge her reaction. Ashley couldn't help herself. She leaned in once again, and placed her lips on hers. Cupping her cheek with one hand, she pulled her closer with the other, feeling like a jolt of electricity was running through her body. The kiss intensified and they had to break apart to breathe.
"Whoa." They both said in unison.
Opening her mouth to speak, Ashley was stopped by the ringing phone. The shopkeeper held up a finger to the young traveler, as if to say hold that thought, as she rushed to answer it.
"Non-stop Shoppe…oh hi mom." Spencer glanced over at Ashley and mouthed a silent 'sorry'.
"Yeah she is...I don't know actually…" she started chewing on her lower lip "Huh… sorry mom… I know. Lock up and put the money away. Ok…Mom!..I love you too." She finally hung up the phone with her back still turned to Ashley. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, somehow trying to calm the beating of her heart.
"So I was wondering…" She said turning around. "I need to shower…If you want, after, we could go to the…" she paused, lost in her thoughts "And then we could go to…" after a while, she realized Ashley was giggling at her "What?" she frowned, feeling slightly hurt by the other girl's attitude. "Ok, I get it you really don't want to hang out."
Ashley was trying hard to stifle her laughter, "No it's not that it's… it's just that you didn't finish one sentence."
Looking at her with disbelief, Spencer replayed the last few minutes in her head. Slapping her hand to her forehead, she began to blush. "I'm so mortified."
"I'm going to take a wild guess here." Ashley gently took the blonde's hands from her reddened face. "Shower for you?" she pointed at her. "Dinner and a movie for us." She motioned between them two.
"How did you guess?"
"Well, aside from your little store here, those are the only things around. At least, from what I can tell." Ashley chuckled.
"Right." The blonde girl glanced up past her to the clock. "Well, we better get going then." Minutes later, the store was closed and they were headed towards her house that was on the other side of the Bed and Breakfast, four houses away from the store. As they walked down the gravel driveway, Spencer felt a hand slip into hers. Looking down at it, she didn't bother to remove it, something about it just felt right. "Would you like a tour of my house?" She asked the brunette as they got closer to her house.
"I'd like that." Ashley smiled "So have you lived here all your life?"
"Yeah… I have…me, and my three…two friends Bella and Alex grew up together…But I want to get out of here someday. It may look like your average town…" She paused, turning to look out across her yard. "But some strange stuff has been going on here."
"Like what?" the brunette followed her gaze. This was exactly why she was here. She didn't care if the Powers That Be had warned her with their stupid magic tricks and dreams of impending danger. She couldn't stay away, and hide in a hole that went against everything she was.
"Pure evil." Spencer as they walked up the stairs to the house.
Ashley shivered and considered the girl's words. She remembered the tingling sensation she'd felt when she'd seen Carmen at the store. She had immediately felt something else as well, some kind of trigger, like she just had to protect that Spencer girl from her.
The house itself was something you would see in the movies. It was a two-story house painted a dull yellow with two white columns on both sides of the stairs. The porch held a chain swing bench that hung in the far right corner. Directly across, in the other corner, sat two old-fashioned rocking chairs.
"Besides, this small town is getting a little old." Spencer added as she made sure that she wiped her feet on the Welcome mat that lay in front of the door. Opening the door, she allowed Ashley to go in first.
"I know it sounds a little cliché … but I want to see the world…at least the country. You know?" She said sighing as she shut the door. "So this is the living room. The kitchen is on the other side of this wall." She pointed to the wall that stood behind the living room. "And the dining room just adjacent to that." Still holding her hand, she led her up the staircase. Spencer looked back, trying to figure out what was on Ashley's mind.
"Wait." The brunette suddenly stopped her. "Is that…" she turned towards the pictures on the wall. "Is that you?" she noticed the picture of a baby in a bathtub.
"Oh God." Spencer covered her face in shame. "Okay, now I'm mortified…I also remember the reason why I wanted my mom to take that down." She could feel the heat rush to her cheeks.
"I think it's adorable." Ashley grinned. "How old were you?"
"I think ...a year an a half." she chuckled and pulled on the other girl's hand "Can we continue?" the blonde shopkeeper replied as she was trying to get moving again.
"Yeah, yeah." The girl nodded. 'She's really making this hard for me.'
"I'm not going to live that one down am I?" Spencer chuckled as they were reaching the top of the stairs.
"Not a chance." The brunette winked at her, which caused her to blush once again.
"This is my brothers' room. In the corner is our parent's room" she paused, taking a deep breath in, and walked down the little hallway that led to her room. She pushed the door open, her heart racing a little "And here's my room."
Walking past her, Ashley took a look around. "Nice...I would never have guessed you would have such an eclectic music collection." She let her fingers run across the many albums.
"Yeah I know some of them are lame, but I can't help it. I love music." Spencer walked behind her, taking a deep breath. She didn't realize, 'till now, how good the girl in front of her smelled.
"Make yourself at home, I'm going to take a quick shower if you don't mind before our…" she realized she was not really sure what to call what they were doing.
"Date." Ashley nodded and smiled at her as she finished her sentence.
"Yeah, date."
"Take your time. I'll be here." Spencer nodded shyly in reply and made her way to what Ashley assumed was her bathroom, while she took a closer look around at the bedroom. There were pictures of Spencer's family on her dresser and also ones of what she assumed were her friends. The room was a dull purple with white trim, along the wall laid a full size canopy bed with a dark green comforter with matching pillows. There was a sheer green fabric hanging in a criss-cross fashion above the bed, on each of the corners of her four post bed in. In the corner, close to the hallway, was a medium size computer desk that was a deep mahogany, and across from that was a walk-in closet that seemed to hold a bathroom on the other side of it. Ashley made sure that she could hear water running, pulled her phone out and dialed.
"Hello. Summers residence."
"Wills, is Buffy around." She said glancing back towards the bathroom.
"Ashley… you and Aiden made it safely there?"
"Yeah…" she pushed back the curtain. The Big Bad is definitely here, I can feel it, definitely tingling." She closed her eyes and thought about the day her life had changed completely.
5 months ago…
It had been weeks since she had, had the dream and Ashley didn't know, or didn't want to deal with it. Looking up at the ceiling of her apartment, she tried to follow the pattern that was held in it. It was useless. Sitting up, she sighed and let her legs hang off the edge of her bed. Reaching for the glass that sat on her nightstand, she took a long pull from it letting the liquid slowly burn its way down her throat. Being a rock star's daughter certainly had its advantages; nobody ever asked questions when she'd go to a liquor store. Setting the glass back on the table, she leaned back to let the muscle in her back stretch, there was no way she was going anywhere today. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed her playmate from last night was still there.
"Hey," she reached over and shook the girl awake. "Checkout time." she stood up and padded her way to the bathroom. Looking in the mirror, she pushed some of her unruly hair out of her face. "Still look hot, Davies." she smirked at herself. Hearing the apartment door slam, she knew she was alone again. She reached over and turned the hot and cold on her shower testing temperature. The brunette pulled her hand back and grabbed a towel to dry the excess water off. She was just about to remove her clothes when she heard a familiar ring coming from her cell. "Damn it Aiden, I'm not in the mood." She cut the water off and left the bathroom making her way down the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen. Picking her phone of the counter, the brunette pressed the button and placed the phone against her ear.
"Your on, I can go for kicking your ass today." The girl thought as she placed her phone down. Ordinarily her best friend usually gave her a run for her money…but lately, at least over the last few days, she had gotten the better of him; she just chalked it off to her new diet. The young girl smiled and ran back to her bathroom so she could have a quick shower before heading down to the gym to train with her friend.
Twenty minutes later, the young brunette walked through the doors of the gym. Running her hand through her still damp hair, Ashley looked around for her best friend. Spotting him at the punching bag, she made her way over to him. "Who's your friend, Aiden?" placing her bag down as she put her hair in a ponytail.
"Oh hey, Ash." The boy smiled going over to hug her. "This is Kennedy." He motioned towards the girl still holding the bag. "Kennedy, this is Ashley."
"Nice to meet you." The young Latina said holding out her hand. "Or not." She added, noticing that the other girl wasn't gonna make any attempt to greet her.
"So are we gonna do this or what?" Ashley muttered, ignoring Kennedy and looking at her friend.
"Actually, Ash," The boy let a smile creep onto his face. "I was telling Kennedy here how you've been kicking my ass lately so she said she would take my place." He grinned mischievously.
"You know I gotta keep this face pretty as long as I can."
"Whatever." She rolled her eyes "We doing this?" she was already annoyed, and hungover from the previous night.
"Yeah let me just go get my gloves on." Kennedy jogged over to a redhead that was sitting on one of the mini bleachers that were in the gym.
"You realize I'm gonna kick her ass right." The brunette said to her best friend.
"I wouldn't be to sure, Ash." The boy said with a smirk.
"Whatever." The girl shook her head as she began to stretch. "This is gonna be quick." she looked at the girl across the room.
The other girl was standing a few feet away and what appeared to be her girlfriend was helping her put on her gloves.
"So what do you think?" the redhead said looking up at her.
"Oh she's one. I can feel her." She nodded. "She has no idea what's happening to her." The Latina pushed her hand fully into the glove. "I knew something was up when her friend said she just started kicking his ass when they spared."
"We knew that we would find them everywhere. I'll let Buffy know as soon as I can. She's going to want to know we have a new slayer."
"Did she and Faith get the girls settled in Woodlake?" the brunette said as she began to stretch.
"Yeah… she said the girls are driving Faith crazy. But the town is quiet, not much activity. LA is definitely not what those girls need." she raked her hand through her hair. "I'm really glad she sent us together to find the newbies."
"Plus lots of alone time." The brunette winked as she pulled one of her legs behind her to stretch it out.
"There's that." The redhead pushed some of her hair behind her ear. She tried not to let her girlfriend see the blush was slowly creeping up her face, but she knew it was a moot point.
"Oh and… she said she found a job at a high school two towns over…" Sitting up proudly because she had remembered what her best friend had told her. "Three Rivers."
"Cool, never can be too sure when a Slayer's gonna pop up." Kennedy started bouncing on her toes. "Wish me luck."
"Luck." The redhead replied as she leaned in for a kiss. "Oh and honey?" She yelled stopping her mid stride.
"Yeah."
"Go easy on her…she's new." The young witch replied sheepishly.
"Come on Wills, you know I like it rough." She laughed and jogged on to the mat knowing that her girlfriend had just turned a deep shade of crimson.
For a minute, each girl just stood sizing each other up, both of them convinced they were about to beat the hell out of the other. But only one knew what it was like to be a Slayer.
"Alright girls, let's keep it clean." Aiden said as he stepped in-between his best friend and the girl he just met.
"Aiden, just get out of the way." Ashley glared at him.
"Fine, don't say I didn't warn ya." He backed away with a smug look on his face. He barely had moved away when the two girls bumped their gloves and started circling each other, still sizing the other up. Neither one of them was willing to make the first move.
"Come on!" Aiden yelled from the bleachers.
"He's right on kid, hit me." Kennedy teased her. That was something Kennedy knew how to do very well.
"I'm not a kid! I'm probably the same age as you." Ashley lunged toward the other girl, only to have her dodging her attack.
"Yeah well, I say tomato, you say tomahto." Kennedy smirked at the brunette as she was bouncing left to right on her feet. "Only difference is…I just didn't fall on my face." She raised a mocking eyebrow at her.
"Whatever." The other girl said taking her stance again. "Not a music lesson. Just fight."
"That's were your wrong." The other brunette threw her first punch, which connected with her side. "This is a lesson, the… first..." She hit her again with a sidekick. "To begin your new life." She attacked her with a jab again.
"What are you boring on about?" Ashley blocked her jab and answered with her own sidekick.
"Nice one." Kennedy held her side and backed away a few feet. "No one's ever got one in. I guess play time's over." The younger slayer said tilting her head.
"You were playing? I wasn't having any fun." Ashley rushed to her with a series of punches and kicks, thinking she was catching her off guard. Kennedy was just bidding her time, waiting for that one mistake and she knew the girl would definitely make it. She used to make that same mistake with Buffy and Faith. She was younger and cockier. Just like the girl attacking her.
'There.' Kennedy thought to herself. 'Gotcha!' Dodging a straight punch that was coming her way, the young slayer quickly grabbed the newbie's arm and before she knew what had happened, Kennedy had managed to use all of her own momentum against her. With a quick twist of her hips Kennedy swung her left arm up, colliding with Ashley's neck forcing her to the ground. "Had enough?"
"Kennedy sweetie, let her up." Willow asked as she joined them on the mat.
"You're lucky I'm a sucker for redheads." Kennedy smirked to Ashley as she released her from the arm bar she held her in and walked to her girlfriend.
"What the hell was that?" Ashley got back on her feet, looking furious. "We were supposed to be sparing." She stepped into her personal space.
"Easy…easy…" Willow said standing in between them, hands up to keep them apart. "Kennedy did get out of hand…" the redhead glanced back at the Slayer, but she wasn't all surprised that she had taken advantage of the newbie just as Buffy and Faith did to her many times. "I guess she decided to start your training early."
"Training for what?"
"A what!" Ashley said looking at them incredulously.
"A Slayer." Willow replied. "That's what Kennedy…she…she was kinda giving your first lessons as a Slayer…she's kinda like the brigade leader." She smiled sweetly at her girlfriend.
"Anyway, I know we may sound crazy."
"Can't get anything past you." Ashley rolled her eyes. Putting a gentle arm over her protective girlfriend, the young witch continued. "We want to offer you a chance…to train…and, and to control you power."
"So I can be the best Slayer I can be." She shook her head and rolled her eyes again. "What's in it for you?"
"I'm pretty sure you mean what's in it for you." The witch's girlfriend spoke up. "I'm sure you're dying for a little payback after what just happened." Kennedy raised an eyebrow at her.
"I wasn't lying when I said no one's ever got a shot in…just think what you could do if you trained with us."
"Look…" the Wicca said noticing the girl was wavering. "Here's where we'll be staying, if you change your mind." She handed her a piece of paper with the information on it.
"I'll think about it." The brunette replied.
"Prepare yourself to get your ass kicked again." The Slayer said as she hooked her arm through her girlfriend's as they turned and headed towards the bleachers to retrieve their things before leaving the gym.
"Kennedy." The redhead scolded.
"What? Too much?"
"Nope. I think you just pushed her in the right direction." The witch said as they made their way through the doors.
TBC...
