Chapter 4: Show and Tell – Telling, Part 1

Disclaimer: BtVS and AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. Charmed characters belong to WB. Smallville characters belong to DC Comics & WB. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission.

A/N: Thanks to my betas for their help...BkwrmDancer, DawnDreamer, AshDawnSoulmates, ktweaver, and Chrislover.

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Kent Farm

The next morning, a bleary-eyed Dawn said her goodbyes to her sister and Clark's parents. Just before she went out the door, she mouthed 'Good luck!' to Buffy.

Buffy took a deep, nervous breath and let it out slowly. She usually had to hide her secret, not reveal someone else's. "So what's on the agenda for you two today?" she asked.

"Just our regular chores around the farm," Jonathon answered with an easy grin.

She nodded uneasily, "Good. There's some stuff I need to talk to you about and it will probably take a while."

Martha looked at her, suddenly worried. "Is something wrong?"

"Uh, no…not really. At least not from my perspective. I mean, you might not be the happiest about it at first but I'm hoping that once you think about it that you'll be okay with it too," Buffy started babbling. She really should have written this out or something.

"Is this about Dawn? Are you planning on taking her somewhere?" he asked with an edge to his voice. But he was also confused, she didn't seem upset with them or how things were going with her sister.

Buffy's head snapped up in genuine surprise. "What? No! I'm sorry; I'm in mega-ramble mode here. This isn't about guardianship of Dawn – except for now I realize that you two are an even better choice than I first realized," she assured them.

Martha shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm lost. What is this about?"

"This is about secrets. My secrets, Dawn's secrets, your secrets, our secrets…just secrets. Before you get all hyper-worried or anything, let me start by telling you that there is very, very little that would surprise Dawn or me," she stated firmly.

"Now I realize that trying to share all of our secrets at one time would just be overwhelming and confusing. So here's what I'm thinking: I'll share some of the highlights of ours – mine and Dawn's – to help you realize that we would understand and maybe be able to help you deal with yours, 'k?" Buffy explained.

Jonathon stated warily, "I'm not sure what you mean." Now he was worried about what she knew, how she knew it and what she was going to do about it.

Buffy just stared at him like he was an idiot – but put in a nicer way. "Sure you do; you're just not sure if you can trust us. That's fine. That's why I'm going first. I don't like to share my secrets any more than you do. Heck, the two times I shared them with my parents it turned out uber-bad. The first time landed me in a nut house when I was 15; the second time, I ended up out on the streets of LA for a few months when I was 17."

"I remember you going to the institution when you were 15; it was some sort of breakdown? But I don't recall hearing about when you were 17," Martha interrupted, alarmed.

"I'm sure Mom wasn't particularly proud of that time. Not to say she was excited about the first one either, but…Anyway, I eventually came back and we talked things out…kinda. And she sort of came around. At the very least she didn't deny things anymore," she allowed, willing herself not to get lost in the hurt feelings again.

"So if you had such trouble with your parents, why are you willing to trust us not to react the same way?" Martha asked. She wasn't sure what Buffy was hiding, but if it had caused Joyce and Hank to act that way, she couldn't see why she'd risk that happening again.

Buffy smiled at the two of them. "Simply put, you're better equipped to deal with the…unusual."

Jonathon was still alarmed, but he was starting to see that whatever she had planned, it didn't include hurting them…or so he believed. "Why would you think that?"

"Because the dreams I've been having this last week tell me so. I must admit this is a little new to me. Normally, my dreams show me things I'm supposed to handle – or at least stop. They aren't usually an episode of 'This is Your Life' – especially someone else's," she trailed off.

Then she got a glimpse at their expressions. "Okay, I see I'm losing you already. Just remember what I said about telling everything all at once. I'll try to keep this as simple as I can. It started shortly after my 15th birthday. I noticed some changes in myself – and not normal puberty-type changes either. I suddenly was faster and stronger than other people. Plus I'd get these nightmarish dreams. At first I didn't have a clue what was going on."

She couldn't stand sitting anymore and started to walk around the kitchen like a caged panther. "That all changed one day after school when a man approached me. He tried to tell me of my destiny…my 'sacred calling'. I tried to convince myself that he was just a pervert, but the more he told me, the more I knew he was right."

"Then he explained that this 'duty': I had to fight the forces of darkness – specifically vampires. I didn't believe him until he took me on my first patrol. There we were, sitting in a cemetery, and out pops a hand from the ground. He told me to stab it through the heart with a stake and it would turn to dust. Only when I did, it didn't. Turns out I missed. Of course, now everyone gets a huge chuckle when they find that out," she smirked.

Buffy leaned on the counter and stared Martha in the eyes, then Jonathon. "So the reason that I was locked up was because this Master vampire named Lothos had come to town and created an army of vampires for himself. They attacked my school's formal dance and in order to destroy them all, I had to torch the gym. Only after getting the survivors out, that is."

"As you can imagine, my explanation didn't go over too well. The one person who could have protected me from the authorities was dead – my first Watcher, Merrick. He was the guy who was supposed to train me and get me ready to fight. He died to save me when Lothos came after me before I was ready," she broke off with a sob.

Jonathon ran his hands over his face and through his hair. "I don't know what to say." That was an understatement. The crazy thing was, he didn't think she was crazy!

Buffy patted his shoulder before returning to her pacing. "Nothing right now. Once I stopped trying to convince them of the truth, they let me out. Only I was still expelled; my folks had split up and no school would take me…at first."

"Eventually, Mom found Sunnydale. What we didn't know was that it was demon central – the place where all the cool bad guys like to hang out and plot to control or destroy the world." She paused for a moment before continuing, "It was there that I met my next Watcher, Giles."

"You mean the same Giles you and Dawn talk about?" Martha interjected, shocked that maybe this could be true. Either that or she was doing a helluva job weaving in other people into her delusions.

Buffy smiled when she thought back to that first meeting. Strange. It was easy to remember it now fondly. "Yep! In all his British, tea-drinking glory. My first day at school, he slams a book with the word 'Vampyr' written across the front down on the counter of the library. He had managed to get the job of the school's librarian to be close to me."

"He then informed me that they expected me to resume my 'Calling'. The same one that caused all the badness in LA." She scowled when she got to that memory though. "I tried to tell him to shove off, but apparently the Powers That Be had other plans for me. Before I knew it, I had lost one potential friend and dragged two others into my nightmare of a life. We spent the next seven years trying to keep the world from ending – coming uncomfortably close a few times."

"Now you may be wondering why I'm sure your hands aren't itching to grab the phone and call the men with nets. Well, I'm not. I don't know if you've ever come across demons before – even unknowingly. But I do know that you have experience in the out of the ordinary. More specifically…out of the world ordinary."

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A/N2: Next…More telling.