Title: Once a Slayer, Now an Immortal

Disclaimer: I do not own either Buffy: the Vampire Slayer or Highlander. I am merely borrowing them.

A/N: This story will take place after season seven of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer and after "Revelation 6:8" in season five of Highlander. Richie will not be appearing in this story; he is probably off traveling. Wesley will be on loan from a slightly AU season five of Angel for a few chapters here and there.

* Flashes of Life *

Buffy turned the sword over in her hands, examining it. The sword had a steel blade and a handle made of silver with a swirl pattern etched into it; it was well balanced despite the length of the blade and it felt light in her hands. Also, it was sharp, really sharp. She vaguely wondered if she should be using a duller blade for her first lesson with Duncan.

"Alright," said Duncan, drawing her attention to himself, "enough of that. Get into the position I showed you before. I'll start off easy on you."

Buffy assumed the proper stance for swordplay and held up her sword. When Duncan came at her, she made a half-assed attempt to block his katana. Although she fended off the attack, her lame response gave Duncan the upper hand and let him knock her down, bringing his blade perilously close to her neck.

"Come on, Buffy," he chided, "you aren't even trying. I saw you pull some moves in that alley so I know you are better than this."

Buffy got up with a sigh and assumed the fighting stance again. Again Duncan attacked her and again she let him best her. After fighting so hard for the past year to defeat the First and keep the others alive, she didn't feel like play-fighting.

"What is wrong with you?" asked Duncan, somewhat angry by Buffy's lackadaisical attitude.

"I don't really like swords," she responded, shrugging. She didn't tell him why she didn't like swords. Ever since her junior year of high school, swords had always reminded her of killing Angel to save the world. After everything she had gone through, that was still one of the most emotionally painful experiences she had ever undergone.

Completely misreading Buffy's answer, Duncan grinned. "Is that your way of telling me you're scared?" he taunted. "You didn't strike me as a chicken."

Buffy's head snapped up from its hangdog position and she reassumed her fighting stance. This time when Duncan attacked her, she blocked his advance effectively. Before Duncan even really knew what happened, Buffy had him kneeling on the ground with the blade of her sword cozying up to his neck. Duncan's eyes widened in wonder.

He had fought many people over the centuries and he had never been beaten so quickly except by his own teacher, Connor MacLeod, his kinsman. Although surprised by Buffy's skill and ferocity, he was pleased. This meant that she would be able to keep herself safe and that he could instead focus on teaching her what it meant to be an Immortal.

Stepping back and removing the blade from Duncan's throat, Buffy warned in a low voice, "Just because I don't want to use a sword, it doesn't mean I can't."

X X X

Nearly a week had passed since her first training session with Duncan and Buffy was slowly but surely settling into her new life. She still hadn't found an apartment, but that didn't bother her too much. A part of her liked living with Duncan—during the day. The only problem was the nightmares; sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night wracking with sobs. It was at these moments that she would think about how much she needed her own place because Duncan would rush to her side to soothe her. He always asked her what she had been dreaming about and she always just shrugged and gave a noncommittal answer like "frogs" or "footwear."

How could she tell Duncan that in her dreams, she always saw Amanda's body falling in battle, or Annabelle's mutilated figure, or Chloe's swollen and purple face?

As much as she liked hanging out with Duncan, Buffy just couldn't take the constant questioning look in his eyes whenever he saw her, like he was trying to assemble a Buffy-shaped puzzle. That was why Buffy was glad to just be sitting in Joe's bar with him right now. The bar was technically closed so it was just the two of them. Adam was off doing something with Duncan. They hadn't told her what they were doing and she hadn't asked.

Joe was asking Buffy random questions about being the Slayer and about the different kinds of demons she had killed. They were both working really hard to keep the conversation light. Whenever something would come up that Buffy wasn't ready or willing to discuss, Joe let her change the subject, merely happy to be hearing anything about her past battles. Although, he knew that Duncan admired Buffy's athleticism and fighting abilities, Joe knew that Duncan didn't respect Buffy as a warrior and it somewhat galled him.

Without any warning, Buffy just changed the subject, "So, tell me about Adam?"

"What about him?" he asked.

"Mainly, does he have a girlfriend?" asked Buffy. Although Buffy didn't really want to be drawn into another intense relationship so soon after Spike's death, she did want to continue dating. Adam was a lot of fun and she couldn't believe a relationship with him would be too intense.

Joe chuckled and asked, "Why? Do you like him?"

"Yeah," confided Buffy.

"Well," said Joe, clearly choosing his words carefully, "he doesn't have a girlfriend. But, I'm not sure he'd be right for you. For starters, you're 23 and he's 5,000."

"Wow, I didn't know that," breathed Buffy. Then getting her confidence back, she remarked, "Doesn't really matter. What's 5,000 to me? My first-ever real boyfriend is 276 now and my last boyfriend was 144. When you're talking about such large numbers, I'm like a five-year-old." Seeing that Joe didn't understand her simile, Buffy explained while rolling her eyes, "Five-year-olds think that everyone older than 20 is really old."

Joe laughed, saying, "Too true, too true."

X X X

Buffy laughed. Wesley was funny; how had she never realized it before? She liked talking to him because, even though she wanted to forget about all her past failures and disappointments, talking to Wesley helped her remember the good things about her past as well.

"On a more serious note," began Buffy, "how are things going there? You know, at Wolfram & Hart?"

"Why, worried?" asked Wesley, all traces of laughter gone.

"A little," admitted Buffy. "I don't want any of you guys to get hurt." As Buffy said this, she thought about Angel. She couldn't bear to lose him again. For that matter, she couldn't bear losing Spike again either. She was glad that he was alive although she wasn't ready to call him yet. Obviously, she didn't want anything to happen to Wesley either; he had been her rock during all of this.

"Do you think we were wrong to do this?" asked Wesley, his voice sounding louder and more focused, a clear sign that he was now holding the phone very close to his mouth.

"No," replied Buffy. "It was a good decision. You can't always sit around waiting for the fight to come to you; sometimes you have to take the offensive."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Wesley, relaxing a bit. "The others don't agree with us."

"The others?" questioned Buffy.

"The Scoobies," responded Wesley, "or, I suppose I should say, the new Watcher's Council. They've cut off all of their ties to us."

Buffy was shocked and more than a little angry. "How dare they?" she raged. "How can they just judge you guys like that? Like I've never teamed up with evil to defeat a bigger evil? And, like they've never begun a confrontation? Hello! The final battle in the Hellmouth—we marched in and started that whole thing. How can they be so close-minded? Typical Scooby behavior! Always criticizing everyone else's choices but never stopping to examine their own."

Wesley remained silent during Buffy's little rant. It sounded like she had wanted to say these things for a while and Wesley would be damned if he would be the one to cut her off. It saddened him that Buffy was so angry with the people that had once been her lifeline. Attempting to lighten the conversation once Buffy had stopped, he prompted, "So, tell me about your new apartment."

Buffy launched into a description, describing every room, wall, floor, table, and whatever else she could think of. She had never lived by herself before, except for that one summer in L.A. and she didn't really want to count that. She found it so nice to be able to go home after training with Duncan and just be able to collapse into bed without anyone bothering her by asking if she was all right.

When the call ended, both Wesley and Buffy hung up their phones grinning and promising to speak again soon.

X X X

Duncan strained and grunted again, sweat pouring down his face. It was no use; there was no way he was going to be able to move this oak desk across the room. He had been attempting to rearrange the furniture for the past hour and had hit a wall when he came to the desk. It was simply too heavy. Backing away from the desk, Duncan leaned against the wall and let his exhausted body slide down to the floor.

Without any warning, he saw Buffy walk over to the desk, lean her shoulder against it, and push. He was about to laugh and tell her that it was no use when the desk began to move. He couldn't believe it. He knew that Buffy was strong but there was just no way. It had taken three large men to get it into his apartment, and here was a barely five foot tall blonde moving the desk like it was nothing.

Pushing himself off of the ground, Duncan inquired loudly, "How the hell did you do that?"

Buffy turned around slowly with a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. She had forgotten that Duncan didn't know about her Slayer strength. "What can I say? I always eat my veggies," she joked before running out of the apartment, staving off any further questions.

Duncan didn't know how she had done that, but he knew she was hiding something and he really wanted to know what that something was.

X X X

Sitting on her couch, legs folded up underneath her, Buffy was watching some Bollywood film. She just wasn't getting the same enjoyment out of it as she had when watching such films with Willow and Xander back in Sunnydale. Just about ready to flip to another channel, Buffy heard a knock at her door.

Opening the door, Buffy saw a FedEx deliveryman holding a rather large package. "Are you Buffy Summers?" he asked.

"Yep," she said, hoping to G-d that it was shoes. After signing for the package and settling back onto the couch, she opened up the box. She pulled out a shining glaive made entirely of steel. There was an inscription in the handle that read, "Semper tutricis, semper protegitur." Buffy hefted the weapon and smiled at how it felt in her hand, which was perfect and as if it belonged.

Glancing back in the box, Buffy saw the note. It read: "Dear Buffy, I hope this glaive finds you well. On the phone you mentioned your dislike of swords so I decided you needed a weapon that would fit you. I wish you the best of luck. Your friend, Wesley. P.S. – The inscription is in Latin. It means, 'Always a protector, always protected.'"

Smiling, Buffy tucked the note into a book for safekeeping and began swishing her shiny new toy around.

X X X

Buffy hated the feeling she got when she knew others were talking about her. She was sitting in the booth that Duncan and Adam, or Methos as she now knew his name to be, liked to frequent and Adam was standing at the bar conversing with Joe. They both kept glancing at her. She just stared at them to let them know that they weren't fooling anyone when they would hastily look away. Moments like these always reminded her of high school. After her one day of being able to read people's minds, she had become really paranoid when people discussed her. She couldn't help but always think that they wanted to have sex with her.

Finally Adam came over to her. "Ready to stop ignoring me?" she asked, pouting.

"Yeah," said Adam, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. Sitting down, he continued, "We've known each other for about a month now and I was wondering if youwantedtogotoaplaywithme?"

"What?" asked Buffy, unable to make out the last part of his question due to the speed with which he had said it. She was pretty sure it was a question because his voice had gone up a bit at the end. Unfortunately, even with all the practice she had from talking to a highly-caffeinated Willow, she was at a loss.

Taking a deep breath, Adam tried again, this time speaking really slowly and enunciating each word, "I was wondering if you wanted to go to a play with me?"

"Sure," said Buffy, grinning so broadly that Adam was scared she would strain a muscle in her face. "Is this a date?"

"Yes?" asked Adam.

"Oh, yes!" answered Buffy.

X X X

"So, how was your date last night?" asked Duncan as he circled Buffy on the mat in the dojo. Duncan held his katana straight and steady while Buffy carelessly twirled her glaive. Duncan had long since learned not to dismiss Buffy's blasé behavior as a lack of focus. While he would never wave his weapon about so haphazardly, he recognized Buffy's style and appreciated it.

"Well," said Buffy thoughtfully, "I hated the play, loved Adam." Then she attacked. Duncan had stopped training her long ago—now they simply sparred. It was good practice for both of them. She was a skilled fighter and he often lost but as they sparred, he learned and he could feel himself improving. When he had first realized this, he had found it terribly funny that his student was teaching him when it should be the other way around. Then he remembered every crappy movie he had ever seen about a teacher inspiring a group of inner-city kids to excel despite the odds and learning something in the process and he finally understood it. He still hated those movies though.

After trouncing Duncan, Buffy continued, "We're going out again tonight. I really like him. Wanna go again?"

X X X

Buffy was furious. She and Adam had been dating for two months now and everything had been going fine until he had opened those yummy lips to say something really mean. As Buffy walked back to her apartment from Adam's, she pulled her coat closer around her body. Even at its coldest, Southern California had never been this cold and it wasn't even winter yet. She was going to die when winter arrived.

How dare he? Buffy had been so mad that when she stormed out of his apartment, she had slammed the door so hard, it had broke—literally. Buffy had paid him a compliment and he had spat in her face—not literally. She had told him how much she admired his brains and how she wished she could speak even half as many languages as he could. He actually had the nerve to tell her that she could be just as smart if she focused less on what she was wearing on her head and more on what was inside of it. She had been called a dumb blonde numerous times over the years, but to hear someone she cared about and who she thought cared about her say something like that, it really pissed her off.

As she passed a cemetery, she suddenly felt an uncontrollable desire to venture inside. It had been more than a month since she had patrolled and she hadn't been in a cemetery since she had stopped. Walking further inside, she immediately sensed the vampires. There were four of them, skulking between the graves, acting like they owned the place. Well, Buffy was angry and an angry Buffy was always bad news for vampires.

Striding toward them, Buffy pulled out her glaive, ready to work out some of her issues. Before the vampires were even aware of her approach, one of them was dead. The other three turned to her, anger filling their yellow eyes. All three rushed her at once and Buffy just reacted. She let the Slayer off of the figurative leash. Elbowing one in the face, she kicked another in the family jewels while punching the third in the throat. Within five minutes, the fight was over and Buffy stood victorious. She just stood there smiling, covered in the vampires' dust.

She had forgotten how good it felt to kill the undead creatures of the night. She felt a tension leave her body that she hadn't even been aware of before but which had been building slowly as she avoided slaying.

Her happiness was short-lived. Moments after she left the cemetery, she felt the buzz warning her that another Immortal was nearby. She spun around ready to chew Adam out for following her when she had made it perfectly clear that she didn't want to talk to him. Instead of Adam though, another Immortal stood in the cemetery, looking at her with a wolfish grin on his face. "No," whispered Buffy as she looked into a face she never thought she'd see again.

* TBC *

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