Author's Note: Nothing major today...just wanted to thank everyone for the great reviews, and hope that you send me more this time around!

Chapter Twenty-five: Getting to Know You

"…a daughter is a daughter all of her life."

-Irish Proverb

Bayville…

"It's hard to believe. I mean, the Professor has a daughter? I think I was expecting to hear anything except that."

Kitty paused in the hallway as she heard Scott's voice coming from the older boy's bedroom. She knew that, with the exception of herself and Jean, the other students hadn't known anything about their mentor's daughter, so it was bound to be a surprise.

"Yeah, man. And some of what he said…it didn't make sense. How could he have not known about her for eighteen years?" Evan added. "I think there's more that he isn't telling us."

Oh, that does it…Kitty turned on her heel and headed straight towards Scott's room. She knew the truth, and she wasn't about to let the Professor's request stop her from doing what she could to protect him. If he ever learned that his students were starting to doubt him, it would shatter him, given the stress he'd been under.

Scott's door was closed, but that wasn't even an obstacle for her as she phased through the wall into his room. "What are you doing?" she demanded, putting her hands on her hips as she glared at Scott, Evan, and Kurt.

Scott turned to look at her through his ruby-quartz glasses. "Don't you know it's polite to knock, Kitty?"

"I'm less worried about that than I am about the fact that you're sitting here doubting the Professor after everything he's done for you," Kitty shot back. "You'd better be glad that he's not here to hear this…you'd destroy him."

"We do not doubt the Professor, Kitty," Kurt protested. "We're just talking about the news he gave us. I mean, a daughter? That's big news."

"Yeah, girl," Evan added. "And then all of a sudden he just ups and leaves for California, and he's pretty much told us that he's turning us over to Auntie O and Logan? I thought he was committed to helping us, and leading this team."

Scott turned on his friend. "Evan, what are you saying? The Professor isn't abandoning us."

Evan scoffed. "Yeah, right. C'mon, Scott, do you really believe that? He refuses to tell us practically anything about her, just that he has a daughter, and he's going to be leaving for an unknown amount of time, and "whenever he's here" he'll be working with us. I don't know about you, but that sounds like he's abandoning us to me."

"How can you be so stupid?" Kitty cried. "Like, don't you get it? He told me everything! His daughter was kidnapped when she was a baby. That's why he didn't know where she was, and he thought she was dead all this time!"

All three boys narrowed their eyes at her – at least, Evan and Kurt did. She wasn't sure about Scott, since his glasses prevented her from seeing his eyes. "What do you mean he told you everything?" Kurt wondered. "Why wouldn't he tell us?"

Kitty groaned silently. There was no help for it. She was going to have to explain everything – her teammates wouldn't understand her trying to keep the Professor's secrets now that she'd said too much. "About a week or so ago, I saw him leaving the mansion and heading into the forest. I was curious, so I followed him. There's a small cemetery on the edge of the property, and that's where he was going. When he realized I was there, he asked me to stay and talk to him, and that's when he told me. I promised him I wouldn't tell anyone, since he still wasn't ready to talk about it. Then, when Cerebro located her, I was conferencing with him about my individual sessions."

"Why would he be going to a cemetery?" Scott asked. "Kitty, you're not making any sense."

Ooo…Kitty thought. She was making this worse. "His wife – his daughter's mother – is buried out there. He goes out there a couple of times a year to talk to her, and the day I was out there with him was the anniversary of the day his daughter was kidnapped. There's a headstone out there for his daughter too, but there's no date of death listed, because he wasn't sure she was dead."

Her news shocked the others. "The Professor was married?" Kurt asked.

"How did we not know all of this?" Evan wondered. "I mean, my folks have pictures of the two of them up all over the house. Why doesn't the Prof?"

"He didn't want anyone to know," Kitty reiterated. "Her loss hurt him, and he didn't want us questioning him about it. Look, I told him I wouldn't say anything, but you guys gotta understand. He, like, hasn't seen his daughter since she was five months old. Now he's found her again – why wouldn't he want to go out to meet her and get to know her?"

All three boys seemed to be thinking about this. After a moment, Scott nodded. "You're right Kitty. We're being stupid." He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks for telling us."

"Just don't tell him I told you," Kitty pleaded. "He doesn't want anyone to know yet, and he still has a lot of unanswered questions – that's why he couldn't tell you anything more. He wanted to find more information."

All three of them nodded. "Okay, Kitty. Thanks," Scott repeated. "We'll give him some time and let him tell us the rest when he's ready."

Kitty nodded and turned around, walking back through the wall. Scott took a more mundane route, leaving his room via the door. Kurt was about to teleport out, but Evan grabbed his arm. "Kurt, wait…I know what Scott said, but I think there's still more to this than Kitty is telling us. Will you help me?"

Kurt looked uneasy. "Evan…we really should trust the Professor. He's never given us a reason not to."

"Sorry, man…I just can't." Evan turned away from Kurt for a minute. "Look, Kurt…the Prof's been like my new dad, even though my parents only live about an hour away. I want to trust him, but…I don't like the idea that he's gonna abandon us now that he's found this long-lost daughter, and I really don't believe that's the whole story. I just know there's something more to this."

Kurt sighed and looked between the door and his friend. "I – I'll help you, man. What'd you have in mind?"

Sunnydale…

Despite the comfort of her father's arms, it didn't take long for Buffy to realize what she was doing, and she pulled back abruptly. She knew next to nothing about this man, and yet here she was, hugging him with a desperation that she'd never hugged her mother with, even when she'd come back from L.A. after running away.

"I – I'm sorry, I didn't mean –"

Charles was dumbstruck at her apology. Hugging his daughter for the first time in eighteen years…it was a wonderful sensation. He could have stayed like that forever. "Elizabeth, no…don't apologize. I will never object to hugging you. I love you more than you can possibly imagine. I've waited eighteen years to hold you like that."

"B-but, we don't…we don't really know each other."

Charles sighed. She was right. For all that they were related – the DNA test had proved that, they didn't know each other, and the fact that they had acted so spontaneously...

"It's all right, Elizabeth. If you need more time, I understand," he told her softly, even though it broke his heart to do so, when all he really wanted was to grab her into his arms again and whisk her back to New York and never let her go.

Buffy bit her lip and took another step or two away, putting a little distance between her father and herself and trying to regain control of herself. They knew the truth now…but what did it really change? She was still the Slayer, and she was still trapped in Sunnydale. She couldn't leave the Hellmouth unguarded, but now she knew who her father was.

And there were still a lot of unanswered questions. Why had she been taken from her father? Who would have done such a thing?

"Now that we know, we need to tell Mom, err…I mean," Buffy stammered as she realized what she had said. No matter what the truth about her birth was, it was hard not to think of Joyce Summers as her mother after the woman had raised her for eighteen years. She only hoped that her father wouldn't be angry with her slip of the tongue.

Charles smiled sadly. "Elizabeth, I have no objections to you calling Mrs. Summers your mother. I can't expect you to call a woman you've never met by that name, even if she is your birth mother."

The generosity of her father surprised her. She wouldn't have expected that from him. "It's just…I know it must hurt you to hear me refer to someone other than my birth mother by that title," Buffy replied softly. She knew it was hurting him, because somehow – through their telepathic bond? – she could feel the pain when she called Joyce Summers her mother.

Charles nodded. There was no point in refuting her words. If he lied to her and she found out, he would destroy any trust that he managed to build with her. "Yes, it does. But I would never ask you to stop calling the woman who raised you by that title. It wouldn't be fair – it would be selfish of me – to ask you to give up the bond that you have. If there is ever a time that you feel comfortable calling your birth mother by that title, I will be glad to hear it, but until then, I understand completely." He hesitated a minute. "In fact…would you rather I call you Buffy?" Internally he winced at the thought of calling his daughter by that nickname, but if that's what she answered to…

His daughter thought about it for a moment. "In front of my friends, yes. They don't know my real name is Elizabeth. But it sounds…nice…when you call me Elizabeth."

Charles smiled at her words. "I named you after your mother. Her full name was Elizabeth Anna, and when you were born, I named you Elizabeth Anne, to honor her."

Buffy smiled back. "I've always liked my name. It's just…Elizabeth's kind of a common name…" she shrugged. "It used to confuse my teachers, trying to keep all of us straight, so when one of Mom's friends nicknamed me Buffy, it stuck."

Charles nodded in understanding. "Elizabeth, I want you to understand something. As much as I want you to come home with me to New York, I won't force you if you don't want to. You're eighteen, and legally you're an adult. I can't claim custody of you away from Mrs. Summers."

"Dad…" she paused, loving the way that word sounded for some reason, and judging by the joyful expression that crossed his face, he liked how it sounded too. "It's not that I don't want to…but…right now, I can't. My life is so complicated…" She paused for a moment, trying to understand what she was sensing from her father.

Charles frowned. "Complicated?" He didn't like the sound of that. He knew that her newly emerging telepathic powers could make things difficult with her friends and the other people around her until she learned full control, but the way that she said that…it seemed like there was something more.

Should I tell him? Buffy wondered, debating furiously with herself. In a way, he had a right to know that any night she might be killed doing her duty to protect the innocents of Sunnydale, but at the same time, she didn't want to drag him into the horrors that were part of her world. She couldn't do that to him. "I have…a lot of emotional baggage that I come with. That isn't going to change, and it's not something that I can share with you."

"Elizabeth…you can tell me anything. You're my daughter. Nothing will make me turn away from you," Charles told her, trying to project all the sincerity he felt into his voice. "I am not going to turn my back on you or abandon you."

Buffy bit her lip hard. "Dad, you don't know how much that means to me. And one day, I'd like to tell you all of it. But it's not just my secret, and until I know for sure that I can trust you, I can't."

If anything, his frown deepened at that. "Elizabeth, are you in some kind of trouble?"

She laughed, but it was dry and ironic. "When am I not?"

"Elizabeth…"

"No, Dad. I can't tell you anything more. Not now."

Never in his life had Charles been more tempted to go against someone's wishes and violate their free will. His daughter had some kind of terrible secret, something that he – somehow – instinctively knew he need to know, and she wouldn't tell him. Her telepathic shields were still rudimentary, despite the progress that she had made. He could go into her mind and find out what she was keeping from him, and if he did it correctly, she would never know that he was there.

But he couldn't. If he did that, he would destroy any chance of a relationship with his daughter. He had taught her how to shield her thoughts so that she could protect herself – and he knew from personal experience how traumatizing it could be to have no control over your own mind. That was why he had so stringently learned how to control his powers and how to protect his mind. It was why he had learned how to make his shields strong enough that he almost never needed to fear an assault on his mind.

He loved his daughter – and he would not do anything that would jeopardize their fragile, fledgling relationship. But there was nothing that could prevent him from simply watching and waiting. He was a scientist and he had perfected the act of observation. In time, with enough exposure to his daughter, he might very well be able to piece together her secret, and then he would address the topic with her again. In the meantime, he would drop the subject. "All right, my dear." He paused for a moment, before he turned back and pulled something from his suitcase. "I have something for you."

"Ooh…presents!" Buffy cried, her eyes gleaming for a moment, catching him slightly off guard.

She seemed to sense his reaction and quickly paused and cleared her throat. "Sorry…at heart, I'm a California valley girl."

Thinking about Kitty, who was also prone to some moments of "valley girlishness" brought a small smile to his face. He had a feeling that his daughter and Kitty were going to get along just fine once they met.

He moved his chair closer to her. "I thought you might like to see this," he told her, handing her a small, framed photograph.

Buffy took it from him and turned it over so that he could see it. It was an image of her father, younger, holding a tiny bundle in his arms. The background appeared to be that of a hospital ward. "Is this…me?" She sank down to sit on the bed, gazing at the picture – at her father.

He looked…sad…in the picture. Compared to the way he looked now, there wasn't that much difference as far as his features went, but it was in his eyes and in the soft smile on his face. It was a sad, heartbreaking smile.

Charles nodded. "That was taken about two weeks after you were born, when they took you out of the incubator."

"Incubator?" Buffy asked, looking up at him.

"You were born two months premature, Elizabeth. For several days after you were born, the doctors weren't sure if you would live. No one could figure out why your mother went into labor so early, and they couldn't ever figure out what killed her. I was so afraid for you…and heartbroken over your mother's death. She – was the love of my life. I think I loved her from the moment I first met her in our freshman biology class at college."

Buffy hesitated, uncertain about what she was about to ask. The bond between them was telling her that her father's emotions were changing rapidly, from joy to sadness, to confusion, to frustration...but she needed to know. "What was my mother like?"

Charles started in surprise, not having expected her to ask that question quite so soon. He would have thought that she would have wanted more time to adjust to the idea of being his daughter, and would want more information about him before she started asking questions about Lizzie. "I loved her very much, Elizabeth. You look so much like she did at your age, and from what I already know about you, you're a lot like her in other ways. She was kind, and compassionate. Every time she smiled, her face just lit up, and she had such a joy for life…" he trailed off as he thought about his beloved wife.

Lizzie had been his entire world for so long, and he still regretted that they hadn't married sooner. They had both agreed that it would be better if they waited to marry, but now…

"She loved children, which is why she pursued pediatrics as her medical field," he continued after a moment. "She was so happy when she found out that she was pregnant, and she loved you very much, even though you hadn't been born yet." He reached into his suitcase again and extracted the velvet-covered box he had taken from his desk. "She would have wanted you to have this."

Buffy took the box from him and opened it, gasping as she realized what was inside. On one of the finest gold chains that she'd ever seen was a beautiful pendant. It was in the shape of a delicately wrought heart, made of gold, and surrounded by small filaments of silver that formed the shape of rose petals. The golden heart had the name "Elizabeth" engraved on it in flowing cursive letters.

"I gave that to Lizzie after we had been engaged for a year," Charles told her softly. "She put it on, and never took it off for eleven years. I – I almost had it buried with her, but I finally decided to keep it to give to you when you were old enough." He reached out and took the box from her, extracting the necklace and then moving over so he could reach behind his daughter and put it on her.

She was already wearing the cross that Angel had given her the night they met, but she pulled her hair aside and allowed her father to fasten the necklace around her neck. His fingers skillfully worked the delicate clasp, and a moment later the pendant was secured, the heart coming to rest just below the hollow of her throat.

Her father backed off and looked at her, and she could see that his eyes were starting to fill with tears. "God, Elizabeth…if only your mother could be here to see you now…she loved you so much…and I know that if she had been forced to make the choice to give her life to save yours, she would have made it without hesitating, even though she had never met you."

Buffy felt her own eyes tearing up as her father described the mother that she would never know. As much as she loved Joyce...now that she knew the truth about who her parents were, she wished that she had known her real mother. She sounded like a wonderful person. But she had her father now, and she could get to know her mother through him. It wouldn't be the same as meeting her in person, but it would be enough.

After a moment, she looked at her father. There would be time to discuss things later. Right now, though…right now they both needed answers. It was obvious that her father loved her dearly; she had seen that from the moment he had confessed his suspicions that she was his daughter – so how had she ended up in California as Buffy Summers? "What – what happens next?"

Charles sighed. "Now we talk to your – Joyce," he corrected himself after a moment. While he couldn't object to Elizabeth calling Joyce by the name of mother, he couldn't bring himself to do it. To him, Lizzie was the only person that would be his daughter's mother.

"I – Dad, I can't believe that she had anything to do with it. I don't understand any of this, but my mother would never hurt anyone – and she would never be a part of any kidnapping."

"I'm hoping that is the case as well, Elizabeth," he told her gently. "It is possible that she knows nothing, but she's the best place to start. She could be entirely innocent. Perhaps she simply adopted you, and I just haven't been able to find any paperwork to prove it. But she'll at least have enough answers to tell us where to look next." He looked at her seriously. "I don't know who took you, but I am going to find out, because I want justice for what I have gone through for the last eighteen years."

Buffy looked at her father's serious face and nodded slowly. "All right. She's at home now…we'll go and talk to her."