Author: Lucinda

Rated t for teen

main characters: Joyce, Sabertooth, Buffy, Scott & Jean, Dawn

number 28 in the 'Messed Up Family' universe

Disclaimer: I hold no legal rights to any characters from BtVS or from any incarnation of the X-Men comics or Movie.

distribution: Twisting the Hellmouth, Paula, anyone else ask

note: this is a continuation of the Messed Up Family AU, now into season 1 BtVS. Dawn exists, but is just the younger daughter of Joyce and Hank, not the Key.

mmuf28..mmuf28..mmuf28..

Joyce had just turned onto Revello Drive when her father joined her on the sidewalk. He smelled like he'd been demon hunting as well, and a glance showed that he'd been spattered with a variety of blood and slime. Idly, she wondered where her father was staying and if there was a shower - he'd certainly want one. Demon slime tended to itch when it dried.

"You disappeared with that vampire," her father didn't quite growl.

"I was having trouble finding enough demons to kill," Joyce shrugged and then paused, glancing back at her father. Her father covered with various demon bloods and slimes. "You wouldn't happen to know why I couldn't find very many demons, would you?"

"They shred nicely."

Joyce growled, feeling annoyed that he wasn't letting her kill the demons on her own and a little warm that her daddy was still trying to keep her safe. "You can't protect me from the whole world."

"But I can kill demons. Consider it me protecting my granddaughters." He shook his head, and growled, "I still think you're too young for children of your own."

"Hmmmph," Joyce snorted. As much as she was still annoyed by her father killing the demons before she could, how could she argue about him wanting Dawn and Buffy to be safe?

"Why did you disappear with the vampire? Just because there weren't many demons left…" He folded his arms, looking rather unhappy.

"The vampire is called Angel," Joyce glanced at her father, remembering that overprotective glare from high school. "He promised me stupid vampire minions to kill. So far, he's kept all his promises."

"Grrrrrr…kkk… vampire…. Hrrrrrrr…. Daughter…. Rrrrrrr," for a moment, her father couldn't manage coherent words, only a few growls and sputters. "Just how much time have you and this vampire been spending together?"

She tried not to smile. Maybe not as hard as she could have tried, but she did try… at least a little bit. "He's been helping me with sword work, we've been sparring, and he's been helping me learn just how to kill various types of demons."

There was a hacking noise that could have been a violent cough or half smothered foreign swearing.

Joyce interpreted that to mean that her father did NOT approve and was trying to find a way to forbid her from spending time with Angel that wouldn't backfire. He clearly wasn't going to try outright forbidding her, or demanding that she avoid him. Just as clearly, he really wanted to do so.

Deciding to have a sliver of pity on him, Joyce changed the subject from her spending time with Angel to one that had her far more worried. "Dad? We need to talk about mother… about Julia Chambers-Creed, or whoever she is or was. It's taken on a renewed importance."

"Can it wait until we're in the house and clean?"

Wrinkling her nose, Joyce decided that while Dawn and what was happening were troublesome and frustrating and worried her into growling fits, getting clean before the talk wouldn't hurt anything. And the mingled blood and slime was starting to stink even worse… "Yes."

It didn't take very long before Joyce had showered, scrubbing the demon blood and vampire ashes from her body. A quick change into some comfortable clothing and she was in her kitchen, starting hot cocoa as her father had his own quick shower. Dawn was spending the night with Janice, and Buffy had promised to stay in and study for a couple tests instead of patrolling tonight. When she'd paused outside of Buffy's room, she'd heard her daughter breathing the not-quite snores of sleeping on her back, arms sprawled. Buffy never had outgrown sleeping in space-hogging sprawls…

Her father came to the kitchen, his damp hair looking as long as her own. Joyce wondered when he'd started wearing it long instead of the close crop of her childhood. Rather than asking him about his hair, or his choices of wardrobe, she lifted her own cup, "Want some cocoa? I even have the little marshmallows to put on top."

He frowned, for a moment chewing on his lip before he gave a small shrug and sighed, "Sure."

Remembering her father's sweet tooth, Joyce only filed his cup two thirds of the way full of cocoa, placing it on the table. Then she put the rest of the bag of marshmallows down where he could reach them. She pretended not to watch as he filled the rest of the cup with marshmallows, letting them melt into a white mass at the top of the cup.

"Why do we need to talk about your mother?" he was looking at the marshmallows instead of Joyce.

"Buffy seems to be taking after me in looks, though a bit shorter. She's also showing enhanced senses, reflexes, strength and endurance, much like what I have and what you have. I'm not sure if it's an inheritance from us or if it's from being the Slayer. Buffy says that she is the Slayer, and Mr. Giles, the Watcher, also believes her to be a Slayer. There's apparently some sort of Slayer dreams of impending danger and demons that support this idea." Joyce sighed, "Buffy's abilities are easy enough to deal with."

"You have two daughters. If Buffy's not the one that has you worried, then that leaves the younger one. Dawn. What's she done?" he took a drink from the cup, ending up with marshmallow clinging to his lip.

"You said that you were having some memory issues. Dawn is starting to look like mother did. Her fingernails turned blue, and it wasn't nail polish. Her hair's picking up red highlights, and they aren't from dye."

"Remember that I said she's a shape-shifter? I met her a few years ago. What I didn't know then was that I was meeting her again, not for the first time. She's looking blue, with scales around the edges, with red hair and yellow eyes. She told us it was her real shape," he paused, and it was obvious to Joyce that he wasn't quite certain that he believed the woman who had once been Julia Chambers-Creed about her shape. "She's been around for a long time. She admitted to working as a spy during the War… and when someone asked which war, she said that she's worked as a spy during most of the major wars this century."

"Spies aren't known for being nice people," Joyce mused.

"No, we… they aren't. Stealing things and information. Seducing people to get things done or to distract them. Killing people. It's…" he paused, and from the small motions of his lips and jaw, he was sorting through words. "Challenging, sometimes fun, but not nice."

Joyce sipped at her cocoa, not surprised that his words made it clear that her father had been a spy as well. She'd suspected it for years, and while she didn't know if he'd meant to confirm her suspicion, she didn't plan to ask for details. He might not remember them anyhow, and even if he did, memory troubles would be a splendid excuse to not tell.

After a few quiet moments, Joyce admitted, "I don't know how to teach her to deal with shape shifting. And I don't know what else she might have inherited. Most of all, I don't want her to just walk away one day like Mom did. There was no warning, no explanation, she was just gone one day, as if she'd never been there. No note, her things were gone, and I could never find any records other than ours to prove that she'd ever existed. Certainly nothing to help find her."

"If Dawn shows more than just changing colors, we may need to talk to her for help teaching Dawn to control her ability. Assuming that I can find her… she's good at disappearing." He shook his head and took another swallow of the cocoa. "Good cocoa, pumpkin."

"Thanks," Joyce managed a smile before she moved on to the more important topic. "You've had contact with her lately. Have you talked about… about your marriage?"

"no," he stared at the melting marshmallows for several long moments before he admitted, "Most of the people that I've been around lately don't talk to me. They don't really think that I'm smart enough for it. I'm the feral, the big scary guy who can kill things, scare people, and stand between the smart leader and harm. Magneto knows I was involved in some experiments. Used as their test subject. He said one of the scientists claimed I was a volunteer, but the stuff that happened… it wasn't something anybody volunteers for. Someone lied somewhere along the lines, and I don't remember enough to know who, when or how often."

"They think that what happened with those experiments broke your mind?" Joyce asked. She almost asked if things were that bad before swallowing the question. Her father had seen enough before to have a very informed idea of how bad things could be, and if whatever had happened was bad enough to scramble him memories, it must have been very bad.

He nodded, "It did. Not as much as they think, but it did break my mind. Gaps in your memories, occasional zone outs, and berserker rages are not healthy. I have all of those now. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have been allowed for active duty if I'd had the zone outs before."

"Than makes sense," Joyce admitted. What she wanted to do was to shout that something like that wasn't fair, that her father shouldn't have had his mind broken, that she wanted her Daddy back the way he'd been before… "You had quite a temper when we were young. Graydon and I, that is. Not berserker bad, but you'd shout, and throw things, and you broke some furniture a few times. And possibly a car… I'm not sure how much of that was a result of the Benton boys driving it into your shed and how much was what you did to the car."

"She's never admitted that she knew me before, let alone talked about why she walked out on our marriage. I don't know if she even thinks I'm still capable of having a conversation," he growled. "I remember parts of being married to her. It wasn't a perfect marriage, but… From what I recall, we could have made things work if she'd been willing to. The fact that she left is a pretty clear signal that she didn't want to make it work."

"That she was done, that she didn't think we were worth staying with, staying for," Joyce murmured, remembering the pain and confusion she'd felt when her mother was just gone.

He nodded. "What do you want to tell her?"

"We have to tell her some of it," Joyce was thinking out loud, and paused to take another sip of cocoa. Discovering the cup was empty, she sighed and got up to pour another cup. "Perhaps start with the fact that my mother was also a mutant, a shape shifter. That she seems to have inherited some measure of that."

"And leave out the family abandoning spy part of things?" He asked, using one claw to scoop up half melted marshmallow to eat.

"For now. I'd rather not bring up that part any sooner than we need to. When she graduates, if it hasn't been needed before, I suppose. I can try to teach her… we can, if you're planning to stick around," she looked at him. Part of her wanted him to stay, wanted him to be part of her family again. Another part of her was afraid that he'd leave again, be reported dead again.

"Very least I'll be keeping in touch," he promised. "I might have to travel a bit, especially if there's trouble or old enemies. I know I have some, and I even remember a couple faces… They might be still out there, they might be dead, they might have been dead for decades. I can't remember everything."

Joyce nodded, understanding his reasoning. It still felt good to have her father back.

End MMUF28: About Mother…