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"Psst! Buffy!" Buffy's eyes shot open and she let out a scream. A hand covered her mouth, muffling it until Buffy finally quieted again, her eyes very wide.
"Anya?" She broke away from Anya's hand and sat up in bed, glancing at her watch as she did. Three AM. Fantastic. "What are you doing here? Trying to kill me?"
Anya shook her head vigorously. "They're here to experiment on me! They're going to find me!"
"Who?" Buffy blinked blearily, glancing over at Faith, who was still fast asleep, with not a small measure of jealousy. Someone was standing at the door of their room, too, and as her vision cleared, she was finally able to pinpoint the light hair and almost sympathetic smirk as Eve.
"Have fun," the other girl said smugly, and slipped out, closing the door behind her.
"Okay." Buffy rolled over and off the bed, landing in a crouch and heading for the bathroom to rinse out her eyes a little. When she returned to her bed, slightly more awake, Anya was still there. "What's going on?"
"The Initiative! They're here, and they're going to take me to their lab and do unspeakable things to me! I'm sure of it!"
Buffy sighed wearily. "Anya, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Why don't you go to Giles?"
She scowled. "He has to work with them. I can't associate with him right now. But you're an unobtrusive and an easily ignored child! They won't look here!"
"Let her stay, B," said a sleepy voice from the next bed. "If anything, it'll mean that we can actually get some more sleep instead of arguing about this."
Anya smiled brightly. "Excellent! I'll take your bed, and you can share with your girlfriend. You can even have sex while I'm here! I'm very uninhibited," she assured them. Her expression took on a contemplative air. "Oh, and if you betray my location to the Initiative, I'll curse you with unending suffering for your eternal lives. Good night!" she finished cheerily.
Buffy stared at her for a long moment before deciding that it wasn't worth it to ask and crawling into Faith's bed beside her. A nimble hand moved down Buffy's back to squeeze her ass, and she rolled her eyes and removed it, peeking over at her friend. Faith was already fast asleep, a smile on her face.
Xander doodled patterns into the palm of his hand with a blue ink pen as Willow went on and on about some particular species of demon who stripped the skin from people's bodies. They had an exam the next day, but honestly, Xander couldn't care less about that. His mind was on a vampire he'd tried to take on the previous day with Jesse. It had been older than any of the other vampires he'd fought and had left him with a particularly nasty gash down the side of his leg all the way to his foot, and it had still pursued them until they'd made it back into a more lighted, public area on the other side of town. Damn. He'd go back after it tonight, and this time, he'd manage to stake it.
"…And the poison can immobilize a victim," Willow was explaining. Buffy, bless her, looked almost as bored as he felt. Tara was listening with rapt attention, and Oz was watching Willow intently as she spoke. Surprisingly, Jesse was also paying full attention to Willow's speech, but lately, since they'd finally mended the bridges broken by Jesse's involvement with Cordelia, Jesse and Willow had been pretty close, careful not to set each other off in even the smallest of ways. Jesse had even refused to go demon-hunting with Xander a few nights ago, when Willow had heard what they were doing and expressed her disapproval. Xander had been too glad that they'd worked things out to care. Much.
"Hey, guys. Watcha doing?" Faith entered the watchers' lounge and sauntered over to them, her eyes on Buffy alone.
"Studying," Willow said coolly. She looked as though she was going to say more, but then she glanced over at Buffy and thought better of it.
"Cool," Faith said nonchalantly, plopping herself down on the couch between Buffy and Xander. "Don't mind me."
Buffy grinned. "Needed to get away from An…the room for a while?"
"God, yes!" Faith muttered, and they both laughed.
Willow looked severely annoyed. "Can we get back to the Gnarl now?"
Faith waved a hand carelessly. "Don't mind me, keep on doing whatever you're doing." She leaned back, stretched her hands behind her head and arched her back, thrusting her breasts forward as she did. Xander fought to tear his eyes away from them. Doodling. Is what I was doing. Right. He traced his lifeline again, a knuckle brushing Faith's side as he did.
She turned to look at him, more relaxed than he'd seen her in a long time, and with a teasing smirk, she took his hand in hers and snatched a black pen from Buffy's hand. Soon, she was sketching elaborate patterns on his hand with her pen, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she drew in a nasty-looking vampire on his index finger and a slayer who looked vaguely like her on his next finger, a stake pointed at the vampire's heart. She finished and looked at him expectantly.
He grinned and gave her his other hand, closing his eyes and enjoying the sensation of her fingers moving over and squeezing his hand, the pen tickling at his palm, the scent of Faith's shampoo as she bent over him…
"A-hem!" Xander opened his eyes. Willow was glaring at them. "I think we're done with the group study now, don't you?"
"Yeah, it's getting late," Jesse agreed, oblivious to Willow's irritation.
"Come on, Oz," Willow ordered, and the boy dutifully followed her out, shrugging at the rest of them as he did.
"What's gotten her so bad-moody?" Buffy wondered, casting a furtive look at Faith. She knew, of course. They all knew, but no one was going to express it, especially not Xander.
Faith snorted, unimpressed by their silence. "Yeah, okay, I'll just get out of here so you can go chase back your study god."
Xander shook his head. "Stay here," he said without thinking, flushing when they all looked at him. "I mean…she's not going to come back, anyway. You might as well…"
"No." Faith got up quickly, avoiding his gaze. "I'm not gonna-" She miscalculated her step, a foot crashing down on his injured one, and he let out a hiss of pain.
"Xander?" Tara said worriedly. "Is there something wrong with your-"
"Oh, damn, did I hurt you?" Faith bent down to his leg.
He tried to turn her away. "No, don't-"
But she'd already lifted up the side of his pants and gasped at the wicked-looking cut that marked his leg. "Xander!" She looked up at him with sudden concern. "Who did this to you?"
Xander tried to shrug casually. "There was a vampire. No biggie."
"A vampire?" Buffy leaned forward worriedly. "One of ours?"
Xander shook his head. "In the cemetery last night. It's fine, we took care of it." A lie, but the slayers didn't have to know that. Jesse rolled his eyes at him knowingly.
"You took care of it?" Faith repeated skeptically. "Why the hell were you in a cemetery at night to begin with?"
"Why does anyone go to cemeteries?" Jesse asked, preening. "We were hunting vampires."
Buffy stared at them. "Are you two idiots?" she asked finally.
"Clearly," Faith muttered, her hands still on Xander's leg. She prodded at the bruise and he stifled a growl of pain. Silently, Tara moved over to join Faith on the floor and began murmuring a spell.
Jesse gave them a dirty look. "That's right, we're not like you, so of course we can't hurt vampires. We need a big, strong slayer to fight our battles for us," he said in a horrible mockery of a female voice.
"We're trained for this!" Buffy said, exasperated. "And we still don't fight vampires outside of the game floor!"
"No, you spend all your days fighting the one vampire in the world who has a reputation for killing your kind," Xander pointed out. "How's that for taunting a sleeping dragon?"
"Yeah, and she's being watched the whole time," Faith argued from her vantage point beside Xander's legs. Tara was working her magic on the left one, slowly healing the bloody mess. "Spike's electrocuted if he gets too close." At that, Tara and Buffy shared a furtive glance so rife with meaning that Xander couldn't help but wonder what had triggered it.
Xander shrugged, unable to come up with a satisfactory retort. "Yeah, well, it's not the same," he muttered.
Faith gave him a dirty look. "You really are a moron," she said, and rose in one graceful move. "I'm outta here. Coming, B?"
Buffy nodded unsmilingly, and followed her out. Tara put the finishing touches to Xander's injury and headed off in the direction of her room, shooting Xander and Jesse one last disapproving glance as she left.
The boys looked at each other for a long moment before Xander finally said, "Want to go check out Holy Angels Cemetery tonight?"
Jesse shrugged. "Yeah, okay."
Buffy's first clue that something was wrong was when she and Faith joined the other slayers for basic training the next day. Faith and Buffy had never been the most popular of duos in the school, but people had always seemed to like Buffy, at least, and the other slayers were always cordial. But today, when she walked into the training room, she was greeted by nine stony faces, all directed at her.
Faith frowned around. "Is there something in my teeth?" she wondered.
"Not you, Slut-o-rama." Cordy stepped forward, her arms folded and her eyes cold. "Buffy."
Buffy stared at them. "What?"
"We've had enough of your little watcherfest, and we're taking action," Cordy announced. "If you want to be a watcher, fine. But you're not one of us anymore." Behind her, the other slayers nodded obediently. None looked very friendly.
"Excuse me?" But then Gunn was hurrying in and ordering them to split up into groups of two for the class, and Buffy couldn't demand details. Whatever Cordy was up to couldn't be good, especially not when she'd gotten everyone else to work with her.
"Faith, wanna team up?" Kennedy asked, slipping over to them.
Faith looked taken aback. "Are you kidding? I'm with Buffy."
"No, that's a good idea," Gunn decided. "Let's mix it up a little today. Faith, Kennedy, you two are together. Everyone find a different partner."
Cordy and Colleen paired up, as did Molly and Rona, Annabelle and Eve, and Chloe and Caridad, and it came as a surprise to no one when Buffy was left alone.
"Group of three?" Gunn asked. No one stepped forward. Cordy even shook her head and sniffed, "No one's going to work with her."
Gunn frowned. "What's this about?"
"Watcher wannabe," Eve muttered. The other slayers laughed. Buffy stood alone.
Gunn looked around. "Come on, girls. Someone's got to take Buffy." Faith opened her mouth, and Gunn added, "Except you, Faith." Faith closed her mouth, shooting Buffy a sympathetic look.
"I can just work alone," Buffy mumbled, fighting back her own humiliation and frustration. She didn't care much for the other slayers, and their recent bullying never really bothered her, but in front of Gunn, whose opinions she actually respected and cared about, this was a little too much to bear.
Gunn gave her a sharp look. "No, you can't. And I want someone to tell me exactly what is going on here!"
The other girls stayed silent, self-satisfied smirks gracing each face. Faith glared at them all. Buffy just looked away.
"I'll do it," said a voice from the back of the room. "Training exercises, right?" The slayer slid into the room to regard them all with cool eyes. "Sounds like fun."
Buffy stared at her disbelievingly. "But…you're the slayer."
She shrugged. "Call me Narra."
"B-Buffy."
"Narra, you sure?" Gunn asked, raising an eyebrow. "This'll be a walk in the park for you."
Narra nodded. "Practice is always good. And I'm doing the Cruciamentum tomorrow, so the more time I spend not getting injured, the better."
Gunn laughed. "I see your point." He cast one last worried look at the potentials' cold faces and began the class. Today, they were practicing with quarterstaffs, which they hadn't used in a while, and Buffy cursed her luck at having been put up against the slayer with a weapon she'd never mastered.
But Narra still seemed vaguely impressed. "You're not bad at this," she commented, swinging lightly to cross her weapon with Buffy's.
"I'm not good at this, either," Buffy pointed out, dodging a second strike to aim directly for Narra's heart.
Narra shook her head. "No one's good with quarterstaffs," she observed wryly. "But you handle yourself well."
"Thanks." Buffy swung with all her strength, and Narra blocked her with a single arm. "I fight a lot."
"With Spike." Narra used her staff to trip Buffy, and Buffy flipped backwards and rose in a single move. "I remember."
"Yeah. Um…are you fighting him tomorrow?" Narra's next blow was unexpectedly high and connected with Buffy's side, sending her staggering backwards. "For your Cruciathingy?" Willow had explained the whole thing to Buffy yesterday, but she'd lost interest somewhere between the ninth and nineteenth century and spent the rest of the time visualizing her next fight with Spike.
"Yep." Narra took a defensive position. "How old are you?"
"I'll be sixteen next month."
"And you're fighting Spike daily?" Narra asked incredulously.
Buffy feinted upward and used the lower half of her quarterstaff to smash into Narra's knees. "We work well together."
"I noticed." Buffy looked at Narra anxiously, but the older girl just nodded almost approvingly. "I never fought him as a potential, but I did watch his battles sometimes. He teaches, he toys with the slayers…but I've never seen him dance before yesterday." She smiled, and Buffy was suddenly sure that that was a rare expression on her. "It was impressive."
"It's not like that," Buffy murmured, her cheeks suddenly very hot. "He's just a vampire."
"And you're just a potential slayer. And I'm just a slayer." Narra flipped her weapon to stand it parallel to her, cane-style. "It doesn't mean that we can't make a difference in each other's lives. If Spike is what's making you a good fighter, see him as a teacher, not the enemy. He's not the enemy unless if he's killing."
"That's not what we learn in school." Buffy managed to land another blow before Narra began her defense.
"No, it isn't, is it?" Narra took a step forward. "But when you're out there fighting, there are a lot of moral grey areas you come up against. And there's no time to worry about it."
"What's it like?" Buffy ventured. "Knowing that you're…that you'll…"
"Die?" Narra finished. Buffy nodded. Narra was quiet for a moment. "Everyone dies. But at least I know that I'm right."
"Right?"
Narra swung her staff with almost blinding speed, and Buffy barely blocked it. "Complete. That I've spent my life doing what I'm meant to be doing, and I'm dying because of it. And yeah, sometimes I'm fighting and I'm terrified, and I know that it might be the end, but then I remember that this is my destiny, and I'll die with no regrets, nothing left undone. It'll just be the end of a successful mission."
Buffy shook her head. "But- but what about the last slayer? The one who only lasted three days?"
Narra was suddenly somber. "She did it, didn't she? She went down in battle, dying for the only thing worth dying for." She paused. "And there's a part of me that envies her for it." She dropped her staff to the ground.
Buffy followed her lead, letting her weapon drop, too. "What do you mean?"
Narra's gaze took on a wistful cast. "Fighting's hard, Buffy. It's years and years of long, empty battles and nothing that matters beyond keeping evil at bay. And even that is pretty much impossible…" She sighed. "Death…for slayers, it's also freedom. And maybe Beatriz was too new to fully appreciate that, but she would have soon enough."
"Spike once told me that every slayer has a death wish." Buffy remembered that fight clearly. She'd asked him how he'd defeated his three slayers, and that cryptic comment had been all he'd given her- well, that and an almost pitying look that she'd proceeded to punch off his face.
"He's right." Narra fell silent, and they finished their sparring in thoughtful quietude. When Gunn finally called the end of the class, Buffy dropped her staff and gave Narra a genuine smile. "Thank you. Good luck tomorrow."
"Thanks. And Buffy?"
Buffy turned from where she'd been heading toward the showers.
Narra gave her another small smile. "Keep fighting Spike. He's good for you."
