Chapter 11: Questions and Answers

Dawn strolled nonchalantly out of the main doors of Sunnydale Junior High, her backpack hanging loosely from one shoulder as she walked with her friends towards the road. She waved farewell to Lisa, Melinda and Janice at the sidewalk – the latter giving her a coy smirk as she walked towards the car where her rather stern looking mother awaited.

As usual, she allowed her mind to drift as she began her walk home, knowing every twist and turn so well by this point that she didn't need to spare a thought for where she was going, besides checking both ways at a road crossing. In a town like Sunnydale, even the most unusual sights could be considered run-of-the-mill.

It was by chance then, when Dawn was approximately half-way back to the Summers' house, that she caught sight of a sight so peculiar that even she took note of it. On the other side of the large street, a young woman was stumbling along the opposite sidewalk. She had a shattered, bright yellow hard hat half-hanging of her head, chaotic golden hair spilling out all over. She wore a bright pink tank top with a single large tear diagonally through it, and the jeans she wore beneath them were similarly torn. One of her calves seemed to be at an odd angle, and she was clearly moving with some difficulty.

Dawn's eyes went wide with horror. "Buffy?!"

The figure halted its staggered gait, lifting its head to look over towards her.

"Dawn!" she cried, confirming Dawn's fears. "I require assistance!"

She immediately ran across the road towards Buffy, a passing car honking loudly at her in the process as it sped by. Dawn didn't care.

"Buffy..." she said breathlessly, struggling to remove the shattered yellow helmet from her head. "What the hell happened to you?!"

"Something is... very wrong," Buffy said, in a tone that Dawn recognised by now as distress, before taking on a slightly puzzled look. "But why are you not in school?"

"School ended almost an hour ago," answered Dawn in puzzlement, brushing the dirt, grass and grit from her top. "Did they do this to you at the construction site? Why did Xander let it happen?"

Buffy shook her head. "Xander wouldn't listen. He sent me away. Dawn – I need Willow!"

As Dawn was brushing away the muck, her eyes caught on a strange speck on Buffy's right shoulder. It seemed oddly out of place when compared with the rest of the dirt, trash and road surface she was covered in. To Dawn's eye, it looked like a little diamond, glimmering in the bright sun. Dawn reached for it, taking it in her hand for a moment. To her surprise, the glimmering speck seemed to disintegrate into a small cloud of residue.

When she looked up at Buffy, she too appeared to be frowning at Dawn's palm, though said nothing.

"Come on," said Dawn, manoeuvring Buffy's right arm around her shoulder to support her injured leg, before starting to move in the direction of the Summers' house. "Let's get you home."

Dawn banged on the door as she and Buffybot struggled up the drive, grateful that somehow they had managed to get this far without somehow arousing more attention from the general public. A few moments later, Tara opened it, her expression changing from friendly to one of deadly concern in an instant.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure exactly," Dawn admitted, as she and Buffybot moved through the doorway and through into the living room. "I just found her like this – out on the streets."

"Just set her down," Tara instructed, seemingly having calmed herself. "I'll call Willow at the Magic Box."

With a thump, Dawn and Buffy both fell heavily onto the couch, just as Tara disappeared around the corner. Dawn reached out to move Buffy's hair from her face, and Buffy smiled warmly at her in return.

"So," she sighed. "I take it your first day on the job wasn't a huge success?"

Buffy frowned. "At first – It was going very well. But then..." She trailed off.

"Then what?"

"I do not understand. I was doing what Tony asked me to do, and then... I was following Xander. But then Xander began to move very fast, and I couldn't keep up. And the others. The other workers – I could barely see them, and they knocked into me. Then it stopped, and then it started. It happened again, and again – until Xander became very upset with me, and told me to leave – and find Willow."

"You got fired?"

"I do not know," Buffy answered. "But attempting to cross all of the roads was very difficult."

Dawn was horrified. "You got hit by a car?"

"Two cars," Buffy corrected her in a factual tone.

"I don't understand," Dawn admitted. "Willow is always checking your programming. How could something go this wrong?"

"I... do not think that this was a malfunction," Buffy replied. "Maybe it was a spell? Are there bad witches?"

Dawn blinked. "A spell? You think this is magic?"

Buffy nodded. "Something that is affecting everyone else."

Dawn looked thoughtful for a moment, as an idea took hold. "Or just you. When I was cleaning the dirt off your shirt – I found something strange. Like a little bead."

"I saw! It vanished in your hand."

"Maybe... I don't know – it was some sort of talisman. Or a jewel or... something."

Buffy didn't reply right away this time. Instead, she looked at Dawn with a strange, unreadable expression. "You are not blaming me."

"Why would I?"

"I am the Slayer!" Buffy explained earnestly. "I should not need to be rescued – and I should not upset my friends." Buffy paused for a moment, frowning. "I think the other Buffy would have figured this out. She was very smart."

Dawn couldn't help but feel a pang of recognition. Living in Buffy's shadow was a struggle she knew all too well, and one that had continued even after she was gone. She took Buffy's hand, and squeezed it. In response, Buffy looked at her with a questioning gaze.

"When the Mm'fashnik came – you saved my life. Without you – we'd all probably be dead. You're not always going to do everything that Buffy did. But that's okay! As far as I'm concerned – you're a great Slayer."

Buffybot grinned, before falling against Dawn and enclosing her in a crushing hug. "I am glad you think so. You are my sister!"

"Yep," Dawn wheezed breathlessly, as she wrapped her arms affectionately around Buffy. "So – wanna watch TV until Willow gets back?"

Something wasn't right. Warren was sure of that much.

At first, he had been content to have Jonathan continue to activate the omega pulse as they stealthily tailed Buffy down the Sunnydale streets, watching in glee as she was rendered utterly helpless by his device.

Andrew and Jonathan had tried to ruin it of course. The moment the pulse had been activated while Buffy was crossing a sidewalk, and a car had slammed into her – Jonathan went pale as snow, his hands shaking pathetically.

Warren knew it probably wouldn't kill her. That was all part of his calculations. These games were all about testing the slayers, seeing her strengths, her weaknesses. But something in her behaviour just wasn't right. He knew she was strong – incredibly so in fact – but she was still human. She should still show pain, and fear.

But she didn't. Every time something knocked her down, she would just look as if she were mildly puzzled, and immediately try and push on. There was no panic, no fear – no anger. The Slayer may have been a being out of myth and legend – but she wasn't a Vulcan!

Stranger still, from the look of her the last car had broken her leg below the knee. However, when it had happened, the Slayer didn't so much as cry out in pain – she just clumsily forced herself up and continued to move on, as if major physical trauma was nothing more than an awkward inconvenience. Even her mannerisms seemed wrong somehow, stiff.

"Does this seem right to you?" Warren asked in frustration, as he pulled the van in on the opposite side of the road from the Slayer's house, turning to Andrew on the seat beside him.

Andrew let out a sigh of utter relief. "No – not at all. This has gone way too far man..."

"Not that!" Warren snapped back. "I meant the Slayer! You guys knew her in high school – did the Slayer seem right to you?"

Jonathan scratched the top of his head. "She... was acting a little odd. I've seen Buffy in action before, she's really powerful, but... she wasn't like that. Man – something must be really wrong with her."

Warren gripped the steering wheel with both hands, trying to ignore the wheedling concern in Jonathan's voice as he made his last observation. "Yeah. Something. I think we proceed on to the next test – as soon as possible. After you score me for my brilliant efforts, of course."

Andrew and Jonathan looked at each other for a moment, before nodding, a little too reluctantly for Warren's liking.

Once Willow had conducted most of the preliminary repairs to Buffybot's damaged leg on the couch, replacing a few components and bandaging the damaged synthetic skin in order to conceal it, she immediately fetched her laptop and began a systems diagnostic. When Dawn and Buffybot had told Willow about the disastrous events of the latter's first day at work, her mind had immediately began to hypothesise.

"I don't think they were all really moving quickly Buffy," Willow explained, before turning to address Tara and Dawn, who were seated in neighbouring armchairs. "What I think happened – is for whatever reason Buffybot experienced several system crashes. Essentially – she blacked out. Then, when she rebooted, her processor suddenly had to deal all the information her ocular components – her eyes – picked up while she was offline, all at once."

"What about that strange diamond thing I found?" Dawn insisted. "The one that disappeared when I tried to get a better look at it?"

"Dawny, you said yourself Buffybot was covered in all sorts from the road... I think it's more likely she just got a bit of glass or something on her top, than... yknow, something altering the flow of time." Willow looked back at the screen. "Hmm – I don't see anything that could have caused her to crash. I'll have to run a full systems-"

But Willow was interrupted as she spotted something on her laptop display. Something that made no sense whatsoever. "Hang on a sec."

Tara frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Buffybot's internal chronometer – her body clock – it's wrong. According to her, it's still early afternoon."

"Wouldn't the blackouts explain that?" Tara suggested.

"No," Willow replied. "It wouldn't. It's like a computer – you don't need to reset the time every time you reboot it. Unless it was manually changed – I have no idea what could have done this."

Willow turned to Buffybot. "You'd better tell us what happened again. From the start – and don't leave anything out."

So Buffybot eagerly began to recount a painfully detailed account of her experiences after arriving at the construction site with Xander that morning. Willow grit her teeth and bore it as Buffybot meandered in exquisitely excessive detail of everything which happened to her, until something useful eventually seemed to jump out of the tale.

"Someone knocked into you?" Willow questioned. "And you didn't see their face?"

"Yes," said Buffybot. "They were wearing a hood under their hat."

"Wait a minute," Dawn interjected. "Buffy, which side did he hit you on?"

Buffy cocked her head to one side thoughtfully for a moment, before answering:

"Right."

Dawn turned back to Willow. "The same side I found that shiny thing!"

"Okay," Willow conceded. "Well... it looks like there might be something else going on here. For now – I think Buffybot should lay low. At least for tonight."

"But I have to patrol!" Buffy pointed out. "There are many vampires who require slaying. Evil must beware!"

"We'll get Spike to cover for you," Willow countered offhandedly. "In fact – it might be easier if you just go back to being offline tomorrow, at least until we figure all this out."

Dawn frowned. "Why can't she just hang around here tomorrow? Why does she have to stay asleep the whole time?

"There's nothing for her to do Dawn," Willow remarked, a little puzzled by the question. "And no-one to keep an eye on her."

"I don't think she'd burn the house down sweetie," Tara suggested calmly. "I don't really see any harm in it, yknow, if it's what she wants?"

Buffy was looking between the three of them as they spoke, a look of naïve concern on her face.

"Is that what you want Buffy?" Willow asked sceptically.

Buffybot looked between Tara and Dawn, who both smiled at her encouragingly. The robot turned to the girl on the couch beside her.

"Yes. I would like that! Can I watch the TV?"

Willow still felt conflicted, not just about letting Buffy remain at home on her own, but also Tara and Dawn seeming to be supporting her in becoming more and more independent.

Despite being responsible for a great deal of her programming, Willow still felt that Buffybot was unpredictable. Like at the bank several days ago, Willow felt that she or Tara had to hold the bot's hand through almost any task that didn't involving staking a vampire. Even making sandwiches wasn't a sure bet.

What if Buffybot did decide it would be a good idea to experiment with Joyce's recipe book again, and then just forgot about the cooker being on? It had been a nice gesture from Tara at the time – but Willow wasn't sure about encouraging Buffybot to do more than they needed from her.

Considering their dire financial situation, Willow had been willing to attempt letting Buffybot try to perform a basic paid job - but now she was far more sceptical of the whole notion. After all these years in Sunnydale, she should have known full well how much attention the Slayer received just by her very existence. Buffy had the wits to deal with the challenges that came with her destiny. Her robotic replacement did not. She probably never would either, no matter how many individual subroutines Willow programmed into her.

Finally, she nodded. "Alright – Buffybot can hang out here tomorrow. But – we need to set some ground rules, okay?"

Buffy nodded enthusiastically, a wide grin of delight rather reminiscent of a six-year-old whose parents had just agreed to buy her a pony.

"Don't answer the phone if it rings," Willow instructed her. "Same with the door – unless its one of us. Oh, and try to stay out of the kitchen until we get back, alright? Now, I'd better reset your body clock ready for tomorrow..."

As soon as Tara activated Buffy the next morning, she practically leapt from her bed like a coiled spring. After changing into one of her favourite dresses and tidying her hair, she quickly made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

Making peanut-butter jelly sandwiches for Dawn's lunch had quickly become one of Buffy's favourite activities. There was a simple satisfaction to lathering the slices of bread, clapping them together before sealing them in a bag with an apple and a bag of chips. She handed them to Dawn as her sister entered the kitchen still in her pyjamas, her long brown hair still messy as it always was this time in the morning. As Dawn sat down to enjoy a bowl of fruit loops, Buffy took the already-prepared brush and began to gently run it through her hair contentedly.

Soon enough however, Dawn left for school, and not long after that Willow and Tara made their preparations to leave as well. Just as Buffy was waving them out the door, Willow stopped, seeming slightly bothered by something, before Tara took her hand and guided her out of the door, wishing Buffy a good day as she did so. Buffy closed the door behind them, and for the first time in a long while; she was truly alone.

At first she merely wandered between the rooms (excepting the kitchen), taking in the different feel of the place. She had never been just left to wander about in the house she knew as her family home. She wandered into the living room from the entrance hall, once again lifting a picture from the side table. In the picture there was Dawn, the woman Buffy knew should be her mother, and herself. But it wasn't really her. It was the other Buffy – and her biological progenitor.

Dawn had told her it was alright that she wasn't always like the other Buffy, but that was difficult to comprehend when they shared so much. They shared a face, a body, a name, a destiny, a watcher, friends and sister. She was Buffy – and she wasn't Buffy. It was a most confusing notion. She wondered if Giles could have explained it to her. His lessons had come in useful many times before.

Eventually, Buffy lowered the picture, and began to think over what it really was she wanted to do. Before, she was definitely anticipating a chance to watch TV. Whatever it was Dawn, Tara or Willow watched – Buffy found it fascinating, the little people on the screen and their lives. Buffy was always entranced to see what would happen next, always bombarding those around her with questions about what was happening and why.

But as her eyes still lingered on the pictures in front of her, another desire began to make itself known. Questions she had pondered over for weeks now, queries she felt she had never gotten a proper answer for.

Giles sat at the end of his plain, single bed, staring emptily at the wall in front of him. With some effort, he reached for the still half-packed suitcase beside him, grabbing another set of clothes to armour himself against the day. He went through the motions, the basics of hygiene and personal grooming, then wandered half-heartedly into the kitchen to see to the other essentials. When he was finished, Giles settled himself down into the creaking armchair in his small living room, scooping the book on the nearest coffee table into his arms.

Sometime later, the sudden, harsh whistling of the kettle atop the stove tore through his concentration as he tried to read the same page in the worn book in his lap for the umpteenth time. With a weary sigh, Giles crossed to the kitchen and poured the boiling water into the teapot, giving the brew a quick stir before placing a cotton tea-cosy over the top.

A rustling sound came from the direction of the front door. Dispassionately, Giles followed the sound, gathering up the smattering of letters which his new neighbour had presumably brought up to his apartment. Giles just dropped them atop the already excessive pile of unopened envelopes on a table beside the door.

He knew full well how irresponsible it was.

There was only one letter Giles had opened of late. It lay atop the side table beside his armchair. The letter from Olivia. The choice to finally contact him by post had been a message in itself. Olivia was worried. She was worried why Giles hadn't found himself a job, why he didn't stay in touch – and most of all how despite moving thousands of miles closer, he seemed more distant than ever.

When Giles had left Sunnydale weeks before, he had done so with the full intention of leaving the past behind him. He needed a fresh start, to begin the next stage of his life far from a town that would no longer hold anything for him but pain, and pangs of regret. But every morning, when Giles woke up and knew she was gone – his determination faded into dust. He just couldn't do it. Moving past the moment of Buffy's death; it somehow felt like a betrayal.

He had lost people before of course. Someone of his maturity could hardly have avoided it. Yet this grief was like nothing he had ever felt. When he had been chosen to be the Slayer's watcher, Giles knew what the council were ultimately asking of him. Every Watcher was trained to be prepared to lose their Slayer in the line of duty. It was the way of things; it was blasted tradition after all. The Slayer fell, and the Watcher had to live on, stopping only to record a short obituary before closing the book altogether.

Yet when the council had fired him in 1999, when he had chosen Buffy over Travers and the council – some part of him had believed the cycle could be broken. He had watched Buffy overcome countless seemingly insurmountable obstacles, grow into not only the best Slayer but the best young woman he could have ever hoped for, and somewhere along the way, subconsciously the very concept of losing her had drifted from his mind.

The sudden hollow ringing of the landline brought Giles out of his musings. He rose again from his chair, crossing to the wall by the kitchen where the phone was hooked on the wall. He made sure to try and clear his throat of morning coarseness before he answered.

"Hello?" He asked.

"Hello Giles!" A voice called out to him, one so familiar Giles felt his heart jump in his chest. "May I speak with you?"

"Buffy…" Giles whispered almost reverently, the word catching slightly in throat before his sluggish and hazy mind caught up. "Ah, yes, of course. Buffy, umm, how are you?"

"I am well Giles." The robot replied. As usual, she tactlessly managed to entirely avoid the more subtle cadences of human speech. "Thank you for asking! How are you?"

"Good, yes... yes I'm fine… Look, Buffy – are you quite sure your supposed to be phoning people?"

"No Giles. Willow told me to let the other machine handle it."

"Right, so… if I may ask that is… why exactly are you calling?" Giles asked, entirely puzzled by the situation.

In response, Giles only heard the faint buzz prone to older landlines, and for a moment he believed the call might have disconnected.

"You didn't say goodbye."

The words took him by surprise. If he didn't know better, he'd say there was a trace of real sadness behind them – but that was ridiculous, surely.

"Oh." He eventually responded, blinking rapidly. "Well, I'm sorry about that Buffy – I just preferred to slip out quietly, that's all."

"The others came to see you at the airport. Tara told me."

"Well… they did do that yes. Buffy, wh-"

"They didn't ask me to go with them. Did I do something wrong?"

Giles' bewilderment continued to rise. "No, no I'm sure that's not it," he tried to console her, resting the handset in the crook of his shoulder and taking a moment to polish his glasses, as if to see through the absurdity of the situation. "I'm sure Willow just thought… thought it wasn't necessary."

There was a small pause.

"I understand." Buffy replied finally.

"Do you?" Giles asked, genuinely curious if she did.

"No. But it makes people happy when I say I do! I like making people happy."

Giles desperately tried to salvage a coherent train of thought. "Look, Buffy, is there something else I can do for you, or?"

"When are you coming back?"

Giles scrunched his eyes shut in exasperation, heroically attempting to muster the necessary patience to endure the remainder of this conversation. "Buffy… I came back to England to live – permanently. My place is here now."

"I would like you to come back Giles." Buffy blurted out, managing to catch him off-guard once again.

He let out a small snort in spite of himself. "Umm yes well… that's very kind of you Buffy, but I'm sure you're doing just fine as you are. Willow will take good care of everything – of that I'm quite sure."

"Are you sure?"

Giles was entirely astonished by this point. Buffybot had always been one for blunt, oblivious questions, but seemed equally satisfied with any answer given to them. "Yes – like I said I'm quite sure. Why, shouldn't I be?" He asked with a small, confused chuckle.

"Every Slayer needs her Watcher." Buffy stated simply.

"Splendid," Giles applauded her, gesturing animatedly with his padded hands, his breathing heavy from the exertion. "Now… Try it again… only this time – remember your breathing."

Buffy didn't understand what Giles meant exactly – but complied happily nonetheless. She took in a humongous breath, before blowing the air out with every strike once Giles had raised his pads once again.

"Umm… that's good, but.. think of the breath as Chi. Air as… as a life source."

"I don't require oxygen to live." Buffy informed him helpfully.

"Umm," Anya began, appearing in the doorway to the Magic Box, "maybe you should stick to the standard drill. You know, you don't want her to blow another gasket."

"I'm testing her responses after her injury, Giles explained a little testily. "I see no harm in imparting a little Eastern philosophy…"

"Well… I just think that the concept of chi might be a little, you know, hard for her to grasp." Anya insisted "You know, she's not the descendant of a long line of mystical warriors. She's the descendant of a toaster oven."

Buffy did not find Anya's words pleasing, nor did they correlate with her fundamental programming. She was Buffy – she was the Slayer.

"Yes, well, I appreciate your input, Anya, but I think Buffybot has responded nicely to our sessions."

The warm, approving smile Giles gave her in that moment caused Buffy's face to light up. Her Watcher was happy with her. Proud of her.

"Would you like to test me again?" Buffy asked as Anya returned through the doorway, eager to earn more of Giles' approval.

"No, perhaps we should call it a day. Your... your responses are fine.

Giles pulled the pads from his hands, placing them atop the large pile of crash mats arranged in the corner. He stopped to grab a waiting bottle of water, before turning to face Buffy for a moment, an unfathomable expression on his face.

"Perhaps Anya's right. Perhaps I am trying to teach you as if you were..."

"Human?" Buffy responded almost automatically.

Giles looked at her almost guiltily. "Yes."

"I like your teachings," Buffy assured him. "Every Slayer needs her Watcher."

Giles took another drink, almost seeming to choke on it. "I'm not so sure about that."

Buffy was surprised by that. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. I just can't help but wonder if she'd have been better off without me."

"I don't think that's true," Buffy insisted. "You were very helpful to her."

It was true, Willow and Xander had given countless indications of Giles' importance. And Buffy was certain of how helpful Giles had been for herself. From the moment she was first activated, Buffy knew she was the Slayer. But it was Giles who had begun to teach her what that actually entailed – beyond what her files recorded. In the past months, several of his insights had been key to her success – and to fulfilling her function.

Giles just gave a harsh chuckle. "Right. Yes, I was a perfect Watcher. I did what any good Watcher would do. Got my Slayer killed in the line of duty."

"Oh, that wasn't your fault!" Buffy assured him.

"Of course not. That's how all Slayer/Watcher relationships end, isn't it?" Giles placed his glasses back on his head. "She's gone. I did my job."

His response confused Buffy. "Then why are you still here?"

Buffy knew what the answer would be – what it should be. She was just waiting for Giles to say it. He was here to train her – to be like the other Buffy. But that answer never came. Instead, he merely looked as if he'd realised something. Something quite different.