(10/13/2016) I had to take a break from writing long winded essays. My brain was starting to melt.
I apologize for not responding to the reviews and messages in a timely manner. I will get to them, I promise!! Cross my heart, hope to die, stick an angel blade in my eye.
Thank you jkmp28, RHatch89, Jennee77, kyrielslight, dreameralways, and thedarkpokemaster for the reviews! And tickle pokies for everyone favoriting and following!
Outdoors there was unmitigated anarchy. The daeva had finally tired of the shotgun wielding, light-pointing humans and had swept out of the library through one of the broken windows. Far from being relieved, the group trapped inside was horrified to see a much larger plume of black smoke begin to slither from the Hellmouth, slowly but inexorably. True demons were making their way through the cracked opening of the Hellmouth and both Dean and Giles desperately wracked their brains for something that would hold the hellspawn off. To at least slow their progress Willow and Cordelia flung holy water into the crevasse while Miss Calendar swung a rosary through the vapor.
The daeva, meanwhile, had discovered a veritable smorgasbord of victims right outside and were making a merry mess of the hardy vampires. The minor hellspawn figured out fairly early that removing their heads put an end to their fun so they were tearing off limbs, flinging the monsters to great heights in order to watch them plummet to the ground, and stabbing them with everything and anything that hadn't come from a tree. The vampires themselves were running helter-skelter and the sudden appearance of Buffy, Xander, and Sam barely registered.
On top of the school roof paced the Master, majestically surveying what his freedom had wrought. "There," Sam said as they approached the school entrance. He pointed towards a maintenance door that had been wrenched off its hinges. Moonlight shone off of a ladder leading upwards.
They hurried inside and the noise from the mayhem dimmed. As soon as they reached their destination Buffy immediately began climbing the rungs. She paused and looked down when she felt a tug on her jacket. "You can't go alone," Sam pleaded. "He's already killed you once."
"Didn't stick," she replied, her confidence seemingly unshakeable. Buffy leaned over and planted a quick kiss on the top of her brother's head. Then before he could object again she shot upwards and called, "I'll be right back!"
"Uh, Sam?" Xander said urgently.
The hunter tore his gaze from where his sister had gone. "What?"
"We got company."
A handful of vampires had been fortunate enough to spot the humans entering the building. Eyes bright and lips peeled back in gleeful anticipation, they advanced upon what they mistakenly assumed was easy prey.
Sam reached into a corner of the room and snatched up a weathered broom. He snapped it in half over his knee and handed a makeshift stake to Xander.
The hunter and the teenager looked determinedly at one another then braced themselves for the assault.
Where Buffy had strode brazenly out from the cavern, John and Angel extinguished the lit torches closest to the entrance and cautiously crept forth. They exchanged wry glances at the plight of the vampires before skirting the edge of the lawn and heading for the school.
The trickle of monsters who had noticed Xander and Sam had grown to a river, with one portion plugged haphazardly in the doorway by their panic in fleeing the daeva and a lucky few presumably inside. The remainder continued to be harassed by the minor demons. As Angel watched, two shadows grabbed a female from the crowd and proceeded to pull her in half. The unfortunate monster still had an intact heart and head; upon landing she let loose an ear-piercing shriek that amped up the frenzy at the school entrance.
"What now?" Angel asked.
"Look," John replied, pointing to the rooftop where a tall, hairless monstrosity was engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand battle with a small blonde figure.
"Buffy," the vampire gasped. He started towards her, intending on scaling the wall to help, when a plume of black smoke shot upwards from the library roof. Just as quickly as it had appeared, however, it was sucked back into the skylight at the combatants' feet. When it all cleared, Angel saw the Slayer leaning precariously to peer at the source of the vapor.
John watched the daeva swoop into the crevasses in the doorway. The vampires, those few that hadn't been maimed or dusted, saw the opportunity and scattered, leaving their less mobile compatriots to their fate. They'd need some proper staking before the authorities arrived.
"Let's go," John ordered Angel. First things first. His sons and his daughter were there; he needed to see they were safe.
"Mr. Winchester, will you please stop molesting the bones."
"'Molesting'?" Dean repeated incredulously. He'd just been using a shotgun to stab the powdery mess that had collected on the banister below the Master's skeletal remains. The fact that it was underneath the thing's pelvis was just coincidental.
"Catch me!" Buffy called down cheerfully. Dean had a bare moment to register what she was about to do and quickly dropped the firearm. He then promptly found himself with an armful of little sister and bruised forearms.
She hopped nonchalantly out of his hold to examine the remains of the Master. Xander and Sam pounded through the swinging doors almost immediately after. "All the vamps just up and left," Sam proclaimed.
"They all kinda looked like they didn't know why they were even here," Xander added, "then went skedaddling."
"The daeva flew into the Hellmouth right before it closed," said Miss Calendar as she picked her way over the debris and the hood of Cordelia's car.
"I suspect they felt they'd be happier in Hell," Giles explained. "Away from all the light."
Xander paused and gestured at the mangled Lexus. "Why are we parking in the library now?"
"That was me saving their butts," Cordelia declared as she came around the circulation desk. "And now I have to get a whole new car! I liked this one," she whined. "A lot."
"Boo-hoo," Xander mocked while fist-scrubbing imaginary tears. "Daddy's just going to have to get you a Mercedes this time."
"Shut up."
"Buffy!" John cried as he ran through the doors. He hurried his way through the detritus and grabbed his daughter's shoulders. "Oh thank God," he uttered as he wrapped Buffy in an tight hug.
"Dad?" Dean asked, flabbergasted.
"Hey, son," the Winchester patriarch said as he grabbed his firstborn's wrist and added him to the embrace.
"Air becoming an issue," said a sandwiched Buffy.
John let his children go as Sam approached. When his father gave him an uneasy smile, the younger son quietly murmured, "Hey, dad."
"Son," John answered. "Listen, Sam," he continued as Dean and Buffy shifted away, "before earlier, the last time we were together we had one hell of a fight."
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't get to tell you outside, but it's good to see you again. It's been a long time."
His eyes brimming with tears, Sam smiled and replied, "Too long," as he and his father gave each other a hug.
Buffy and and her eldest brother exchanged satisfied grins. Dean was then taken aback when his sister's face fell and she burst into tears. Sam and John broke apart and her friends came hurrying over. "I'm sorry," Buffy blubbered. "It's been a really weird day." She sniffled and looked fondly up at her father when he gently ran his hand down her hair.
"Yeah," said Xander. "You went and died and everything."
"Are you sure you're all right?" Willow asked worriedly.
"I'll be fine," Buffy reassured her friend. She looked from her father to her Watcher and asked, "What now?"
Giles adjusted his glasses and proclaimed, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd really like to get out of this library. I hate it here."
"Then why the hell did you become the librarian?" Dean wondered.
"Benefits, mostly. A very nice retirement package."
"Huh."
"I hear there's a dance over at The Bronze!" Xander suggested. "That could be fun."
"Yeah!" Cordelia cheered.
"I'm down," said Sam. "Bloody tux and all." He tugged at his collar and the vampire bite while ruefully remembering that it was one of their fake cards holding the deposit on the outfit.
"I've been meaning to ask you about the monkey suit," said John.
"It matches my dress!" beamed Buffy. She held out the tattered, moisture laden remains of her gown. "I mean, I got all pretty and so did Sam."
"What about him?" asked Miss Calendar. They all turned towards the pitted and yellowed bones of the Master.
"He's not going anywhere," Buffy scoffed. "Loser."
"They got beer at this joint?" John queried the crowd as they headed for the less blockaded exit at the back.
"Adult drinks aplenty," Xander replied.
John clapped Dean on the back. "C'mon," he told his son, "first round's on you."
There were a few logistics to work out before all of them could clear the area. While Sam surreptitiously escorted the teenagers to the dance, the adults dispatched the remaining vampires then contended with the police. The chaos had not gone unnoticed, particularly since the vampires had howled unchecked at the daeva's gory mischief, and there had been a bevy of emergency calls claiming that a gang war was going down on the high school campus.
Dean and Jenny Calendar charmed the authorities while Giles and John were confronted by Principal Snyder. The significantly shorter man planted himself in front of them and demanded, "What was going on here?"
Giles removed his glasses and cleaned them with a corner of his vest while John lifted his eyebrows. "Who the hell are you?"
Snyder announced his name and title before asking Giles, "Who is this? Is he authorized to be on campus?"
"This is John Winchester," the Watcher replied calmly.
"And?"
"I'm Buffy's father," supplied John.
That earned him a scowl. Snyder folded his arms, self-righteousness giving him the backbone to confront the scruffy-looking (somewhat intimidating) intruder. "It figures you would be. Anytime there's trouble, your daughter is right in the middle of it. Her delinquency must be inherited."
John's eyes narrowed and Giles tensed. The Watcher was all too familiar with the man's notoriously short temper. Adding in the protectiveness the hunter had for his children and the ensuing conversation wasn't going to bode well for Snyder. Giles just prayed that it wouldn't turn physical; John was a skilled fighter and tended to wander about heavily armed.
"Now you listen here," John growled as he loomed over the Principal. "My girl, she ain't no delinquent. You saying you got some kind of problem with her?"
Giles was impressed at how Snyder drew himself up and glared back at the hunter. The Principal swallowed nervously before speaking, spoiling the effect. "I'm saying," he sneered, "that your daughter is a problem. And since you aren't around all the time someone should be here to hand out discipline."
Giles caught John mid-lunge. The Watcher cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the flashing red and blue lights. Thankfully, John backed away from the now deeply uneasy Principal.
Snyder decided to feign ignorance and chose to focus his ire on the librarian instead. "Keep your… friend away from the campus from now on. One member of that family's enough. God knows what more of them would do." He shot one final glower at the both of them (the one John got was tinged with apprehension) before leaving to deal with the authorities.
"That little shit's in charge of Buffy's school?" John asked.
"Unfortunately, yes," Giles sighed. "Extraordinarily apt description of him, I must say."
"Especially the little part."
The two middle aged men shared a childish snicker. After rubbing moisture from his eyes Giles wondered, "What the devil are you doing back here, John?"
"The yellow-eyed demon. Got word that he had plans for the Slayer and thought he'd show. Speaking of which," the hunter growled as he used a finger to jab his friend in the chest, "exactly when were you going to tell me that my daughterwas the Slayer?"
"Never," Giles answered.
"Excuse me?"
Unlike the Principal the Watcher wasn't cowed by the hunter's ire. "You're a hunter, John," he said carefully. "You know what happened."
The Slayer's father paled. "Maria Gutierrez."
Giles nodded slowly. "It was for Buffy's sake. I'm sorry."
As the Winchester patriarch brooded over his children's fates, his eldest son and Miss Calendar approached. "Dude," said Dean, "police filled in the blanks for us. Crazies on PCP and meth did it."
"Stole Cordelia's car and everything," added a bewildered Jenny.
"The local authorities are remarkably adept at seeing only what they want to see," Giles said mildly. "In the meantime, perhaps we should be heading off?"
"Sounds good to me," Dean replied. "Dad?"
"Yeah," John said, affecting a warm smile, "go on. I'll be there soon, son."
As they walked away, Dean offered Miss Calendar a ride and, judging by how hard she smacked him on the arm, something far more inappropriate. "He does take after you," Giles commented.
John sighed. "Don't know yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
The rest of the evening passed without any further supernatural events. Buffy was disappointed that Angel didn't show at The Bronze, but consoled herself by dancing enthusiastically with her friends. John, Dean, Giles, and Miss Calendar pretended to be chaperones and sipped beers. Sam, unfortunately, had shown up with the younger group and was therefore assumed to be either of their peerage or a student of the local college. He was inundated with an admiring gaggle of girls that he couldn't escape in The Bronze's relatively small space.
Once the dance was over they headed home, the terrors of the evening hours pushed away to deal with another time. Sam and Dean took the guest room in the Summers' home while John headed for a motel; he had no illusions regarding the sort of welcome Joyce was likely to give him. They decided on a family meeting at John's place in the morning.
"All right, dad," Dean demanded, "what's going on? We don't hear from you for frigging forever and you just randomly show up?"
John glowered. "Both of you boys got some serious attitude adjustments coming."
"Dad," Sam interjected angrily, "Dean was dyingand you didn't call us back."
"Where have you been?" Buffy added, more curious than upset.
"Tracking down the damn demon," John replied, ignoring both his sons. "Got word it wanted the Slayer dead and headed this way. Buffy, I had no idea it was you."
The girl shrugged. "Meh. Died, but not really. So?"
"You were going to use the Slayer as bait," Sam surmised. His voice rose. "You were going to let some girl die just so you could track the damn demon!"
"Sam," Dean sighed in an attempt to curtail the impending argument.
"I didn't know it was my damn daughter!" John snarled back.
"And that makes it better?" his youngest son shot back.
"No, it don't, but this is the first real lead I've had on where the thing was supposed to be." John's voice rose to a shout. "This is the thing that killed your mother! Ain't nothing going to stand in my way of getting to that son of a bitch!"
"Even letting some girl die?" asked Buffy quietly.
The arguing men both froze and stared. "No," John replied, "not if I could save her. I was going to try at least," he added with a glare for his son.
"But if she died it wouldn't have mattered." Buffy's tone darkened. "Because you would have gotten to this thing with banana eyes."
Dean snorted. It earned him a deadly look from his father. "Sweetheart," John placated, "I've been looking for this thing before you were even an idea. If I could finally make an end to it then anything was worth the price."
"Including some girl's life. Or mine."
"No. No! Of course not. Goddamnit, Buffy!" cried her father. "I come here, I find out you're the Slayer, that Rupert's been keeping that from men. Don't you know what that means?"
"She who is Chosen to fight the evil, yadda yadda yadda. Duh, dad, I know. But you want to talk about keeping things?" she asked, her tone beginning to echo the vehemence in both her father's and brother's voices. "How about you and Dean and Sam not telling me you were hunters? How about you showing up every couple of months and acting like we're some normal dysfunctional family when really you've got this secret life where you all go out and kill monsters?"
"We were trying to protect you," Dean said softly.
"Fat lot of good that did!" Buffy yelled at him.
"Hey, there ain't no way we could have predicted you were going to get called!"
"So if I hadn't, you would have, what, not told me? Ever?"
"Yeah! So?"
Dean and Buffy's debate devolved into a shouting match with the former insisting that everything had been done for her well-being and the latter denying her supposed fragility. Sam and John attempted to add their own opinions, which of course contradicted one another, and the tiny, dingy motel room became filled with the loud, heated voices of John Winchester and his progeny.
Finally, Buffy stomped her foot and bellowed over the noise, "Okay, okay, shut up, just SHUT UP all of you!" Once it was quiet she swiveled on her heel to face her father. "I'm coming with you guys."
"Absolutely not," John declared.
"Give me one good reason."
"You're going to get hurt," Dean growled.
"It's not safe," added Sam.
"Bullshit!" Buffy cried, the unexpected profanity startling the rest of them into shocked silence. "I'm the Slayer. I can't un-be the Slayer. That means that wherever I go, whatever I do, some baddie might come looking for me. I don't go with you guys, I'm stuck going to L.A. with Hank while mom's doing her travel thing for the art gallery."
"That dick's still around?" John scoffed.
"Yup." She gestured to the right. "Hank." Then to the left. "You guys. Tell me which one you'd choose."
Her father looked thoughtful. "I'm sure Giles didn't do a good enough job training you. Probably don't even know how to load a gun."
"Sure! Bullet go in, pew pew pew. Right?"
While Dean rolled his eyes, Sam turned on John and said, "You are not subjecting Buffy to the sort of life you made us live. Moving every couple of weeks? Sometimes days? Early morning marine regimen, weight lifting? She's got friends and her mom here. She stays."
"He's right, dad," Dean agreed. "She's got it good, better than we'll ever get."
"Don't I get a say in any of this?" asked Buffy.
All three men immediately stated, "No."
"Didn't plan on it," John told his younger son. "She can come until school starts again and Joyce gets home. Then she's right back here."
"Sounds good to me!" Buffy cheered.
"Dad—" Sam began.
"Sam," John interrupted wearily, "who do you think is going to keep her safer? Us? Or that dipshit her mother went and married?"
"Gotcha there, Sammy," Dean smirked.
"It's Sam," his brother groused. "Fine! Whatever."
"Good," John said. "Now, once the time comes she's going with you guys, not with me."
A chorus of objections immediately erupted. With his usual authoritarianism John barked out an order for quiet and his children promptly obeyed. "None of you got any business going where I'm going," he declared. "You two, take her and get her some actual training in."
"You're going off alone," Dean said disbelievingly. "Again. And, what, you're going to just send us orders and expect us to follow them?"
"That's how this works, boy," John firmly told him. "You do what I say and we don't got problems."
Sam, mutinous, made to argue further, but bit his tongue when Buffy stomped on his foot. "Stop it," she hissed.
"When?" Dean asked their father.
"Now," John stated. He moved towards his duffle bag.
"You're not going," Sam declared.
"You giving me more shit, boy?" John snarled.
"Nope," his younger son replied with a sly smirk. "Someone needs to tell Joyce we're taking her daughter on a road trip."
"Should definitely be you, dad," said Dean, his fear of the Summers matriarch apparent.
However, it was Buffy's eager smile and puppy-like eyes that broke their father's protests. "Pleeeease?"
John threw his arms up. "Fine! Wasn't planning on living to a ripe old age anyhow."
At mid-afternoon Willow and Xander found the three siblings sitting around the stoop of the house on Revello Drive. Buffy had claimed the steps, Sam was standing under the tree in the yard, and Dean had taken the spot next to the door. "What's with the poopy faces?" Xander asked. The unabashedly loud and profane imprecations coming from inside answered his query. "Oh."
"What's going on?" Willow wondered as she sat next to Buffy.
"Dad's talking to mom about going with these guys for the summer," she replied. "I talked with her a little but I don't think she thought it was really going to happen."
"Also," Dean added as he thumbed towards the door, "dad didn't ask. He just straight up told Joyce she was going."
"Aww," Willow cooed. "Family road trip! Don't forget to tell Giles or he might get all grumpy."
"I won't, I promise."
"So you'll be working all summer," Xander inferred, "what with the monster hunting. Me, I'm going to be working on the sitting around and the sleeping in."
"A terrible fate, to be sure," Buffy commented.
Willow nudged her friend and whispered, "What about Angel?"
"I'll get his number," Buffy whispered back. "Probably have to text the whole time or Dean'll freak."
When the front door slammed open, Xander fell over with a high-pitched squeal and Buffy and Willow quickly cleared the steps. A livid John Winchester tromped down the porch and went straight for his truck, not bothering to speak a word to his sons or his daughter. They watched, nonplussed, as the man clambered inside, revved the engine, and roared off.
"Seriously?" Sam muttered.
A still incensed Joyce emerged from the house, her arms tightly folded. She had no kind words for either of her former paramour's sons, but she did demand that Buffy join her inside. Willow and Xander spared a moment to say their goodbyes before retreating while the Slayer's brothers unsuccessfully tried to make themselves look small and inconspicuous.
Buffy followed her mother to the kitchen where she was pouring a glass of wine. "Mom?"
"That… That foul-mouthed, selfish, pig-headed…" Joyce trailed off and downed half her glass.
Curious, Buffy sat on a stool and propped her head in her hands. "Why did you hook up with him in the first place? Not like I'm objecting, seeing as how it made awesome little me."
Her mother gave her a wistful smile. "You should have seen your father back then. All rugged manliness and bad-boy attitude. He was sweet, too, and caring, and I think he honestly tried. But it all eventually came back to Mary Winchester and I wasn't interested in becoming just her substitute."
The pair sat in silence for a bit, Joyce slowly sipping the remainder of her Chardonnay and Buffy yearning to know what her summer vacation was going to look like. Eventually, Joyce said, "Well, as long as Sam is there at least somebodynormal and responsible will be around." Her daughter perked up. "I guess you're going whether I like it or not. John made that quite clear."
Buffy slid off her seat and gave her mother the biggest hug she could. "Thank you, mom! I promise to call all the time."
"We'll set up a regular appointment," Joyce replied. "I'll be changing time zones every other week." She put down her glass and gently placed her palms on the sides of her daughter's face. "Promise me you'll be safe?"
"I'm with my two big brothers, mom," Buffy scoffed. "What could possibly happen?"
The vagrant's body slumped over, the terror of his last moments shrouded by several years' growth of matted hair and beard. His assailant kicked a blanket over his corpse and strode to the darker end of the alley.
The demon known currently as Meg stared into her bowl of blood and uttered an incantation. Ripples emanated outward from the center as she made contact. Her eyes filmed over in black. Aurally, a one-sided conversation ensued, with the responses showing as varying waves of red.
"She died, as was planned, but it wasn't permanent. Even so, I felt the passage of power; another has been called… But what about the current Slayer?… Yes, I'll continue to search… I understand…
"Really? Keep killing the Slayers until the one we want is called? Why, father. I'd be happy to!"
Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episodes, "Prophecy Girl" (BtVS 1.12), and "Shadow" (SPN 1.16).
Author's Note : Maria is a Slayer I totally made up. The wikia says that some girl named India was immediately before Buffy, then Nikki Wood before her, but since I moved the timeline up I plugged Maria in there. Fanfiction (jazz hands)!
