Part 3: Faith in Us
Joyce reached into her daughters' closet and pulled out another one of her blouses. She held it for a long moment, just looking at it.
A few months ago, she would have seen Buffy prancing around in it, and she would silently sigh inwardly about how awful she actually thought it looked. It was part of the mother code, to think that their daughters close are hideous. But now, what she wouldn't give to see her daughter in it.
She brought the shirt up to her face and took a deep breath. It still smelled like her. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see her.
Joyce began to sob to herself when she thought of her beautiful daughter. So young, so full of life. She wasn't supposed to die now.
"Mom," Dawn said in a small voice from the doorway.
She looked up at her youngest daughter, quickly wiping away the tears. Dawn looked nothing like her other daughter. In fact, she favored her ex-husbands mother more then anybody, a woman who had died years before Dawn was even born.
But she hadn't been born, she had been created. This was a fact that the girl was still oblivious to, and Joyce planned to keep it that way. Only she, Rupert, and Buffy had known, and none of them would tell, ever.
But just because Buffy was gone, didn't mean that this Glory woman had stopped looking. In the past couple of months, she had become even more determined to find her daughter. That was what brought her up there that afternoon.
"Mom, why are you packing Buffy's things?"
Joyce gave her daughter a weary smile.
"Sit down, Dawn," she said patting her hand against the patch of carpet next to her.
The fourteen-year-old walked over to where her mother sat and plopped down next to her.
"You've noticed how things around here haven't gotten worse since Buffy...left, right? Well, I've decided that it's just to bad right now. So, we are heading to Aunt Julies for awhile."
"Aunt Julies?! You mean all the way up in Seattle?!" the girl exclaimed. "For how long? Are we moving there?"
"No, we're not moving," she smiled faintly. "We just need to get away for awhile. Let things cool off around here. We'll be back, I promise."
Dawn leaned her head against her mothers shoulder.
"That still doesn't explain why you're packing some of Buffy's things."
"Because, honey," she said weakly. "I need to take a little something of her with us."
*****
She could feel him, his cool skin against her hot, touching her, loving her. Her logical side was screaming at her, demanding that she stop the action right at that moment, but she was far past the point of caring. She was just giving in to what she wanted. Living in the moment, as Parker once told her. Regrets and horror was sure to follow when logic took over again, but right now it meant nothing. All that matter right then, was them.
Buffy woke up from the memory with a quick jerk of breath.
She had been right; logic did take back over the next morning, when she found herself alone in bed. At first, she had tried to convince herself that she had simply dreamed the whole thing, that her mind had played a trick on her into thinking that somebody was there. But she could smell him on her. No matter how many showers she took, she didn't seem to be able to wash the sent away.
Furious didn't come close to what she felt when she became good old Buffy again. She was beyond angry with him for taking advantage of her like that, for giving in and doing that with her. But what she should have expected from a soulless demon whose purpose seems to be to make her life miserable.
The real person she was angry at was herself. She had aloud it to happen. In fact, she had been the one to instigate the whole action. And then, she didn't exactly fight any when it was going on. Well, not the right kind of fighting anyway.
To vent her anger, she had taken the mattress off that accursed bed, set it up against one of the walls, and proceeded to knock the snot out of it. She did this every day and it did seem to help. So she went on to finding other work outs that she could do while trapped there. She would run back and forth from one side of her cell to the other, do what little gymnastics she could in the limited space, and also shadow fight. All this helped with her anger, not to mention kept her in shape for whenever she got a hold of these people or Spike.
A while after that night happened, she was darting from one end of the room to the other, and began to think about home.
Did they have any idea what happened to her? Were they looking for her? Were Giles and her Mom able to keep Glory from finding out about Dawn? Was her Mom getting any better?
The questions were wreaking havoc with her mind and she suddenly felt dizzy. These guys hadn't drugged her because she hadn't eaten yet that day, and that always made her feel sleepy anyway. Buffy reached out to steady herself on the wall, but the world would stop spinning. The next thing she knew, the floor was rushing up at her before blackness took her.
That was when she woke up here, back in the hospital room. At the time, she had surprised them as they were trying to do something to her. Though they had her strapped down, she was still almost able to set herself free. While seven of them held her down, a nurse came in and gave her something to calm her down. It didn't take her long before she was out again.
Now she was alone in the room. The first thing she tried when she regained consciousness was to pull on her arms, only to find herself still strapped to the bed. Normally, she would have been able to break them with no problem, but the drugs were still making her feel rather groggy. So, the slayer just laid back and looked out the window that they had left opened this time.
It was a bright blue day outside without a cloud in sight. Off in the distance, the clear ocean water was pounding against the white sandy beach, as wind blew across the top of the trees. Now that she was actually looking, Buffy realized that it wasn't a forest at all, but a jungle. She recognized the canopy top from pitchers she had seen in her high school geography book.
Sitting up slightly in bed, she said to herself, "Where am I?"
"In the South Seas," a woman answered from the doorway.
Buffy jerked her head over to find a middle age Asian woman standing there. She was holding a clip board, as she crossed over and stood beside the window.
"About fifty miles off the coast of China, give or take a mile or two," she went on before turning and looking at Buffy. "My name is Lang, by the way."
"You name is dead meat when I get a hold of you," she bit back at her, still pulling on the straps.
Lang gave her a faint smile.
"What are you planning, Ms Summers? To break free and escape?"
"Thought occurred to me, yeah."
"And where would you go? We're on an island, remember. An island that we control through and through. There is no where for you to run, no where to hide, and no way off without our knowing," she said calmly. "Now I've come here to offer you a choice. We can either continue on with our current arrangement, which I think is not very healthy for you, or you decided to corporate with us and we make life very good for you."
"And why would I want to corporate with the people who kidnapped me, leave me alone for months, put Spike in my room only to take him away before I could stake his sorry ass, and drug me whenever they feel like it? Seems the last thing I would want to do would be to get along with you people."
Lang let out a breath and looked down at the clip board in her hand.
"If I were you, Ms Summers, I would seriously consider my offer."
"And why is that?"
Lang walked over and sat down on the bed. Man, this really was a brave woman!
"Because, Buffy," she said gently. "You're pregnant."
*****
Quinton Travers sat at his desk as Giles entered the man's office.
He couldn't remember the last time he was here, maybe it was when they told him he was getting his own slayer, but the place hadn't changed a bit. It was still dark, with dark wood paneling; bookshelves covered with leather bound first additions, and evil looking little statues that were used as stoppers on either end of the line of books.
Travers seemed to be rather involved with whatever he was doing, and only looked up at Giles after the man got up and fixed him a drink. He never was one to like to share his liquor, and the middle age man knew it would get his attention. Travers quickly finished what he was doing as Giles took his seat again.
"Well, Mr. Giles, what can I do for you?"
"I've come to find out why a new slayer hasn't been called since-" his voice became soft as he thought of a good word that wouldn't hurt so bad to say, "the incident. It's been over six months, and things on the Hellmouth have gotten worse."
"I've had my people look into that," he said as he leaned back in his chair. "Apparently, Ms. Summers successor was called with Kendra, which in turn means that a new Chosen One will not be called for her second death. I'm afraid the only slayer now is Ms. Faith, and will be until her death."
"And she's in jail," Giles added more for himself then Travers.
"A very unfortunate situation that we are now trying to fix."
Giles frowned at the tone. Their definition of 'fixing' the situation probably meant that poor Faith would end up dead.
"Don't look so worried, Rupert," Travers said with a slight laugh. "Ms. Faith will be fine. I have my men working with the California courts to try and overturn her conviction and set her free."
"Oh, so she only winds up dead if the courts say that she has to stay," he added dryly.
"None of that, Mr. Giles," Quinton warned. "You have to have little faith in us. You use to before."
"That was a long time ago," he answered as he stood. He placed the glass still filled with the brown liquid on the desk "Very long ago."
"Mr. Travers," a voice called over the intercom. "There's call for you on line two."
"Thank you, Lindsey," he said before turning back to Giles. "If there is nothing more, Rupert."
"No, there's not," Giles said as he took his coat off the rack, headed for the door, and wondered why he had come there in the first place.
*****