Buffy, or rather, the Buffy who had emerged two hours ago, drove like she
did everything else: purposefully, and in complete control. Her hands
were clutching the steering wheel with a force that turned her knuckles
white. She moved fluidly in and out of traffic. I was scared to look at
the speedometer, but judging from the blur of the passing scenery, I
wagered she was going very above the speed limit.
She'd turned the radio off as soon as she'd heard it. The only sounds in the car were our breathing, and the hum of the air conditioner. Occasionally, she'd tap one of her fingers on the underside of the wheel.
I was afraid to speak to her. This strange woman was not my fragile, beautiful sister. This Buffy was not broken, and mine was. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I was the younger sister. I also felt like I'd been abducted.
As far as I'd been told, Sunnydale didn't exist. It was part of Buffy's land of make believe. I hoped she wouldn't relapse when we got to wherever Sunnydale was supposed to be. I wasn't sure I was in any condition to drive the both of us back. My legs felt like jelly, and my wrist still bore the imprints of Buffy's fingers.
"Dawn?" Buffy addressed me in a way that made it clear she regarded me as a poor imposter of her real sister. Then the first hint of uncertainty entered her voice as she asked, "How long was I in that hospital?"
"Since before I was born. You've been there since you were fifteen, so – twenty-seven years."
"You're lying." The sureness was back. "It couldn't have been more than a few days. I don't know who you are, or why you have my sister's name, but I swear, if you hurt her, you will know why you should never mess with the Slayer."
"Buffy, you have to listen to me. I didn't do anything. I'm your sister, and I love you, but you're scaring me. None of what you're saying is real. It's all part of an elaborate delusion you've created." I'd heard the doctors tell her that time and again, but I knew she never heard them.
"Something about this whole situation is giving me an eerie sense of déjà vu." Buffy had a crease in her brow between her eyes. She bit her lip, and pressed down harder on the accelerator.
Suddenly, she hit the brakes. I was thrown forward and back with enough force that it made me glad I was wearing my seatbelt. Before I could ask what was wrong, I saw for myself why she had stopped. In the middle of the highway was a child's car seat.
We got out of the car after pulling over to the side of the road. There was no traffic, so Buffy ran right to the car seat, and swooped it up from where it was resting. She brought it back, and placed it on the hood of my car, then slid down the side, until she was sitting on the pavement of the shoulder. Her head rested near the wheel well, and I absurdly worried about her dirtying her newly washed hair. I bent down to look at her, and discovered that she was crying.
I walked over to her. I wasn't sure what I should say, or what I could say. I didn't know why she was crying, but I was sure it was because of the car seat. It seemed to me that if I asked her what she was thinking, why she was upset, that I would be playing into her fantasy, and I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or not. So I kept quiet, until I heard her choke back a sob.
"Buffy? Honey, what happened?" I was back to using the voice I usually used with her. A quiet voice, soothing as I could make it. I knelt down next to her, and tried to take her hands in mind, but she snatched them away as soon as I made contact with her skin.
Buffy stood up and stepped over me. She walked around to the front of the car, and looked at the object sitting there again. She looked at me, and then looked down. I got up and looked at the car seat, and immediately wished I hadn't. It was stained. With blood.
"It was Henry's. I know because it's scuffed in the corner from where Kristin dropped it." Her voice had lost its urgency, and she seemed flat and hopeless. Nothing made sense to me, but I was beginning to believe that something about everything that had happened this afternoon was several degrees above normal. "I'm tired, Dawnie. Will you drive?"
"Where?" I didn't know how I could possibly drive us to Sunnydale.
"Home, I guess. Please don't take me back to that place. I just want to lie down." She was idly tracing the pattern on ducks on the fabric of the car seat, carefully avoiding the thick, dark stain in the center.
Personally, I didn't want to go home. My apartment was the size of a cubicle, and I didn't know where I'd put Buffy. Plus, I was irrationally paranoid that the police were staking my place out, with guns readied and drawn, waiting to arrest me for kidnapping my sister. I didn't want to take Buffy back, either. I finally settled on taking us to a hotel and checking in for the night. I needed time to parse the events of the day.
"Let's go to the Holiday Inn." I stated it simply, and hoped that she didn't ask why we weren't going home. I didn't know what she expected home to be, but I knew it wasn't a dingy apartment that smelled of cat.
Buffy got in the passenger door and sat, staring straight ahead, the car seat on her lap. She didn't put her seatbelt on until I reminded her to. She didn't say anything else for fifteen minutes. Then: "I want to call Giles."
"When we get to the hotel, you can call whoever you want to." I didn't want to argue with her, or tell her that she couldn't call Giles, because he wasn't real. The car seat scared me. I knew it had to be some strange coincidence, but the explanation she gave of its ownership seemed to somehow ring true. I wanted to know more about it.
"Buffy, who's Henry?"
"He's my nephew. Dawnie's baby. It's his birthday today. We were all driving to get ice cream when we hit - I don't even know what we hit." She stared at nothing as she spoke, and it seemed that she had to concentrate on how to move her lips to make the words come. "I was driving."
"Who is 'we all'?"
"Me. Dawn. Kristin and Henry. Spike couldn't come. It was light out." Right, cause Spike was a vampire. I knew a lot about Buffy's world, but I'd never heard before of the other Dawn having babies. It was strange how she talked about some things, and not others.
"What about my - Dawn's - husband?"
"Jack's dead. Vampire. Seven months ago. Dawn was living with me in Mom's old house, and I really shouldn't be telling you all this because I still don't completely trust you."
"I-I'm sorry." I'm not sure if I'm apologizing for Jack, or for the fact that she didn't trust me. There are some situations where the only thing you can and not seem heartless is apologize. Death always made me skittery. When Mom died, all I wanted was to be left alone. Instead I got casseroles.
We drive on. Buffy picks at the upholstery stitching. I sing under my breath. It's a song Mom used to sing to me when I was a child, scared of the dark, and too tired to fall asleep.
"Came from his castle grand…" I think I was trying to sooth both Buffy and myself.
"Came to my cottage door." Buffy was singing along with me.
"His words were few but his looks will linger forevermore." She turned to me then, and she actually smiled. Something about it made me start to believe her.
* * *
We got to the Holiday Inn twenty minutes later. We'd spent the rest of the drive in companionable silence.
I walked into the room, and threw my purse on one of the double beds. It was a standard hotel room, with ugly art on the wall, and uglier bedspreads. An ice bucket sat on the desk, and I grabbed it, eager to get out for a few seconds before the next inevitable confrontation.
I filled the bucket with watery ice, and stood at the machine for a minute longer than I had to, mesmerized by the broken brown plastic and bent metal. Children shrieked fifty feet behind me, in the pool. The air was warm and smelled of chlorine. Usually, I loved that smell. It reminded me of being ten and diving for pennies, or six, riding on my dad's back with orange plastic floaties on my arms. Now it just seemed suffocating. I sighed and trudged back to the room.
Buffy was on the other bed when I got back. She was holding the phone to her ear. It looked like she was listening to it ring. She was tapping her foot at a rapid pace that was jiggling the bed, and the she'd wrapped the cord around her fingers. "Come on…" she pleaded to the phone.
Then.
"Hello? Giles? No, Rupert Giles. Oh. Oh, okay. Could you wake him up? I need to talk to him. It's kind of urgent." She spoke in a clipped tone, biting each word off.
I stepped closer to her, and she held out a hand, stopping me.
"No, I don't think you understand. Who are you?" A pause, then she blinked. "Giles doesn't have a son."
I felt sorry for whoever was on the other end of that conversation. Then it struck me – she'd gotten a hold of someone. There was someone in England, presumably who knew someone named Rupert Giles, and he had the same phone number Buffy must have known. Though I supposed she could have dialed information. Was there international information? I didn't know; I'd never called anyone more than 300 miles away from me.
Buffy's voice was becoming increasingly louder and more agitated. "Look, I know he's getting to be an old man. I know he's taking a nap, but this is important. Just put him on the fucking phone, William." She put special emphasis on the last word, making it come out like a sneer.
The reply from the man Buffy was talking to was so loud I could hear it across the room. "You listen to me, you stupid bint. My father is sleeping, and I'm not going to wake him up to talk to some bloody insane American woman. Bother someone else." Click. He'd hung up on her.
Buffy threw the phone across the room. It crashed into the wall, leaving a dent. "Fucking hell! Just – SHIT!" She stood up and kicked the desk. I was scared she was going to throw a full-fledged temper tantrum, complete with kicking and pulling at her hair. She must have seen the look on my face, though, because she calmed down.
"What now?" I asked her.
"I don't know. Giles will know what's going on, he always does. But the asshole I was talking to wouldn't let me talk to Giles. I guess you gathered that?" I nodded. "I'd fly to England right now, but I don't have the resources. And look at what I'm wearing! I look like cotton candy personified."
I looked down. I'd picked out those pajamas. They were a little too pink for a grown woman, but I liked them.
"Do you have any idea about what's happening?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I have theories, but they're just that. My best guess is that I've been pulled into some sort of alternate reality, but I don't have much experience with that, and I wouldn't know where to start researching if I can't talk to Giles."
It sounded like science fiction. But for some reason, it also felt right. When weird things happened, it was so easy to skip right past the solution that was completely out there, even if it made the most sense. I'd always wanted to believe in the supernatural. I had sometimes secretly envied Buffy and her world.
"Can you tell me more about where you're from? I mean, if this is an alternate reality to you, what is your reality like?" I was genuinely curious.
Buffy sat back down on the bed. I sat on the other bed, crossed my legs Indian style and leaned closer to her. I was like a child at a library story hour. It was ridiculous but I didn't care. I wanted to hear a story.
"I don't even know where to start," she said. "I'm the Slayer. Do you know what that means?"
I did. I'd heard it from Buffy's doctors. "One girl in all the world with the strength and skills to hunt the vampires?" I smiled, hoping she'd be pleased I knew the answer.
"Yeah, that's it. I'm not exactly a girl anymore, but I'm still the Slayer. Or, one of them. There've been two since I died the first time. I've been the Slayer most of my life. I've lived in Sunnydale almost as long. I'm a freelance photographer. I have a sister, Dawn, who is also my best friend. I love her more than just about anything." She looked at me and smiled as she said the last bit. My heart swelled with pride.
"Are you married?" I wondered.
"No. Marriage and children are just too domestic for my lifestyle. I couldn't even maintain a semblance of a normal relationship for the longest time. I'm in one now, but it's not normal. I realized that I'd be a lot happier if I stopped trying to be someone I'm not." She spoke slowly, and with conviction. "I'm in love with a vampire. Spike's his name. We've been together almost twenty years now."
The way she said that made me think that she'd said it many times before, and was sick of justifying her choice. Like she expected to be judged for it. I certainly wasn't going to judge. I knew nothing about vampires; I didn't even believe in them. I felt she wanted my approval, though. I didn't know how to give it, so I just smiled at her, and then asked, "Do you want to tell me about him?"
"There's no way I really could. He defies description. He's brave and loyal, but he's also petty and demanding, and sometimes he makes me so mad I want to pummel him. I even have on occasion, a long time ago. He's complicated and beautiful, and he's mine." She shrugged. "Spike is something you have to experience yourself."
"I think I get your meaning," I said. "Would you tell me about… me? About Dawn?"
"Like I said before, Dawn is my best friend. She's actually one of my only friends. She's beautiful, but she doesn't look like you. She's a high school teacher. So was Jack. Dawn's probably the strongest person I know. She's certainly stronger than I am. When Jack died, she kept it together so well. She's kind, and funny, and she's a wonderful mother. And now I'm making her sound like a saint, and she isn't. She also takes my clothes without asking. Still! You'd think that a grown woman would ask, but since I'm her sister, she thinks it's her right or something." Buffy laughed, and looked down at what she was wearing. "These would have been safe, though."
"We're going to need to get you some clothes." I said. "I'm starving, too. Let's order a pizza."
"That's a great idea. You order it – anything but mushroom. I need to take a shower. I've got tire dirt in my hair." Buffy got up and went into the bathroom, leaving me alone.
I ordered a pizza, which would be there in thirty to forty-five minutes. I sat down on the bed and pulled my legs to my chest. I was glad Buffy was actually talking to me now. She'd laughed with me, and she'd told me things. The more she talked, the harder it was to believe what I had my entire life – that Buffy was out of her mind. I needed something to occupy my mind. I turned the television on.
Commercial, commercial, news… Wait. "The window was broken, and the resident of the room, Buffy Summers, is missing. Police are investigating this as a possible abduction, and…" I turned the television off.
I was very glad we hadn't gone to my place. We obviously couldn't go there now. They'd just take Buffy back, and pump her full of drugs, and she'd drool and smile and not talk anymore. So that wasn't an option. We'd stay here for the night. Tomorrow we'd have to get clothes for Buffy, and formulate some kind of plan. I didn't know where to go, but I had the feeling Buffy had some sort of plan. Or if she didn't, she'd think of one. I was already deferring to her, and she'd only been lucid six hours or so.
It was probably wrong, but I felt almost giddy. It was like some kind of grand adventure. On the lam. Something supernatural afoot. And my sister, awake. At this point, she was probably more awake than I was. Sitting still made me realize just how tired I was. I kicked myself under the covers, rolled over, and closed my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep, because I was startled awake by three things happening at once: Buffy stepped out of the shower, someone knocked on the door, and the phone rang. I sat up and blinked groggily.
"Get the phone, you're closer," said Buffy, who was wearing a hotel bathrobe. "I'll get the pizza. Is the money nearby?"
"On the desk." I pointed. By this time the phone was on the fifth ring. I secretly hoped whoever it was would hang up before I answered it. No one knew we were here.
"Hello?" I mumbled into the handset.
"Hello," said a British accented male voice. "Is Buffy Summers there by any chance? I'd like to talk to her. This is Rupert Giles."
She'd turned the radio off as soon as she'd heard it. The only sounds in the car were our breathing, and the hum of the air conditioner. Occasionally, she'd tap one of her fingers on the underside of the wheel.
I was afraid to speak to her. This strange woman was not my fragile, beautiful sister. This Buffy was not broken, and mine was. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like I was the younger sister. I also felt like I'd been abducted.
As far as I'd been told, Sunnydale didn't exist. It was part of Buffy's land of make believe. I hoped she wouldn't relapse when we got to wherever Sunnydale was supposed to be. I wasn't sure I was in any condition to drive the both of us back. My legs felt like jelly, and my wrist still bore the imprints of Buffy's fingers.
"Dawn?" Buffy addressed me in a way that made it clear she regarded me as a poor imposter of her real sister. Then the first hint of uncertainty entered her voice as she asked, "How long was I in that hospital?"
"Since before I was born. You've been there since you were fifteen, so – twenty-seven years."
"You're lying." The sureness was back. "It couldn't have been more than a few days. I don't know who you are, or why you have my sister's name, but I swear, if you hurt her, you will know why you should never mess with the Slayer."
"Buffy, you have to listen to me. I didn't do anything. I'm your sister, and I love you, but you're scaring me. None of what you're saying is real. It's all part of an elaborate delusion you've created." I'd heard the doctors tell her that time and again, but I knew she never heard them.
"Something about this whole situation is giving me an eerie sense of déjà vu." Buffy had a crease in her brow between her eyes. She bit her lip, and pressed down harder on the accelerator.
Suddenly, she hit the brakes. I was thrown forward and back with enough force that it made me glad I was wearing my seatbelt. Before I could ask what was wrong, I saw for myself why she had stopped. In the middle of the highway was a child's car seat.
We got out of the car after pulling over to the side of the road. There was no traffic, so Buffy ran right to the car seat, and swooped it up from where it was resting. She brought it back, and placed it on the hood of my car, then slid down the side, until she was sitting on the pavement of the shoulder. Her head rested near the wheel well, and I absurdly worried about her dirtying her newly washed hair. I bent down to look at her, and discovered that she was crying.
I walked over to her. I wasn't sure what I should say, or what I could say. I didn't know why she was crying, but I was sure it was because of the car seat. It seemed to me that if I asked her what she was thinking, why she was upset, that I would be playing into her fantasy, and I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or not. So I kept quiet, until I heard her choke back a sob.
"Buffy? Honey, what happened?" I was back to using the voice I usually used with her. A quiet voice, soothing as I could make it. I knelt down next to her, and tried to take her hands in mind, but she snatched them away as soon as I made contact with her skin.
Buffy stood up and stepped over me. She walked around to the front of the car, and looked at the object sitting there again. She looked at me, and then looked down. I got up and looked at the car seat, and immediately wished I hadn't. It was stained. With blood.
"It was Henry's. I know because it's scuffed in the corner from where Kristin dropped it." Her voice had lost its urgency, and she seemed flat and hopeless. Nothing made sense to me, but I was beginning to believe that something about everything that had happened this afternoon was several degrees above normal. "I'm tired, Dawnie. Will you drive?"
"Where?" I didn't know how I could possibly drive us to Sunnydale.
"Home, I guess. Please don't take me back to that place. I just want to lie down." She was idly tracing the pattern on ducks on the fabric of the car seat, carefully avoiding the thick, dark stain in the center.
Personally, I didn't want to go home. My apartment was the size of a cubicle, and I didn't know where I'd put Buffy. Plus, I was irrationally paranoid that the police were staking my place out, with guns readied and drawn, waiting to arrest me for kidnapping my sister. I didn't want to take Buffy back, either. I finally settled on taking us to a hotel and checking in for the night. I needed time to parse the events of the day.
"Let's go to the Holiday Inn." I stated it simply, and hoped that she didn't ask why we weren't going home. I didn't know what she expected home to be, but I knew it wasn't a dingy apartment that smelled of cat.
Buffy got in the passenger door and sat, staring straight ahead, the car seat on her lap. She didn't put her seatbelt on until I reminded her to. She didn't say anything else for fifteen minutes. Then: "I want to call Giles."
"When we get to the hotel, you can call whoever you want to." I didn't want to argue with her, or tell her that she couldn't call Giles, because he wasn't real. The car seat scared me. I knew it had to be some strange coincidence, but the explanation she gave of its ownership seemed to somehow ring true. I wanted to know more about it.
"Buffy, who's Henry?"
"He's my nephew. Dawnie's baby. It's his birthday today. We were all driving to get ice cream when we hit - I don't even know what we hit." She stared at nothing as she spoke, and it seemed that she had to concentrate on how to move her lips to make the words come. "I was driving."
"Who is 'we all'?"
"Me. Dawn. Kristin and Henry. Spike couldn't come. It was light out." Right, cause Spike was a vampire. I knew a lot about Buffy's world, but I'd never heard before of the other Dawn having babies. It was strange how she talked about some things, and not others.
"What about my - Dawn's - husband?"
"Jack's dead. Vampire. Seven months ago. Dawn was living with me in Mom's old house, and I really shouldn't be telling you all this because I still don't completely trust you."
"I-I'm sorry." I'm not sure if I'm apologizing for Jack, or for the fact that she didn't trust me. There are some situations where the only thing you can and not seem heartless is apologize. Death always made me skittery. When Mom died, all I wanted was to be left alone. Instead I got casseroles.
We drive on. Buffy picks at the upholstery stitching. I sing under my breath. It's a song Mom used to sing to me when I was a child, scared of the dark, and too tired to fall asleep.
"Came from his castle grand…" I think I was trying to sooth both Buffy and myself.
"Came to my cottage door." Buffy was singing along with me.
"His words were few but his looks will linger forevermore." She turned to me then, and she actually smiled. Something about it made me start to believe her.
* * *
We got to the Holiday Inn twenty minutes later. We'd spent the rest of the drive in companionable silence.
I walked into the room, and threw my purse on one of the double beds. It was a standard hotel room, with ugly art on the wall, and uglier bedspreads. An ice bucket sat on the desk, and I grabbed it, eager to get out for a few seconds before the next inevitable confrontation.
I filled the bucket with watery ice, and stood at the machine for a minute longer than I had to, mesmerized by the broken brown plastic and bent metal. Children shrieked fifty feet behind me, in the pool. The air was warm and smelled of chlorine. Usually, I loved that smell. It reminded me of being ten and diving for pennies, or six, riding on my dad's back with orange plastic floaties on my arms. Now it just seemed suffocating. I sighed and trudged back to the room.
Buffy was on the other bed when I got back. She was holding the phone to her ear. It looked like she was listening to it ring. She was tapping her foot at a rapid pace that was jiggling the bed, and the she'd wrapped the cord around her fingers. "Come on…" she pleaded to the phone.
Then.
"Hello? Giles? No, Rupert Giles. Oh. Oh, okay. Could you wake him up? I need to talk to him. It's kind of urgent." She spoke in a clipped tone, biting each word off.
I stepped closer to her, and she held out a hand, stopping me.
"No, I don't think you understand. Who are you?" A pause, then she blinked. "Giles doesn't have a son."
I felt sorry for whoever was on the other end of that conversation. Then it struck me – she'd gotten a hold of someone. There was someone in England, presumably who knew someone named Rupert Giles, and he had the same phone number Buffy must have known. Though I supposed she could have dialed information. Was there international information? I didn't know; I'd never called anyone more than 300 miles away from me.
Buffy's voice was becoming increasingly louder and more agitated. "Look, I know he's getting to be an old man. I know he's taking a nap, but this is important. Just put him on the fucking phone, William." She put special emphasis on the last word, making it come out like a sneer.
The reply from the man Buffy was talking to was so loud I could hear it across the room. "You listen to me, you stupid bint. My father is sleeping, and I'm not going to wake him up to talk to some bloody insane American woman. Bother someone else." Click. He'd hung up on her.
Buffy threw the phone across the room. It crashed into the wall, leaving a dent. "Fucking hell! Just – SHIT!" She stood up and kicked the desk. I was scared she was going to throw a full-fledged temper tantrum, complete with kicking and pulling at her hair. She must have seen the look on my face, though, because she calmed down.
"What now?" I asked her.
"I don't know. Giles will know what's going on, he always does. But the asshole I was talking to wouldn't let me talk to Giles. I guess you gathered that?" I nodded. "I'd fly to England right now, but I don't have the resources. And look at what I'm wearing! I look like cotton candy personified."
I looked down. I'd picked out those pajamas. They were a little too pink for a grown woman, but I liked them.
"Do you have any idea about what's happening?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I have theories, but they're just that. My best guess is that I've been pulled into some sort of alternate reality, but I don't have much experience with that, and I wouldn't know where to start researching if I can't talk to Giles."
It sounded like science fiction. But for some reason, it also felt right. When weird things happened, it was so easy to skip right past the solution that was completely out there, even if it made the most sense. I'd always wanted to believe in the supernatural. I had sometimes secretly envied Buffy and her world.
"Can you tell me more about where you're from? I mean, if this is an alternate reality to you, what is your reality like?" I was genuinely curious.
Buffy sat back down on the bed. I sat on the other bed, crossed my legs Indian style and leaned closer to her. I was like a child at a library story hour. It was ridiculous but I didn't care. I wanted to hear a story.
"I don't even know where to start," she said. "I'm the Slayer. Do you know what that means?"
I did. I'd heard it from Buffy's doctors. "One girl in all the world with the strength and skills to hunt the vampires?" I smiled, hoping she'd be pleased I knew the answer.
"Yeah, that's it. I'm not exactly a girl anymore, but I'm still the Slayer. Or, one of them. There've been two since I died the first time. I've been the Slayer most of my life. I've lived in Sunnydale almost as long. I'm a freelance photographer. I have a sister, Dawn, who is also my best friend. I love her more than just about anything." She looked at me and smiled as she said the last bit. My heart swelled with pride.
"Are you married?" I wondered.
"No. Marriage and children are just too domestic for my lifestyle. I couldn't even maintain a semblance of a normal relationship for the longest time. I'm in one now, but it's not normal. I realized that I'd be a lot happier if I stopped trying to be someone I'm not." She spoke slowly, and with conviction. "I'm in love with a vampire. Spike's his name. We've been together almost twenty years now."
The way she said that made me think that she'd said it many times before, and was sick of justifying her choice. Like she expected to be judged for it. I certainly wasn't going to judge. I knew nothing about vampires; I didn't even believe in them. I felt she wanted my approval, though. I didn't know how to give it, so I just smiled at her, and then asked, "Do you want to tell me about him?"
"There's no way I really could. He defies description. He's brave and loyal, but he's also petty and demanding, and sometimes he makes me so mad I want to pummel him. I even have on occasion, a long time ago. He's complicated and beautiful, and he's mine." She shrugged. "Spike is something you have to experience yourself."
"I think I get your meaning," I said. "Would you tell me about… me? About Dawn?"
"Like I said before, Dawn is my best friend. She's actually one of my only friends. She's beautiful, but she doesn't look like you. She's a high school teacher. So was Jack. Dawn's probably the strongest person I know. She's certainly stronger than I am. When Jack died, she kept it together so well. She's kind, and funny, and she's a wonderful mother. And now I'm making her sound like a saint, and she isn't. She also takes my clothes without asking. Still! You'd think that a grown woman would ask, but since I'm her sister, she thinks it's her right or something." Buffy laughed, and looked down at what she was wearing. "These would have been safe, though."
"We're going to need to get you some clothes." I said. "I'm starving, too. Let's order a pizza."
"That's a great idea. You order it – anything but mushroom. I need to take a shower. I've got tire dirt in my hair." Buffy got up and went into the bathroom, leaving me alone.
I ordered a pizza, which would be there in thirty to forty-five minutes. I sat down on the bed and pulled my legs to my chest. I was glad Buffy was actually talking to me now. She'd laughed with me, and she'd told me things. The more she talked, the harder it was to believe what I had my entire life – that Buffy was out of her mind. I needed something to occupy my mind. I turned the television on.
Commercial, commercial, news… Wait. "The window was broken, and the resident of the room, Buffy Summers, is missing. Police are investigating this as a possible abduction, and…" I turned the television off.
I was very glad we hadn't gone to my place. We obviously couldn't go there now. They'd just take Buffy back, and pump her full of drugs, and she'd drool and smile and not talk anymore. So that wasn't an option. We'd stay here for the night. Tomorrow we'd have to get clothes for Buffy, and formulate some kind of plan. I didn't know where to go, but I had the feeling Buffy had some sort of plan. Or if she didn't, she'd think of one. I was already deferring to her, and she'd only been lucid six hours or so.
It was probably wrong, but I felt almost giddy. It was like some kind of grand adventure. On the lam. Something supernatural afoot. And my sister, awake. At this point, she was probably more awake than I was. Sitting still made me realize just how tired I was. I kicked myself under the covers, rolled over, and closed my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep, because I was startled awake by three things happening at once: Buffy stepped out of the shower, someone knocked on the door, and the phone rang. I sat up and blinked groggily.
"Get the phone, you're closer," said Buffy, who was wearing a hotel bathrobe. "I'll get the pizza. Is the money nearby?"
"On the desk." I pointed. By this time the phone was on the fifth ring. I secretly hoped whoever it was would hang up before I answered it. No one knew we were here.
"Hello?" I mumbled into the handset.
"Hello," said a British accented male voice. "Is Buffy Summers there by any chance? I'd like to talk to her. This is Rupert Giles."