Chapter Six:
Nobody was quite sure what was going on with their previously calm and understanding guest, nor what had suddenly turned her into a dangerous and potentially lethal, with her strength, threat any more than they knew who Glory was. They were all sure of one thing though, if anybody got near the angry Slayer, they could find themselves on the end of her wrath.
The Security forces stationed in Sickbay formed a loose perimeter around the Bio-bed that Buffy remained by, the gaps often filled with the nervous medical staff, as well as the command crew and the other strangers. (Known as Slayerettes from here on in.)
After a few minutes tense stand off between Buffy and the rest of the room, the Counselor decided to see if she could step in ease the situation any. After all, she'd been doing a good enough job of that so far today.
"Buffy? Please, try to calm down, nobody wants to hurt you!" Deanna called as she slowly stepped forward.
Drawn by the movement, totally and nothing but the Slayer now, Buffy dropped into an attacking stance and shifted so she could strike at the threat invading her space. Deanna flinched back before Buffy could attack or she took another step. Dawn saw this and rolled her eyes before snorting and pushing her way through the crowd saying, "Oh enough of this! Buffy! Buffy!"
Buffy didn't look, didn't think, only reacted. Before Dawn was fully out of the crowd, a high spinning kick was aimed right at her head, but using the superior android reflexes she found herself with, Dawn easily blocked it. And the follow-up right cross, the two left handed punches, and managed to stop her when Buffy kicked a second time and Dawn caught and held her leg. Then she decided to snap Buffy out of her funk a little more directly than speaking, and leaned forward and lightly slapped her older sister on the cheek, like when trying to wake someone from sleep or unconsciousness.
"Buffy? Hello, McFly, anybody home?!" Dawn drawled, causing Xander to snicker, though even he had no answer as to why he did.
It seemed to do the trick however as in the next moment, Buffy visibly shook her head and snapped her leg back out of Dawn's grasp. Then her face lit up with a mix of relief and joy as she exclaimed, "Dawn!" and embraced the android. The entire "fight" hadn't lasted five seconds.
"Oh my god! Dawn! What happened? Where are we? Where's Glory?" Buffy's question became dark and angry when she asked the last question.
Dawn, also having no clue as to who Glory is, or was, looked around sheepishly for a moment, still in Buffy's embrace, but now they were facing each other. She just said the first thing that came to her mind that she knew would calm Buffy down. "Uh, don't worry Buffy, it's all right. We're safe here. And there is no Glory here. I'm sure of it. And speaking of what happened…"
"Are you sure Glory's not here? If she isn't, then where is she? And where are we? We aren't in Sunnydale are we? No, not even the Initiative looked this hi-tech. She might still be in Sunnydale! Are you sure she isn't here? She might still come after you, I mean us! Maybe just me, but don't worry Dawn, I'm going to make sure she never gets you. I swear it." Buffy interrupted.
"Are you done?" Dawn asked. Then before Buffy could even answer, "Don't worry Buffy. I'm somehow sure that we don't have anything to worry about from Glory. She won't be coming after anybody. And especially not us, here."
"How do you know that?"
Again, looking around sheepishly, Dawn just went with her first instinctive answer. "Because…Glory's dead. That's why she won't be going after anybody."
Buffy blinked in surprise, multiple times. Finally she managed to force out, "How? Who? And again how? I fight this hell bitch for months and don't even make her break a nail and just all of a sudden she's dead! How? I mean literally, how could someone have killed her?"
Looking like she just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Dawn squeaked out, with a little prompting from Data, "You killed her."
Again, Buffy with the rapid eye blinking of the surprised. Then she finally let go of Dawn and stepped back with a stunned look on her face and could only mutter, "Oh."
"And the other reason she can't come after us is that we're in the middle of space on a starship, approximately 420 light years from Sector 001, or Earth. Let alone Sunnydale." Dawn added. Again, that left Buffy blinking from shock.
"Oh," the overwhelmed and confused Slayer repeated.
'Buffy? She's telling the truth. You are safe here, and…you are no longer on Earth,' Deanna empathically explained to the confused girl.
Buffy suddenly started spinning around, the wild look in her eye again, but this time with more fear than anger. "What?! What the…? Who-who said that, what?!!" she screamed.
Dawn immediately understood, having seen Buffy and the Counselor together before and communicate almost as though with their thoughts. "Buffy, it's all right! It was probably just Counselor Troi, calm down!" Dawn said forcefully, grabbing her sister by the shoulders.
Buffy blinked in confusion again in Dawn's arms. "Who?" she asked with no idea.
That startled everybody in the room.
The Captain immediately dragged both the Councilor and the Doctor off to the side, as far away from the "confrontation" as possible and still be in the room. "Doctor, explanations?" he said briskly.
Beverly Crusher took a deep breath and let it out long and slowly as her mind worked overtime as she went over every detail of medical knowledge applying to memory loss. After she let out the long sigh, she looked back up into her commanding officer's eyes and answered, "Well, obviously, the most basic explanation is that Buffy has indeed gotten her memories back, but at the same time, she's lost her memory of the past few hours, ever since she woke up earlier it would seem. Such a case isn't as rare as it is just not commonplace, but it has been known to happen in cases of memory loss. Another factor is trauma. Maybe seeing this "Dawn", who they both claimed is her sister, might have triggered some automatic…reboot of her brain. As for this behavior, well…considering how they all got here and the conditions I found them to be in, I expected much worse. Obviously they've experienced some kind of trauma or something even worse just prior to coming here. Apparently this "Glory" person was the source of it. She might have been the one to throw them all into the vortex to begin with, or maybe they jumped in volunteering to escape her. There's no way to know for certain just yet."
The Counselor had been quiet up until now, speaking as soon as the Doctor had finished her hypothesis. "I sense that the Doctor is right Captain. In more ways than one. Buffy…now that she has nearly fully regained her past memories, is now giving off the impression of a warrior. A very good one at that, if her performance so far is anything to judge. To the others, I sense she feels a great deal of comradery, except towards Spike. And Angel. To Angel, she feels…" Deanna paused as she tried to analyze the Slayer's emotions. Then her expression saddened a great deal as she finished, "…a lost love. Somebody that she loved a great deal, that hurt her, and she can never go back to, no matter how much she may desire to."
The Captain nodded, trying not to express any direct emotion himself on that last observation. "Counselor, before Buffy awoke, you told me that when you and Buffy made telepathic contact with each other, it aroused her hidden memories to show themselves. Do you think that perhaps if you did so again, with her permission this time, that you might be able to arouse her memories of the past few hours?"
The half-Betazoid blinked, considering the request. Then she slowly nodded. "I think I might be able to Captain, but most of it would be up to her."
The Captain nodded, as he always did, and ordered, "Make it so."
As the three officers spoke, Buffy was just becoming aware of the other familiar faces in the room. Her eyes and face lit up when it came to her close friends, Xander and Willow, one of extreme annoyance and at the same time fear at Spike, indifference at Cordelia, but when her eyes rested on the souled vampire next to the former "queen of Sunnydale High", a torrid flash of emotions crossed her face and her heart before being expressed and a whispered sigh, "Angel."
At the sudden mention, that only a very few could hear let alone understand, the souled vampire started and tensed a great deal. Buffy, however, quickly moved on past the rapid flash of intense emotions and returned to the current situation, which seemed to be dealing with these uniformed people, most if not all human if Buffy's gut was telling her anything. She overlooked Cordelia as inconsequential and turned her primary attention to the three officers that were just returning from a side area where Buffy had noticed them speaking in hushed tones.
Other than the single different color collar in the room, as well as the slightly more metal things on said collar, Buffy immediately identified who had to be the leader of this group, mostly from the way he walked and looked at her. Buffy decided that since the only hostile reaction these people had given was against her own hostile actions, that they were willing to play nice and expected her to do the same. And considering the others were here and none of them in the clothes she last remembered them all being in, (save Angel and Cordy), she really didn't see the need in pissing these people off.
Yet, other than the Captain, her attention was also drawn towards the short brunette beside him with a blue collar and one less piece of metal on it. Buffy couldn't explain it, but suddenly she was having a flood of emotions for this person. Like…a trustworthy ally that she had misplaced in her memory…or maybe someone as good a friend as Willow.
Buffy's face scrunched slightly in confusion as the three uniformed people made their way, cautiously she noted, towards her and Dawn through the gap between the Slayer and other people that had formed. Her gaze remained focused on Deanna, as she tried to understand her raging emotions, until they stopped just in front of her and her eyes were drawn back to the leader she had identified.
"Uh…Buffy? Are you…" He started to ask.
"Not a total psycho-maniac right now?" Buffy finished for him, adding in a bit of sheepish embarrassment for any sympathy she could get. Suddenly she felt a swell of amusement that almost made her giggle. She looked at the dark haired woman she felt drawn to and couldn't help feeling that the strange emotion came from her.
Captain Picard smiled that well-known humoring smile of his and nodded in agreement with the statement, "Well, yes. Though from your reaction towards us…am I to understand that you do not recall the previous few hours after you first woke up and were introduced to you and your friends' situation?"
Buffy had been staring at Deanna until the Captain had finished his lengthy question, and at which point Buffy snapped her attention back to him and reviewed what he had just told her. Buffy's face said it before any other part of her could. "Huh?" she deadpanned.
Deanna, and seemingly Dawn as well, could sense the rising panic welling within Buffy. Dawn put her hands tighter around Buffy, hoping that Data's strength would be enough to hold her down if it became necessary again, while Deanna went with a slightly more direct approach.
'It's going to be all right Buffy,' Deanna spoke telepathically in the Slayer's mind once more, 'There's no reason to panic. Everything is going to be all right.'
Buffy stared directly at the Counselor, now having absolutely no doubt in her mind that it was the woman she was staring at that was the source of the voice in her mind. Buffy decided to play it the same way.
'All right! ALL RIGHT! It is not all right, and DO NOT TELL ME! NOT!! TO!! PANIC!!!!' Buffy psi-screamed so loud that for the tail end of her shout, even non-telepaths and empaths in range could easily hear her. Including all of the crew in and around Sickbay for over three decks.
Deanna, however, was the only one negatively affected by Buffy's "volume" and immediately winced her eyes shut in hopes of quelling the mental ringing. Doctor Crusher was immediately by her side, but it proved needless as the second that Buffy stopped shouting, Deanna opened her eyes and shook off the worried attentions of her friend.
Yet it was Buffy that needed the Doctor's attention as three seconds after she finished her "shout" and caught her breath from the unexpected strain, as though she had shouted with her lungs rather than thoughts, a piercing pain worse than any migraine could ever be, shot through Buffy's skull and a vertigo worse than she could ever possibly imagine knocked her off balance. If it hadn't been for Dawn/Data, she would have collapsed to the floor right then. Instead, she just grabbed her head and groaned painfully before coming limp in the android's arms.
"Buffy! Buffy!!" Dawn screeched in pure panic.
"Put her on the bio-bed, NOW!" the Doctor ordered. Dawn immediately complied without any added encouragement.
It was a few more moments before Deanna collected herself enough to command, "No! Leave her alone. She's all right! It was her memories. All of her memories, coming back in a rush. Combined with the power that she just unleashed…it must have hurt like hell. But she's all right."
Stepping back, seeing that the Counselor was correct, everyone watched as Buffy moaned one more time, but this time as one would when waking up rather than in pain. Her hand went to her head once more, but only sorely rubbed her eyes, before she managed to sit up and open her eyes and look around the room.
Taking everything in at a glance, Buffy managed to slide herself into a sitting position with her legs dangling off the side of the bio-bed before moaning, "What happened?"
"Your memories came back," Dawn answered her sister. "At least that is what the Counselor said."
Buffy blinked and then shook her head briefly before blinking rapidly several more times, her eyes moving rapidly back and forth. Shaking her head one last time, Buffy rubbed her eyes again before getting to her feet and asking in a slightly clearer voice, "What happened?"
Before Dawn was about to make some snide sisterly remark, Buffy added, "I mean before I woke up screaming like a madwoman? The last thing I remember…before that…was finding Dawn in the hallway with Security chasing her. What happened in between?"
"You collapsed in the hallway, and we brought you to Sickbay. Again." Dawn answered in her sisterly tone anyway.
Buffy smirked at her "younger" sister but refused to rise to the bait. At least in front of strangers. She then turned to Captain Picard and smiled sheepishly again. "Uh, Captain Picard…I apologize about my behavior…but obviously I wasn't fully myself at the time…"
"It's all right Buffy, so long as your feeling as much yourself from now on," the Captain interrupted, accepting her apology and forgiving at the same time. "Now…do you remember anything more about your past, or what it was that brought you all here Buffy?"
Suddenly Buffy's face and mood darkened a considerable amount as she flashed back on her memories prior to being on the Enterprise. Glory, the battle on the tower, her sister being kidnapped by Ben, who she thought was a trusted friend, the portal opening…jumping…
Buffy's face fell from a dark cloud to utter confusion as she realized that she should be dead…but instead was over 300 light years away from Earth…with her friends…and Angel and Cordy…and Dawn. The Key.
Suddenly it all sparked into place. Buffy grabbed her sister's arm and held it as tight as all her Slayer Strength could muster, surprising everyone.
"Hey!" Dawn shouted and almost easily tore her arm out of her sister's grip.
"Shit," Buffy cursed as she backed away in shock from the android.
Deanna frowned as she sensed the sudden panic and fear course through Buffy and was just as shocked as anyone when the next words out of Buffy's mouth were, "You aren't my sister! No human or vampire could do that! My sister was made out of my blood, pure human. You're the Key!"
The outburst left an uneasy silence in the room until Deanna grabbed the Captain's arm and pulled him in and whispered urgently in his ear. Only Spike, Angel, and Buffy clearly heard what she said to him. A second later, the Captain nodded and turned to Beverly.
"I want this room cleared now!" Jean Luc Picard ordered after receiving an accepting nod from the CMO. In a rush of movement, with only minor hesitation by the Security, the room was cleared save the visitors, the Captain, the Counselor, the Doctor, Dawn, and a single nurse who had remained by the Doctor's side the entire time.
"What the hell do you mean I'm not your sister?!" Dawn shouted, completely ignoring the Captain and everything else going on around them.
"I remember…the Security team said that some kind of energy had invaded and taken control of Data…an android. My sister was made from my blood. She was human. It was a bunch of stupid Russian monks that made her out of some energy thing called the Key. It was why Glory was after us. You aren't my sister, you're the Key!" Buffy answered back.
This shocked Dawn into silence as she tried to focus back on as many memories as she could. She remembered things about "Dawn"…and then she remembered things about other stuff, things that no real human should ever be able to know or understand. And what's worse…she could only remember the "Dawn" things only till the point where Dawn moved to Sunnydale with her mother and Sister after "spending the summer with her father". None of the false memories the monks had given Buffy, her mother, the whole world.
"You're right," Dawn said in a bit of shock, just as Deanna had stepped forward beside Buffy in hopes of calming her down. "I…didn't realize. I was just so panicked after having been alone for so long, and then I found myself inside Data…I didn't realize." She looked up at Buffy, tears streaming down her face. "I…I'm sorry, but…I don't know who else to be. I've only ever been Dawn. And…I think I used to be a part of her… The last thing I remember is being up on the tower when Doc cut me. Then…nothing…for a while. I remember you and the others being with me, and then things got real confusing and I was traveling through space for a long time, and then…something caught me, and held me for an even longer time. Then a bunch of different things started happening. I can't explain it. All I know is…I'm Dawn, and…you're my sister, Buffy."
Buffy's heart broke at the sight of Dawn, even if it wasn't really Dawn, in tears. She almost ran to her and held her like when their parents used to fight all the time, but before she became the Slayer. She restrained herself however and stayed by Deanna.
She thought about what this Dawn…what the Key was telling them, and decided that they needed more answers before they could even decide what to do with her. She turned to Deanna, and telepathically confirmed what she wanted to be done. Deanna was hesitant, but was honest in telling Buffy how to go about it.
Buffy turned sharply at the Doctor and the Captain. "We need to know what the hell happened to us. Now." She ordered. Neither argued, and Dr. Crusher immediately setting about getting as many tests as were available for the Slayerettes and Dawn/Data.