Twist of Fate: Chapter 21
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
"-and then I pulled the trigger and woosh!" Willow exclaimed, her hands flying energetically in the air as she gestured wildly around them, "out went the little pointy arrow and boom, in it goes, right in the eye!" she laughed, clapping her hands together. "And then the demon was just sploosh as it went all gooey on my shoes!"
Shouldering the heavy bag, Xander made his way through the familiar courtyard, nodding in all of the appropriate places as Willow continued to babble at his side. It had been another long night of patrol and Xander felt his muscles ache at the reminder. Oz was still out of commission with a mangled ankle and the bump on Giles' head from the night before was nasty enough for the two teens to insist on doing the patrol as a tag team that night. They didn't need another close call like last week. They didn't know what they would do if they lost Giles - even if there wasn't a Slayer to watch, they needed his expertise and guidance now more than ever... that and they couldn't handle another loss. Not again. "Uh, check," Xander quickly added, noticing a pause in Willow's excited tirade, "icky goo mess."
"You can say that again," Willow laughed, wrinkling her nose as she paused long enough to inspect said shoes. "I'm still trying to get that other demon mess out of my dorm carpet from last month!" she added, sighing dramatically as they neared the familiar wooden door. "But still, big old check in the demon slayage department! And ooh! No new addition to the injured players list!" she stated proudly as she swept inside, not even bothering to knock. Sometimes she wondered if Giles ever became annoyed with this fact, but then quickly pushed it aside at the thought that Giles had other, more important things to worry about than his lack of privacy. "And in... the..." she trailed off, her eyes locking on the finger that was being held to her boyfriend's lips from his place on the couch. Nodding slowly, Willow continued into the room, Xander closing the door firmly behind him as she crossed over to join Oz on the couch. "What's going on?" she whispered, scooting over to make room for her best friend.
"Council conversation," Oz whispered back, nodding towards the kitchen. "Very important-"
"And I don't give a damn about your meetings or deliberations!" Giles' angry voice rang out, cutting off the rest of Oz's words as all eyes turned to the kitchen, just able to catch glimpses of his furious form as he paced the length of the other room. After another pause, during which all three teens exchanged small frowns, the tirade began anew. "Well you bloody well better make an effort to find Buffy Summers if you ever want to have a Slayer again! Without her, you have nothing. Nothing!" he finished as the sound of the phone being smashed on the console echoed in the room, quickly followed by the sound of said phone being hurled against the wall, pieces of plastic and electronics flying in all directions.
"Well that was helpful," Oz murmured, his expression blank as Giles stalked into the room.
"Giles," Xander added, his voice taking on the tone of a disappointed parent scolding a small child, "that's the third phone this month! You really need to learn to control these-"
"Those bloody pillocks!" he hissed, ignoring their words as he abruptly stopped by his desk, his eyes staring at nothing as the rim of his glasses dangled from one hand, the other angrily massaging his aching head. "How can they not understand the need to search for Buffy? Without her, and Faith in a coma-
"Not to mention psychotic-"
"-there is no slayer!" Giles finished as though Xander hadn't offered his own side-commentary.
"Those Brits," the teen continued, attempting vainly to scoff at the Watcher, "all tweed and-"
"Giles," Willow interrupted, sharply elbowing her friend before turning her large eyes to the aging man, "they gotta realize our problem soon. I mean, yeah, we're doing alright with the regular demons and vampires, what with the GI Joes, but the second we get another apocalypse looming... well, they'll understand what we're saying then, right?"
"Yeah, but Wills," Xander replied, answering for everyone as he finally took a ride on the reality train. "By the time we catch wind of another doomsday... whatever help the Council can provide won't be in time to stop it."
"Xander's right," Giles agreed, pausing briefly at the idiosyncrasies of the words he just spoke. Shrugging, he continued on. "The world needs a Slayer, and with Buffy missing and Faith... well, Buffy is the only option that we have right now. If the Council were to begin searching for her now, or send aid here to Sunnydale so that we could search..." he trailed off, realizing the hopelessness of his own words.
"Giles, what if she's... what if she's-" Willow murmured, unable to finish her thought as all of her earlier mirth disappeared under a thick wave of despair, tears burning in her eyes.
"She's alive," Giles interrupted, his voice firm as a small smile lifted his lips. "Buffy isn't anything if not strong. Whatever she's going through wherever... she will persevere," he stated, his voice containing such surety that no one dared contradict his words, even if they had heart to. "And in the meantime, we continue the slaying. We fight the good fight like Buffy would want us to."
"And rub in the total amount of demon ass that we've successfully kicked and beaten into a bloody pulp," Xander added, a small grin lifting his lips as he picked up a small notepad and pen from the coffee table before him. "Let's see, that's one demon for Wills and two vampires for me," he said, the soft scratching of the pencil against paper the only sounds in the room. "And that brings the total up to-"
"Uh... you're keeping tally of the injuries, aren't you?" Oz broke in, a soft grin playing around his lips. "'Cause that should probably count for something."
"Yeah, those are negative points," Xander explained as he flashed the notebook in the bassist's direction. "Depending on the severity, that's how many points are deducted. For example, Giles lost three vampires and one demon from that broken rib last month-"
"Three vampires and a demon?" Giles interrupted quickly, his voice indignant as he promptly took the notepad from the teen's hand. "Well, I think that's a bit extreme, don't you?" he asked, his eyes raking over the information as Willow threw a grateful smile in Xander and Oz's direction. Leave it to the two of them to always manage to find the sunshine in whatever bleak and desolate times they found themselves in. Especially Xander. He was the one with the witty and ill-timed jokes in the face of death. "And really," Giles added, oblivious to the gang's amusement, "Xander only lost one demon and one vampire for his concussion last week! I think this tally is rigged!"
"Maybe," Xander admitted with a small smile, "but since mine is the only accurate tally that we have going, I guess that Buffy will be none the wiser when she gets back!"
"Apparently, you're forgetting that I'm a Watcher," Giles interrupted, his own tone smug as he lifted an eyebrow at the youth. "Do the words, 'Watcher's Diary' ring any bells? The very nature of the Watcher's diaries are to-"
"And here we go," Willow whispered, unable to keep the small smile from her lips as she shifted slightly on the large couch until she was leaning against Oz's side. Her eyes wearily fluttering shut as the sound of Giles' lecture washed over her tired body. At least some things never changed, no matter how horrific the event.
With practiced ease, Miss Parker slowly made her way through the crowded park, the sounds of laughing children greeting her ears as her heeled boots crunched on the freshly fallen snow. It was a beautiful day, with the sun glinting down through the bare branches of the trees, hot enough to warm her face while the air still contained the sharp bite of winter, preventing the snow from melting from beneath her. It was the perfect kind of day for the children that littered the park - the foot of snow that had fallen overnight giving them a free day to play and enjoy the winter wonderland - albeit a bit late for the Christmas season. Yet while the park was crawling with children, not many others graced the wooded land. Despite the heavy snowfall, the rest of the world continued on for those who had to work for a living. Currently, that class of working American didn't include the tall woman who made her way over to a single bench that bordered the trees, a sole person its occupant.
Taking one last check to see that she hadn't been followed, or to ensure that those that joined them in the park weren't of the dark and shady variety, Miss Parker slid onto the bench, her long coat gathering around her as she casually sidled up to the man beside her. "What do you have for me, Broots?"
"I... I hope you understand how dangerous this was-"
"You weren't caught, were you?" she quickly demanded, her eyes boring into his watery hazel eyes. "Lyle doesn't know what you were looking for?"
"I don't even know what I was looking for," Broots countered, his lips tilting down in a small frown. "If you trust me enough to search for information about some girl out in California, to think you'd trust me enough to tell me why. Or to tell Sydney-"
"I don't want any more people knowing about this then they already do," Miss Parker cut in with an impatient wave, her eyes returning to the sight of the children playing around them, blissfully ignorant of the darkness that encroached upon their world. "Now did you find anything or not?"
Sighing, Broots slowly nodded his head, his shaking hands lifting a small satchel onto his lap. "You're lucky that your girl has such an unusual name. I found high school records of a Buffy Summers in Sunnydale, California," he explained slowly. "She was a mediocre student with a lot of unexplained absences, detentions and the like - but her SATs were incredible-"
"Giving me something I can use, here," Miss Parker interrupted, shaking her head curtly.
"Right," Broots sighed, almost wishing that she hadn't asked this final favor of him. He wasn't stupid and it was too easy to put two and two together from what he had found. And personally, he didn't like what four was telling him. Not at all. And even more so, he didn't want Miss Parker getting messed up in it all - not when she was finally free of it. Free of them. "I... I also found this," Broots stammered, his hands shaking as he withdrew a single newspaper article from within, his eyes dancing around the park.
Nodding, Miss Parker accepted the clipped paper and stared at a grainy picture of large pile of smoking ruins. "What am I looking at?" she asked, her eyes skimming the headline: Apparent Arson Rocks A Small Californian Town.
"On August 18th neighbors reported a fire at 1496 Revello Drive in Sunnydale, California," Broots explained, glancing at the notes that he held in his shaking hands. "Police and firefighters responded but were too late to save the house."
"And the owner?"
"Joyce Summers, divorced, single mother who owned an art gallery in town - mother of Buffy Summers," he quickly supplied before a slight grimace broke through his fright at their clandestine meeting. "The police found one body in the ruins-"
"Joyce Summers?" Miss Parker guessed, her voice soft as her eyes were drawn to the ruins.
"Yeah... according to the autopsy report, Ms. Summers died of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest before the fire was started..."
As Broots voice droned on, Miss Parker felt tears burn at the corners of her eyes.
As the gunshots rang out, Miss Parker surged forward, her small feet carrying her as fast as she could towards the elevator. But before she could reach her destination, large hands grabbed her and lifted her small body up, carrying away from the elevator and away from the place where she had just left her mother.
"Mommy! No!" Miss Parker screamed, her voice echoing in the Centre's halls, the cries of a little girl who's life would never again be the same.
Miss Parker had her mother torn away from her when she was just a child, brutally shot and killed in the place where she had worked. Killed for no other reason than because she was a good person who wanted to help people... who wanted to take her and Jarod away from the Centre. And now, to hear that Buffy's mother had been killed in the same fashion, for no other reason than to secure Buffy and take her back to the Centre... it made her sick. Even more so as she realized, without a doubt in her mind, that it was her brother that had pulled the trigger that had ended the life of Joyce Summers. It was her brother that had ruined Buffy's life and taken away something that all children should have - that none should be without: their mother.
"Buffy Summers has been officially declared missing... but the file was closed on her months ago. She's presumed dead," Broots continued, finally regaining Miss Parker's attention as his eyes met her own. "Miss Parker, what are you going to do? You're free now. You should forget this and-"
"Don't you think that I've forgotten and ignored enough?" Miss Parker interrupted with a rare smile - one tinged with sadness as she gently folded the newspaper clipping and slipped it into her coat pocket. There would be time enough later to read the full article. For now, she had all the information that she needed. Deep down, she realized that she had known what would come next from the instant that Jarod's words had left his mouth. She had known that he was right all along. She had just needed this final shove in the right direction. It was time for her to start making amends for her own mistakes... for the things that she had chosen to ignore. It was time to live up to the legacy that her mother had left her.
"Miss Parker?"
"I'm going to make things right," she murmured, slowly standing and brushing away invisible creases in her pants. "Tell Sydney... tell him not to worry about me," she added, turning and smiling awkwardly at the man that stood before her. She had been horrible to him during their years together at the Centre. Horrible in ways that he had never reciprocated. He had always been there for her when she needed him most. "And Broots," she added, gently catching his hand in her own as he turned to walk away, "thank you."
Blushing fiercely, Broots began to stutter away her words when she gently pulled him and hugged him again - the second time in his life - and both within the past few days.
"Thank you for everything," she murmured before releasing him and stepping away. "Maybe we'll meet again someday," she added over her shoulder as she hurried across the small park.
"Be... be careful!" Broots managed to squeak, his voice breaking mid-sentence as she continued across the sun-lit paths, a single gloved hand waving away his concern. "Please be careful, Miss P... I don't think you understand what you're really getting into."
But whatever fears the computer technician held for her, Miss Parker pushed them aside as she withdrew her small cell phone from her deep jacket pocket. Lifting the device, she quickly punched in a number by memory, a determined frown pulling at her lips as she lifted the phone to her ear. As it began to ring, she couldn't help but wonder if she would ever see either Broots or Sydney again. The path that she was choosing was a dangerous one - she wasn't deluding herself on that. She could only hope that somehow she managed to make things right before her brother learned of her meddling. She knew that he wouldn't hesitate when it came to protecting his place in the Centre... when it came to protecting his favorite projects.
"Yes, I need to book a flight," Miss Parker murmured, her voice brisk. "The closest that you can get me to Sunnydale, California."