A/N: I swear, I didn't mean for so much time to go by before I got another chapter posted. Blame college. So, as repayment, it's twice as long as the last chapter.
Chapter 5 – Mistaken Identities
February 10,
2001
Buffy studied the landscape before her. Snow lay deep on the ground – a thick, cold shroud of white. She heard a crack, and a splash of water. She turned to try to see where the sound had originated, but instead, all she noticed was the cold feel of the snow on her bare feet and the slight squishiness of it between her toes. "Where are my shoes?" she wondered aloud.
"Watch," came a voice from behind. The sound of dogs barking seemed to echo his words.
Buffy turned and saw Giles standing there. She noticed that, unlike her, he had his shoes. "Watch what?" she asked.
"It is your turn to be the watcher," he intoned, emotionless. There was a sound of feet running, crunching through the snow…
Buffy opened her eyes. A chill ran through her body and she pulled her comforter around herself a little tighter. That dream again. Her mind felt ravaged by the images pressing in on it, but she couldn't remember what they all were. This time she could remember more of the dream through the haze of waking up, but… it didn't eliminate the faint feeling of terror that had her heart racing. She sat up slowly, and tried to get her brain to settle before she faced the rest of her day.
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Logan was thoroughly enjoying the morning newspaper, for a change. In Seattle, the newspaper was more often than not a tool for his Eyes Only investigations. The glowing reviews given to sector police for controlling the rabble, or to a politician for his supreme generosity, were often clues that things were not all on the up and up. Also, there was a noticeable lack of editorials.
In the Sunnydale Press, however, not only was free speech given full reign, but accountability seemed to be given to all the correct parties, whether good or bad. The articles were also mildly humorous. "Canine Crook Cops Cop's Cap" was probably his favorite of the day. Although, the furor over a potential 0.2% increase in gasoline tax was running a close second…
He folded the paper, set it aside, and took another bite of the eggs he had scrambled for himself that morning. He had offered to make some for Joyce as well, but she declined, saying she wasn't much of a breakfast eater. So he watched as she bustled around the kitchen, waiting for the rest of the household to wake up. Well, Max is most likely already awake.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out why she hadn't made an appearance when she had heard the noise of people moving around. Logan was pretty certain she wouldn't have slept last night, even with the physical and emotional exhaustion of the day. She had been too wired after their walk and meeting with Buffy and Spike.
Spike. Very unusual name for a very unusual friend. Logan had never seen Max so spooked as when she met the man. If she'd had any more feline traits than she did, she probably would have been hissing and spitting. Although, she really didn't seem too far from doing that. Logan chuckled to himself at the thought.
"Glad someone's in a good mood this morning," Buffy said as she entered the kitchen slowly. She was still feeling sluggish, possibly due to the extra sleep she'd gotten from the night of no slaying, or maybe that stupid dream. She looked around the kitchen and saw that her mother and Logan were the only two people there. She walked over to give her mom a kiss. "Mornin', Mom. Dawn and Max not up yet?"
"Not yet," Joyce said, handing Buffy a cup of fresh coffee. "Do you want me to make you something for breakfast?"
Buffy inhaled a long, deep breath. "Logan's eggs smell really good. You must not have made them, did you, Mom?" she asked slyly.
Logan laughed as Joyce narrowed her eyes playfully at her daughter. "Very funny. See if I make you eggs anymore," she said.
"I'll let you make them for me this morning. Don't want to spoil Logan's cooking skills for dinner." Buffy knelt down to get the toaster out of a cabinet. While her back was turned, she heard the kitchen door open.
Max stealthily eased through the barely open back door, keeping a lookout for any overly nosy neighbors. Satisfied that she hadn't been observed, she let out a sigh of relief, and closed the door. She turned and… "Uh, hi. Good morning." Max's froze instantly, an expression on her face like a deer caught in headlights. She had totally expected to sneak in the house before anyone was up. Definitely running later than I thought.
Logan looked up from his eggs, and his jaw dropped. Seeing Max coming in from outside, he knew exactly why she hadn't gotten up. She hadn't even been there. He was about to make a comment, when he saw her shift nervously, causing the morning light to illuminate her face. There was a sharp clink as he set his fork down hard on his plate. "What did you do to yourself?" he asked.
Buffy stood when she heard Logan. She looked at Max and saw a large bruise that spread across her cheekbone. Except… Buffy had seen a lot of bruises in her time – many of them on her own body. Max had only had about ten hours during which she could have gotten that bruise, since Buffy knew that it wasn't there before that. But somehow it was already the color of a bruise that had been healing for several days. She heals just as fast as I do, Buffy thought.
Max was desperately trying to figure out what to say. Normal people slept. She didn't. The way she figured, she had two choices: a good lie or a mediocre lie. She looked at Logan, who was giving her a look of consternation and concern. She sighed. Then there was that annoying third choice: the truth. She rolled her eyes at herself. There really was no need for this debate, since she obviously was no saint. She opted for the truth. She shrugged offhandedly, "Got in a bit of a fight."
"Where?" Logan demanded. He had somehow known she wouldn't be able to stay out of trouble for one night.
"At a bar. 'The Fishbowl' or something like that. I, uh," Max saw the looks on Joyce and Buffy's faces and decided that now was the time to lie, "had some problems sleeping. Woke up early. So I decided to catch the Sunnydale scene. Managed to score a little cash while I was out." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a roll of cash and held it out to Logan, who looked at it like she was holding out a dead rat. "Take it," she said forcefully. He looked at it a little longer, then looked at her. She could read the exasperation in his face. Max rolled her eyes and tossed the money onto the table in front of him. "Fine. You don't have to touch it. If you want to try to buy a shirt with your $50 and worthless credit cards, not my problem." She turned to Joyce and pulled out another small roll and held it out to her. "This is our first night's meal and a couple days rent. A hundred for you."
Joyce's eyes widened in mild astonishment. "Max, this is too much for just a few days," she began.
Max hissed a large breath of frustration. "I don't know what it is with you people. Just… take it, Joyce. Please. Use it for food or… whatever. If you don't take it, I'll figure out a way that you get it and don't know it."
Joyce smiled and took the cash. "Thank you."
Logan, too, had slowly reached for the money Max had thrown at him. "Where did you get all this?" he asked.
"Got in a good poker game. Wiped the table." Max laughed. "Some of those people bring new meaning to the phrase 'Living your life in a fishbowl.'"
"Poker? That's it?" Logan had a really difficult time believing that.
A slow grin began to show on Max's face. "That and a bar fight. Dude took exception to me winning large. He tried to throw down. Made a couple extra by kicking his ass." Logan knew better. He figured she'd probably picked a few pockets while kicking his ass as well, but decided not to comment on it. Buffy could only be relieved that Max hadn't run across any of the bars that demons were fond of frequenting.
Joyce in the meantime had come over to look at Max's bruise. She looked concerned as she said, "That must hurt. I can get you some ice."
Max shook her head. "No thanks. It's fine."
Joyce turned back towards the stove. "Let me make you some breakfast then," she offered.
Max looked a little confused at the offer. Although, Logan was always offering to cook her food as well. Must be some whack rich people thing, she decided. "That's all right," she said. "I'm used to fending for myself." She opened the refrigerator and quickly found a pork chop that had escaped being eaten the night before and some left over potatoes. She put it all on a plate, stood at the counter and began to eat, without heating anything. Buffy was about to comment when she heard the front door open.
"Hello? Anyone around?" she heard the voice of her friend Xander call out.
Buffy called back, "In the kitchen, Xander."
He began talking long before he entered the room. "I just stopped by to put down that ramp you asked for, Buff." He walked into the kitchen. "It needs to be tested, but it should be-" Xander stopped as soon as he saw Max. He blinked twice, swallowed, and finished, "Fine. Very fine. Couldn't get any finer."
Logan decided to take pity on Max and drew the young man's attention away from her chest. He turned and moved right in front of Xander, holding out his hand. "I really appreciate that, Xander. Thank you very much for coming here so quickly."
Xander shook Logan's hand very slowly, desperately trying to keep his eyes from darting back and forth from Logan to Max. "Yeah. No problem. Nice to meet you. Both of you." His eyes found Max's face once more, and seemed to lock themselves in place. "You, too," he told her.
"Feeling's mutual," Max said dryly.
Buffy walked over to Xander and stood next to Logan, trying to block some of the view. "How's Anya?" she asked.
Xander blinked. "Who's Anya?" he misrepeated. Then the numbed neurons resumed function in his brain. "Anya! Anya my girlfriend. Who I live with!" He blinked a few more times and he desperately focused in on Buffy. "Anya is my girlfriend who I live with and she's just fine and at the Magic Box right now which is where I should probably be going before she realizes I've been here too long and does painful things to sensitive parts of my body and I'll talk to you later!" He yanked the kitchen door open and made his hasty escape.
Max lifted a single eyebrow and looked at Buffy, who seemed quite apologetic. "You creep with the strangest people," Max told her.
"Don't I know it," Buffy replied. "I can only hope he remembers to roll his tongue back in his mouth before he sees Anya." Hearing Max's snort of amusement, she was glad that Max seemed to take it in stride.
"Boy needs a cold shower," Max said. She mumbled, "As if there's any other kind." She finished up the rest of her "breakfast," having not let Xander interrupt her at all.
Logan cocked his head and looked at her, "Speaking of showers, I'm surprised you haven't taken one yet, considering they have hot water here and all."
Max stopped her walk to the sink and looked at Logan. He could almost imagine her ears perking up, rather like a cat hearing a can opener. "Hot water?" she repeated.
Joyce looked between the two of them, not fully understanding the importance of the conversation. "We've got plenty of hot, running water here."
Max half threw her plate on the counter and dashed out the door and up the stairs, almost knocking over Dawn, who was sleepily making her way down, in the process. Dawn looked after her for a minute before going into the kitchen and asking the laughing group, "Where's the fire?"
Logan barely managed to say, "In the shower," which set off Joyce and Buffy again. Seeing the teenager's look of confusion, he shook his head. "Never mind. Good morning, Dawn."
She smiled. "Good morning. It's good to see you." She thought about what she had just said and frowned. "I guess… or, uh… maybe it's not good to see you? I'm sorry you're here. Except that doesn't sound right either. Maybe—"
"Dawn." Joyce put a hand on her youngest daughter's shoulder. "Logan understands." She looked at Logan, who was trying his best not to laugh at the girl and hurt her feelings. "You asked about a stool for the shower. I can get that for you now, if you want."
Logan nodded. "That'd be great. Thanks. I could really use a shower."
Buffy and Dawn quietly ate their breakfast until Joyce had gone upstairs and Buffy heard the water running in the main floor shower. Buffy tried to slip casually into detective mode. "So, Dawn, what'd you and Max do last night?"
Dawn looked up from her corn puffs. "What? What'd we do?" She seemed confused.
Buffy stood, rinsed her plate, and leaned back against the counter. She shrugged. "Just that… I mean… did she say anything… weird?"
Dawn took a long drink of milk while staring at her older sister. "She said a flock of flying monkeys will eat Las Vegas in two years."
"She did?!" Buffy mentally slipped into Slayer mode, trying to work out the logistics. "But I thought we already had those. At the school play that one ti—" She stopped as the rational part of her brain caught up to the conversation. "Dawn, I'm serious!" She glared at her laughing sister.
"I can't believe you actually even considered that. Now that is weird," Dawn managed to gasp out between giggles.
Buffy stared at Dawn until she stopped laughing. "I'm not trying to be funny here, Dawn. I just want you to let me know if Max says or does anything that's not normal. It's important."
Dawn stood, quiet. She put her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and shut the door with a slight slam. "You know, I realize Max is older than me, but she's nice. And she's my friend. As someone that people love to flock to, you probably don't get that I'd actually like to keep a friend of my own for a change. And that doesn't happen by playing spy."
Realizing she'd hit a nerve she hadn't exactly known was there, Buffy tried to extract her foot from her gullet. She touched Dawn on the arm. "Dawn, I didn't mean—"
"Whatever." Dawn jerked her arm away. "I'm going to go get in line for the shower." She began to leave the room, but stopped at the doorway. She turned her head slightly towards her shoulder and said, "I don't think she slept last night. Max, I mean. She was awake when I fell asleep and gone when I woke up. Doesn't really say much, I know. It just made me… wonder." Buffy opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Dawn was already gone.
Buffy stood in the center of the kitchen, silent, unsure what to think. No sleep… not exactly a Slayer trait. Buffy slept as often as possible, like most young people. Sure, her hours might seem a little backwards at times, but… Buffy decided that would be best left to later discussion and went to get ready for the day.
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Max watched the world speed by through the window of the Summers' Jeep Cherokee. The view felt a little like her life at the moment – a solid blur of speeding colors and flashing images with the occasional stoplight to slow everything down and pull things into focus. She wanted tell everything and everyone to hang on for two seconds while she figured out what was going on.
Instead, she was going shopping.
Logan almost seemed to be enjoying himself. The banter was friendly and social. Calming, in a way. Which may have been why it was starting to grate on her nerves.
"Where exactly are we going?" she interjected into the exchange.
Joyce looked at her in the rearview mirror and gave a slight shrug. "I'd figured we'd go to Wal-mart or Target. That way you—"
"Mom, you can't make them shop at Wal-mart! I think they've been punished enough by coming here. And you want to make them discount shop on top of that? That's just cruel." Dawn turned in the front seat to look back at Max, glancing down at the clothes she was wearing. "The mall would probably have something more to your style, anyway."
Joyce rolled her eyes. "This coming from the girl who earns how much money to buy her own clothes?"
Max raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the interplay between mother and daughter. Before she could comment, Dawn spoke up again. "Well, we could go to the mall first, and if stuff is too expensive or they can't find anything, then we could take them to Wal-mart. They'd probably want to get toothbrushes and socks and… and… stuff there anyway. And dinner. Logan's got to find dinner."
"Mall it is, then," Joyce relented, taking a left turn.
Max leaned over close to Logan. "What's a Wal-mart?" she whispered.
As softly as he could, knowing she'd be able to pick up his words, he whispered back, "A pre-Pulse chain that went under in 2011. It's…" he stopped and grinned. "I think it's something you should see for yourself."
She frowned at him a little, then turned back to the window. Seconds later, she had pressed her face close to the glass. "What the hell happened there?" she exclaimed.
Joyce and Dawn were puzzled until what Max was looking at came into view. Then they simultaneously paled. "That's the old high school," Dawn said.
Max examined the burned out hulk of a building as they drove past. It was the first thing she had seen in Sunnydale that seemed remotely familiar: something half-destroyed and in obvious need of bulldozing. "Well? What happened?"
Joyce was silent for a moment before responding, "Graduation day prank and a fire got out of control." This, to her, sounded much better than the more truthful version: Graduation day snake when the Mayor got out of control.
"Buffy graduated from there," Dawn added softly, not wanting to remember the events leading up to that day. After a few seconds, the high school was out of sight and the mall was coming in distant view.
Max shrugged and continued to look at the scenery. "Hmm. Just wanted to know. Seemed like something from our time." She turned to Logan and the corners of her mouth twitched. "A few good riots will do much the same thing as that fire seems to have. And actually, there was that one riot, a few years ago that—"
"Max," Logan interrupted. "Maybe it's better if we don't say too much about our time." Something in the back of Logan's mind protested about the general oddness of that statement, but he quickly moved on. "You know, to preserve what happens or… something."
Max stared at him for a long minute, and Joyce sensed that there was some underlying conversation taking place that she was missing. Finally Max slowly blinked and turned to look straight ahead as they pulled into a parking space. "Whatever. You know, I think your Uncle Jonas was right. You did watch too much X-Files as a kid."
He just grinned at her as Joyce shut off the engine and they all climbed out of the car. He transferred himself to his wheelchair and wheeled around to Max was standing. She was completely motionless, with a slightly shell-shocked look on her face, staring out at the sea of cars. Logan wasn't even sure if she was breathing. He moved in front of her and said her name loudly to get her attention. "Max." No response. "Max," he repeated.
She looked down at him. Then she looked around the lot again. Then she looked at Joyce and Dawn who were staring at her. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"Don't apologize. Actually, I was just thinking that I shouldn't worry about you saying anything, because your face pretty much gives you away whenever you see something unexpected." Logan saw surprise flash through her eyes and just as quickly be camouflaged. He lowered his voice and moved a little closer to her. "I'm sorry. I forget sometimes. I just figured that some of this would be a little more familiar to you than it seems to be."
"Some is, but…" she looked at the other two women. "Maybe we should talk later."
As they entered the mall, Max noticed Dawn slowly shifting from one foot to the other, as though she was trying not to say something she really wanted to. Max tried to imagine herself in the young girl's position. She couldn't help but smile when she figured out what Dawn had to be thinking. "Why don't we split up?" Max suggested. "That way we'd get done faster." She knew she'd hit the bull's-eye when Dawn gave a relieved smile. Even Max knew that no teenager wanted to shop with her mom and a guy.
Joyce nodded in agreement. "Sounds fine to me. I have a few errands to run. Would an hour be enough to meet back?"
Logan looked at Max. "Enough for me. Good for you?" Seeing her answering shrug, he replied, "Good. Have fun."
As they separated, Joyce and Logan alone, and Dawn going with Max, Max couldn't help but turn and call to Logan, "Stay away from the high end stuff."
Logan looked over his shoulder and called back, "Keep an eye on her hands, Dawn. I want to see all your receipts." Logan and Max mock glared at each other in parting, and continued on their way.
Dawn dragged Max pretty quickly through the mall, finally settling on a store that seemed to have at least some clothing with an "urban" theme. Max had made a beeline for the sales rack, and in under 3 minutes had found a pair of pants and a shirt that she figured would work well. She turned to walk to the cash register, and almost ran into Dawn, who was standing directly behind her with a look of amazement on her face. "What are you doing?" Dawn asked.
Max looked down at the clothes she was holding and then back up to the girl. "Going to the register. I'm done."
Dawn's brow furrowed. "You can't be done. We just got here. And all you've got is a pair of pants and a shirt."
Max looked at the clothes again, trying to figure out what she could possibly have done wrong. "Well… yeah. Pants and shirt. There's a pretty decent spread here. Cheap, too. But it's not like I need to be all macked out or anything." She made another a move to go pay, when Dawn grabbed her arm to stop her. Max looked down at the hand and slowly looked at Dawn.
Dawn quickly jerked her hand back, unsure about the look in Max's eyes. "All I meant was… I can't believe you're going to pass up on the chance for a new wardrobe."
"It's not like I'm going to need it, Dawn. We're only going to be here for a few days."
"How do you know?" Dawn asked. "You could be here longer."
Max grew very still as her mind became troubled. We've been assuming that we'd be able to figure out what's up, and be able to get back to our familiar hellhole. What if we're here longer? Two days? Three? A week? What if… Max quickly shook off the thoughts from her racing brain and gave Dawn a half-smirk. "You just want me to get more stuff so when we get unzapped, you can have all of it."
Dawn shrugged. "We're the same height. I'd fit into your stuff better than Buffy would, since she's at least a few inches shorter than either of us."
Max really couldn't fault her logic. As she started to pick up a few more things, she asked, "Do you always get your way?"
"Just when it comes to you, apparently."
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Back at the Magic Box, Buffy was trying to bring a little order to the Scooby Gang, who were babbling on about nothing of any importance. Like usual. "Okay, people, I realize that you'd much rather discuss who's going to get thrown off the island this week, but if I could just have a few minutes of your time, you can get back to your fascinating conversation about rats and worms."
Silence fell. Xander, Anya, Willow, and Tara looked mildly abashed at the reminder of the real reason they had come together. Giles, however, nodded approvingly.
"So, Buff, we gonna pop a look at the ol' books?" Xander asked.
She hesitated. "Well, actually, not yet. A bigger problem has come up."
Anya blinked. "A bigger problem? As if poofing a pair of people wasn't big enough?"
"Well, yeah, okay. That was pretty bad." Buffy looked at Willow quickly. "No offense."
"No offense taken. It was a pretty big Not Good." Willow's face gave the impression that she'd become used to the idea of what she'd done. "So what's the new deal? Big Bad around? Vamps? Apocalypses? Apocalypsii? No, wait. Maybe that's apocalii? You know, we never did settle on a term. I mean, what if—"
"Focus, Sweetie," Tara interrupted with a pat on her arm.
Buffy felt like she was already loosing control, so she went right for the point. "I think Max is a slayer." Somehow, the room managed to become even more silent. "Not exactly the reaction I was expecting."
"Uh, it's just that I don't think that was the doom, death, and damnation we were all expecting," Xander pointed out.
"What exactly brought you to this conclusion, Buffy?" Giles asked.
"Well, last night, Max and Logan kind of met Spike, and Spike kind of rubbed Max the wrong way," Buffy told them.
Anya blinked. And blinked again. "Well. That was an unexpected and rather unpleasant mental image."
Xander waved the thought off and leaned towards the group. "Setting that aside, who hasn't Spike rubbed the wrong way?" He blinked as he realized what he'd. "Boy did that come out wrong."
Willow and Tara began to snicker at Xander's words, but quickly tried to calm themselves down when Buffy glared at them. "Spike thinks that there's more to Max than she's showing."
Xander ducked his head a little to hide the flush creeping up his neck.
Buffy rolled her eyes, "Does anyone here have their head on straight today? He said that we should keep an eye on her, that 'something's not quite right about her.'"
Giles looked up from where he was cleaning his glasses and asked, "Aside from Spike's intuitions, is there anything else that is leading you to this conclusion?"
"Well…" Buffy pondered for a second. "Mom and Dawn seemed to notice her resemblance to Faith, right off. And she apparently went out of the house last night. When she got back this morning, she had a bruise on her face. A bruise that was half healed. Seems like she got in a fight with someone or… or something, even. And she sure seems to have the physique for it."
"She sure does," Xander agreed wholeheartedly. Anya's head whipped around to look at him and her right eye began to twitch rapidly.
Buffy ignored them both. "And Dawn said that she's pretty sure Max never slept last night."
"That's not exactly a slayer trait, Buffy," Giles pointed out.
Buffy sighed heavily. "I know, I know. But it isn't exactly normal, either."
"Oh, yeah. Because the Slayer, Watcher, witches and demon are the top experts on normal, right?" Xander asked sarcastically.
Buffy could only respond with a scalding glare and a muttered, "Well, duh."
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"Pink."
"It's cute."
"It's pink."
"It's cheap."
"It's pale pink."
"It'd look nice on you."
"Dawn, it's pale pink and it's got little flowers around the edge. Put it back. Now."
Max was still trying to figure out exactly how she'd let Dawn con her into the dressing room to actually try on the clothes Max had picked out. And while she was in there, Dawn seemed to keep finding something else for Max to try. She tended to acquiesce, for the most part, but had to put her foot down at pink. Dawn gave a little disappointed sigh and left the dressing room.
Max turned back to the mirror. It had been a long time since she'd really taken a look at herself. Her hair was beginning to lose some of the curl from the length it had been putting on. The tanned skin was starting to stretch over her cheekbones a bit due to weight she'd lost. Too much going on in her life before she'd left to worry about taking care of herself, and after she'd left…
"Okay, you have got to try this dress on!" Dawn called cheerfully as she swung the dressing room door open and bounded through.
Max looked at her like she had gone mad. "A dress? Are you out of your mind? Exactly when am I going to wear a dress? Hell, Dawn, I hardly ever wore a dress before I came to this place."
Dawn gave Max a look of frustration. "Come on. I'm not saying you have to buy it and model it, just try it on. For fun," she pleaded.
Slowly reaching for the dress, Max nodded. "For fun." She waited until Dawn left the dressing room, stripped to her skivvies, and pulled the dress over her head. She then decided that aside from the pale pink flowery shirt, the girl must have some taste floating around somewhere. The dress was gorgeous. A simple, flowing column of a muted silver, hanging straight nearly to her ankles. A quick turn revealed that the back was an intricate webbing of thin satin cords. The dress fit almost like a second skin around her torso, enhancing the figure her good genes had given her. As she turned back, she vaguely wondered when the last time she wore a dress was.
You look beautiful in it. The words floated through her mind like a gentle caress. Words from another time and place.
"Are you done yet?" Dawn asked as she barged back through the door. She stopped and blinked as she looked at Max. "Oh," she breathed. "I knew it'd be nice." Max didn't respond, just continued staring in the mirror at something Dawn couldn't see. Dawn moved slightly, and caught a glimpse of Max's expression. She looked so wistful, making her appear much younger. It made Dawn's heart ache to see her looking like that, so she tried to turn her attention away from whatever she was thinking about. Moving closer to her, Dawn spoke up, "You could get some of those healed sandals. You know, the really strappy kind that go up the leg a bit? Maybe an ankle bracelet or something." Max's eyes met Dawn's in the mirror, and both smiled, Dawn tremulously and Max's merely a trace. Dawn decided to take that as a good sign and continued. "You have such pretty hair. It'd look nice if you wore it up like—"
Dawn stopped with a slight yelp as Max spun quickly, grabbing the hand that was reaching for her hair. Neither made a movement for several seconds. Max finally let go of Dawn's hand and said simply, "Please don't touch me." The last thing she needed was a barcode sighting. She quickly stripped the dress off, not even caring that Dawn was still in the room.
Dawn gaped, alarmed at the cold look that had appeared in Max's eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Max tried to ignore the fear that she had seen. Tried to ignore the fact that she had overreacted a bit and put it there. She took a deep breath to compose herself, dressed quickly, and pulled on her boots. She reached down and picked up the dress, which now lay crumpled on the floor. Handing it to Dawn, she neither acknowledged the action nor the apology and merely said, "I think I'm done. Why don't you put that away while I go pay, and then we'll see what trouble Logan's gotten himself in." She walked out the door, leaving Dawn clutching the dress close to her chest.
Both girls were silent as they reunited with Logan and Joyce. Logan, it seemed, had the same idea as Dawn. He, too, had several large shopping bags. Logan noticed that something seemed a little strained between the two girls, but said nothing, just took a couple of their bags and added them to the ones in his lap as they headed back to the car.
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"Oh. Oh, dear. That's not good, is it?"
Willow was examining her notebook with an ill expression on her face. She couldn't take her eyes off the spell she had written down. "Uh, Giles, you guys might want to take a look at this. It's the spell I wrote down so you could send it to… whoever you were going to send it to." She slid it across the table with a trembling hand and tried to calm down her flip-flopping stomach.
Giles and Buffy scooted their chairs a little closer to each other to read the spell. Willow watched and waited as they simultaneously mouthed the words and stopped when they reached the line "Warrior of the people and her Guide." They looked up at Willow. They looked at the paper again. Then they looked at each other. "Well, that ain't good," Buffy commented. "Do I need any more evidence, Giles?"
Xander slowly raised his hand. "Uh, excuse me. I hate to ask for fear of recrimination and ridicule, but what is wrong with Max being a Slayer? Two's better than one, right?"
"Maybe if she's like Buffy and not homicidal like Faith was," Willow added.
"Well, I wouldn't think it'd be a problem if the Slayer let the other Slayer know that she's a Slayer," Buffy said. "I guess. Unless she doesn't know about me?"
"Everyone knows you," was the chorus from the group.
"There is the fact that their world is significantly different than ours. She might not have the same access to information that Buffy does," Giles pointed out.
Buffy nodded. "You should have seen the look on her face when she heard we had hot water. You'd have thought she found gold."
"So… now what?" Willow asked.
"Now, I send this spell to my friend of mine Madagascar, and the rest of you should begin looking to see what we can find," Giles directed as he stood.
Buffy briefly debated bringing up her dream, thinking it might possibly be related, but the thought of telling everyone she dreamed about Giles was just too creepy so she simply picked up a book and began to read.
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Max finally broke the uncomfortable silence that was hanging heavily in the air. Seeing the "Super Wal-mart" sign on the building, she couldn't help but ask, "What's so super about Wal-mart?"
She soon found out.
Logan could see Max's mood do a serious one-eighty. He had never seen her so giddy as she stared up at a tower of toilet paper and said, "Logan, have fun at the Summers' tonight. I've decided to stay here." Dawn let out a surprised shriek as Max grabbed her hand and pulled her over to another display. "Toothpaste! Dawn, it's toothpaste. Real toothpaste that comes in a tube!"
Dawn couldn't stop beaming, knowing that she'd somehow been forgiven for whatever she'd done wrong earlier. "What's so special about toothpaste?" she asked, laughing.
"Try brushing with baking soda and peppermint oil and ask me that again."
Logan interrupted the girls by saying, "Why don't we get the rest of the stuff we need first before we take a look at food?"
"They have food here?" Max asked, smiling slowly.
"Everything," Dawn replied.
"Well, let's go."
They reunited about ten or fifteen minutes later in front of a freezer case of chicken. Logan couldn't help but stare at Max, completely enamored by the expression of childlike glee on her face as she ran her hands over rows of plastic wrapped chickens. "Logan," she breathed. "I have never seen so many chickens in one spot in my life." She frowned. "Why are they all wrapped like this?"
"People don't fight over them here like they do in our time, so chicken often sits for a few days. Plastic keeps bacteria and other junk out."
Max just stared at him for a second. "I can't believe they can sit here for that long without anyone buying them." She looked to her left, then to her right, then back to Logan. "Guess I won't have to get into any fist fights over them either, huh. Nobody seems to want them."
Logan just grinned in reply. He started ticking off ingredients on his fingers. "We'll need to find rice, cashews, honey, orange juice, fresh vegetables, maybe a few other things. For dessert, I was thinking of a chocolate mousse, so we'll need to get things for that as well. Joyce, you'll tell me if there are any spice and such you already have, so I don't overload you? Don't want to get too much of something I'll only use a bit of."
"Sounds sensible," Joyce agreed.
He turned to Max to ask her a question, and noticed that she'd disappeared. Completely, it seemed. He glanced around, but didn't see her in sight. "Did you see where Max went?" he asked Dawn.
Dawn turned, suddenly noticing that Max wasn't by her side. She quickly looked down a few of the nearby isles and said, "I wonder where she's gone."
Logan shook his head. "Probably just wandering, looking. She'll catch up with us later."
The trio made their way to produce. Logan himself was almost in awe of the crisp, fresh texture, vivid color, and low price of every vegetable he picked up. He was in the process of choosing red peppers when Max made her reappearance by the produce.
"Everything okay?" Dawn asked.
Max just shrugged. "Yeah. Just seeing if this place really had everything. Sure seems like it." She smiled. "Remind me to ask Willow if she can send a truck back with us. I think I can make a minimum of 600% profit on motor oil alone."
Dawn smiled. "This is definitely one of the coolest places of our time."
Logan ran a quick glance over everything in the cart, checking it against his mental inventory. "Well, I think we have everything. Ready to leave?"
As they approached the check out lanes, Joyce and Dawn groaned. "God the lines are huge today!" Dawn grumbled.
Joyce sighed. "It is a Saturday." She glanced up and down the rows, trying to see where the shortest line would be.
Max and Logan both had blank looks. "What line?" Max asked. "You think this is long?"
The Summers women just looked at her. "Yeah," Dawn replied. "We'll probably have to wait ten minutes just to get to a register."
Max could only smile as thoughts of a half day's wait for gas came to her mind. Differences. What they take for granted. To her, the lines seemed to move quickly, and they were soon on their way back to the house.
Once they were there, everyone grabbed a couple of bags, climbed out of the car and shut their doors. As they approached the house, Joyce realized she wasn't holding her keys. She checked her pockets, then her purse. She then looked forlornly at the Jeep. "It figures. The one day we have double the people and quadruple the bags, I lock the keys in the car." She turned as she heard the sound of a throat clearing and saw Max standing with the front door open. Joyce blinked. "Did I leave it unlocked?"
Max smiled and shook her head. "I'll just drop my bags in the house and then get your keys out of the car in flat time." She disappeared into the house.
Joyce looked at Logan. He just shrugged and replied, "That's Max," and followed Joyce in as the young woman they were discussing bounded out of the house.
Buffy returned just in time to see Max at work on the car door. She stopped and stared as she watched the woman deftly maneuver two small pieces of metal into the lock and quickly lift the handle, opening the door. "Uh… what are you doing?" Buffy asked.
Max reached into the car, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and turned. "Getting Joyce's keys." She locked and shut the doors.
Buffy could only keep staring. "Oh. Okay."
Max smiled at her and leaned against the car for a second. "Glad you could make it back early. Logan's about to start cooking dinner."
"Oh he is?"
Max nodded sagely. "The man can do wonders with a chicken." She turned and walked back to the house.
Buffy tried to keep her jaw from dropping any further. "Do you do that on purpose or is my mind really that dirty?"
Max turned at the door, lifted an eyebrow, and went inside.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buffy quietly slid her bedroom window open and eased herself out onto the ledge of the roof underneath, trying to be careful not to wake any of the occupants in the house. Been a while since I've done that, she thought fondly. Not having to sneak out without Mom knowing and being able to use the door has spoiled me.
She didn't move to climb to the ground right away, instead stood there for a minute, almost enjoying herself for a change. She took a deep breath. The air had a fresh, crisp smell, and the moonlight seemed to cast an ethereal glow on the trees around her. And her stomach was pleasantly full. Logan really could cook. He and Max had spent a couple of hours preparing a wonderful meal. Well, okay – Logan spent a couple of hours preparing a wonderful meal. Max spent a couple of hours watching. Both seemed to be quite satisfied with that arrangement. And Buffy couldn't help but think that both seemed a little more comfortable with each other than "friends" usually were. She'd gotten the sense that dinner was a common occurrence between the two. The attitude they had towards each other was completely casual and genuine, and they had even seemed to understand what the other was talking about. Even though Buffy knew she'd missed the whole meaning….
The air seemed to still as Logan chose his words carefully. He might have waited to ask if he wasn't so damned curious. He kept chopping celery as he asked, "Four months, right?"
Max must have understood what he was asking, because she replied, "Right."
Logan looked at her. "So… what? About three… before it happened?"
Max tilted her head and regarded him thoughtfully from her seat on the counter. "No. One."
"One? Really?" The hand with the knife paused as Logan contemplated… something. "So you've never…?"
"Nope."
Buffy had no clue what either of them was talking about, but she could almost feel the phantom words flowing around her.
"But alone… you must have, you know, " he made a motion of legs walking with his fingers and then went back to chopping, "a lot."
"Yeah."
"Then…?"
"Have you been there lately?" Max gave him a wry smile.
"Oh. Not much there."
"Exactly." Her smile was different than any Buffy had seen. Sweet, almost charming.
Logan chuckled and scraped the celery into the skillet with sizzling pieces of chicken. "Can you pass the ginger?" He reached up as the small jar came flying through the air. "Gee, thanks."
Max grinned and swung her legs back and forth against the cabinets. "Anytime."…there was a feeling between the two that Buffy did understand. They cared about each other. And that transcended any label they could choose to put to whatever was between them.
Buffy also decided that Max had simply told her the truth earlier. Logan could do wonders with a chicken. He prepared orange cashew chicken with stir fried fresh vegetables. Although Dawn was a little disappointed that her mom took away the Chardonnay that Max had mistakenly poured for her, the rich dark chocolate mousse that Logan brought out for dessert seemed to make up for it. Joyce was delighted over the fare. And perhaps it was the familiarity of it that caused Max to finally relax around them all for five minutes and even carry on a conversation. Her slang was a little… colorful… at times, but it somehow managed to add a bit of character and depth to a woman who was still so much a stranger.
Buffy took another deep breath and slowly climbed down the tree that was near her window. She might have been able to leave the world to its own devices for one night, but wouldn't dare let it try to take care of itself two nights in a row. She dropped the last foot of the climb with a small jump and quickly walked off towards her nightly duty.
From the shadows of the roof, Max watched her go.
She'd promised Logan that she'd try to stay nearby for at least one night, and figured that the roof was close enough. It didn't have nearly the same feeling as the Space Needle, but at least it was something above ground level. A little height was all it took sometimes to get her thoughts back in order… so she'd sat and watched the shadows slowly change direction under the moon and stars. Max almost felt like she'd gotten her B's following her A's and preceding her C's, when one of the upstairs windows slowly slide open. Max slowly changed her position until the same shadows she'd been watching became her cover and she could observe unnoticed.
As she watched the blonde woman take a deep breath of the night air and carefully climb down a tree, Max couldn't help but think that Logan was right. Seemed like a skeleton decided to leave its closet and go for a midnight stroll.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 11, 2001
He wondered what she was thinking about. Logan watched her as she stared out the kitchen window, looking at something. The trees, the sunlight, something. Anything. At least today she was eating something that vaguely resembled breakfast. He recognized toast in the concoction she had whipped up for herself, at least. He wasn't quite sure what was on it, but it was definitely toast. Maybe.
Buffy walked into the kitchen, not at all surprised that Max and Logan were both awake and together. She didn't say anything right away, just watched these two visitors. Buffy couldn't even begin to imagine how they felt, stranded in a foreign place so unlike their own. An entirely different world, really, away from everyone they know. Yet here they were, continuing, moving, trying. Surviving. What strong stuff they must be made of, to be able to enter the unknown, make dinner, laugh, go to sleep, and wake to do it again? This morning's silence was such a reversal from last night's casual chatter between the two, but it wasn't strained. More… comfortable. Logan simply watched Max as she looked out the window. Max seemed content to be watching the world and eating… "What the hell are you eating?"
Max looked over her shoulder at Buffy and gave a quick grin. "Breakfast."
"Yeah, I got that but—"
"Best you don't ask. That's why I don't let her cook," Logan told Buffy.
"Hey!" Max said indignantly. "There ain't no let about it. Unless it's me letting you cook for me. I tried to cook for you once, remember? Me face first in the mud? You with a wet floor?"
"I remember. I also remember you did a very good job boiling water."
"Oh, yeah. Once you let me!" Max turned to face Logan full on.
Buffy was surprised to see that, aside from the playful banter, Max's eyes seemed to flash with a spark of ire. "Um, I'm sensing a story that I'd really like to hear, but I'm not sure Mom wants blood in her kitchen." Logan smiled good-naturedly, but Max didn't react at all. Didn't move an eyelash. Buffy was silent for a second, and then continued. "Willow and Tara have a couple books I was going to go pick up. Was wondering if either of you want to walk over to UC Sunnydale with me. It's a bit of a hike, but..."
Max shrugged. "I'm game for a walk." She looked at Logan. "You coming?"
He shook his head. "No. I think I'm just going to head over to the Magic Box, start looking through some more books. Since it's Sunday, we won't have to worry about people."
"Suit yourself." Max loaded her dishes in the dishwasher. "Ready?"
Buffy nodded. "Let's go."
There was a long silence as the two women began their slow stroll to the UC Sunnydale campus. Buffy was feeling mildly uncomfortable with the quiet, but a glance at Max showed that it really didn't bother the other woman.
Buffy sighed to herself. She couldn't help but keep running the "Slayer checklist" through her mind, trying to make some sense of Max. Dawn had mentioned that Max had gotten a little freaked when she tried to touch her neck. How did that fit in? Did it fit in?
Buffy shook her head. Maybe I'm just seeing ghosts when it's the curtains blowing in the wind. She smiled internally. Or vampires where it's just dust.
She looked at Max again. Buffy couldn't help but try to put herself in Max's situation, and couldn't decide whether she'd be able to hold up like Max has seemed to, or whether she would go completely mad.
"You keep looking at me," Max said without looking at Buffy. "Why?"
Buffy tried to mask her shock. She hadn't realized she was being that obvious. "I'm… I'm sorry. I didn't realize you noticed."
"I notice. Why?" She repeated.
Buffy decided to go for a simple answer. "I'm trying to figure out if I could handle your situation if I were you."
Max gave a ghost of a smile and looked over at Buffy. "What makes you think I'm handling it?"
Buffy slowed her pace a little as she stared at Max. "Well, just the fact that if most people found out they'd gotten sent to the past, they'd be quivering piles of Jell-O. You're seeming pretty solid. Kinda makes me think you're handling it."
Max kicked at an invisible spot on the road. "You either handle it or you don't. I don't like that choice, so I handle it. It's usually more a matter of how well I handle things."
Buffy contemplated that for a few seconds and then tried another avenue of conversation, not completely unrelated. "It's got to be hard, being away from friends, family."
Max smiled a little broader this time. "My friends. I definitely know a few of them who would probably fall in your Jell-O category. Yeah, I miss them, but it's only been two days. I've gone longer without."
"And your family?"
Max stopped and looked down the road. Buffy watched as the dark-haired woman mentally debated that question and then closed off a part of herself that seemed to have been open before. "I don't have family like you do. Not really," she said sharply. She began walking again.
That startled Buffy. "No family? Isn't there anyone…?" Buffy tried to imagine what it would be like without her Mom and Dawn always there. It was unimaginable.
Max shook her head. "Not really," she repeated. "My friends are my only real family, in the sense that you mean. Original Cindy, Sketchy, Herbal Thought. Those are people I know would lay it all down for me."
Buffy almost laughed at the names, but held it back when she saw the seriousness in Max's face. "And Logan? Where does he fit?"
Max's pace slowed briefly, and then picked up. Her voice softened. "Logan is… a friend. No, I won't front on that. He's probably closer to family, in his own weird way. But definitely a good friend. Probably not anyone I'd rather get lost in time with."
"How'd you meet him?"
"My other job." Max cast Buffy a sly look.
Buffy understood what she meant, but wasn't sure of the polite way to say it. "You mean you… when… you're a…"
"Thief," Max supplied.
"Thief." Buffy wasn't sure she quite liked the taste of that word, especially when applied to someone she was talking with. "So you… Logan?"
"He had a statue I knew I could get a piece for. So I broke into his place, but I… broke a window on my way out. He looked for me so I could pay him back."
Buffy couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped. "You robbed his place and he wanted you to cover the window? Somehow that seems like Logan."
Max chuckled in agreement. "It does. And he didn't want me to cover the window. He just wanted to know who I was. And we've been friends, of a sort, ever since, I guess." Max looked at the buildings that were coming into view. "Where… well, when we were, I think he had a hard time faulting me, really. Don't get me wrong, he did call me on it from time to time. But commerce is all it really is. And he's loaded. Could afford the loss. Hell, he had almost as much stuff in his place as you do."
Buffy caught the implication in Max's statement. "You think we're loaded? Rich? You'll have to tell my Mom that. She needs a good laugh." Buffy saw Max's look of confusion. "We're not rich, Max. We're average. Normal even." Normal. Us. Yeah, if you can believe that.
"Oh." Max seemed mildly taken aback. "I just thought… never mind. Age difference."
Buffy walked to the door of a building and held it open for Max. "Don't worry about it. I'm glad you think we've got a nice place."
"It's definitely all tricked out," Max said.
"All tricked out?" Buffy thought about that. "Yeah. You can say that. All tricked out." She stopped at one of the doors in the dorm and knocked.
Tara opened the door. "Buffy, Max. Good to see you. Um, c-come on in." She opened the door wider. Max and Buffy both walked in the room. Tara stared as Max didn't stop as most people normally would, but instead began to meander around the room and examine everything: the walls, the desks, the floors, Willow making the bed.
Willow watched wide-eyed as Max walked by her. "Hi, Max."
"Hey," Max said distractedly as she caught sight of the rat in the cage in the corner.
Willow and Tara both turned slowly to look at Buffy, who only shrugged. She'd decided that this just had to be part of Max's personality, since it was almost an exact replay of when she'd first came to their house. "You have a couple books for me?" Tara went to the bookshelf in the room, trying not to eye Max too much for Slayer vibes.
Willow saw Max lean down to get a closer look in the cage. "That's Amy, our rat. I got her a couple years ago." She exchanged a look with Buffy, stopping herself from blurting out the explanation behind Amy. Well, okay. I used to go to school with her, but adopted her right after she got stuck in rat form. At least that one wasn't my fault, Willow mentally amended.
"She's kinda cool," Max said, looking at Amy the Rat.
Amy Rat felt someone watching her and looked up from her examination of her wheel, expecting to see Willow or Tara. Instead she saw someone else. And what she felt from the woman… Amy gave a loud rat squeal and began running around her cage in a sheer panic, overturning over her food dish and knocking her bedding askew.
Max stood, startled at the reaction. She'd caught a rat or two in her time and had never seen any react like this one was. She looked over at Willow, Tara, and Buffy, who had identical expressions of perplexity on their faces. "Why's she doing that?" she asked.
Willow shook her head in confusion. "I don't know. I've never seen her do that before. You probably startled her or something."
Max eyed the cage warily as she slowly backed away. "You and me both, Amy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max was quite surprised when she observed Buffy crawling out her window a second night in a row. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why the young woman wouldn't just use the damn door rather than hugging a tree. Max had almost just watched her leave, when she got an idea. It occurred to her that it might be beneficial to see where this woman went night after night. Actually, she was just bored enough to find the idea of tracking someone an entertaining one.
Her night vision made the task of following Buffy quite simple, especially since after she'd gotten out of sight of the house, she didn't seem to care who was watching. Max stayed a block's distance away, keeping to the shadows. She was puzzled when Buffy entered a graveyard. Max stopped at the borders, not a little unnerved by the eerie silence of the spooky place. What could she be doing in there? Visiting relatives? Witchcraft? Midnight nookie? Max shuddered at the odd mental image that combined all three. She decided that whatever the reason, she really didn't need to enter and watch. She hung back at the edge to wait for when Buffy came back.
Max had been waiting for a half an hour and was almost ready to just go back to the house when she heard a shrill scream. All her senses immediately went on hyper-alert. She quickly looked around at the surrounding area, seeing nothing, and heard another shout from inside the graveyard. She turned, saw that there was no gates or anything blocking entrance, and steeling herself with a quick breath, jogged inside.
The tombstones rose around her from everywhere – tips of deadly icebergs, revealing only the barest hint of the massive danger underneath. Max shivered, not from cold but instead from some eerie sensation that seemed to crawl all over her skin. She tried her best to push the thought from her mind and to focus on the noises echoing through the cemetery. The sounds of a fight were quite familiar to Max. She focused her hearing for a second, trying to weed out the actual sounds from the others that seemed to reverberate in every direction. Her attention was drawn to a type of clearing, where crypts stood like small, decaying buildings.
Xander and Willow sprinted through the clearing as fast as they could, with Giles close on their heels. They'd stumbled onto a large pack of vampires meeting for a Bram Stoker Appreciation Convention, and, needless to say, found themselves slightly outnumbered. The three of them had managed to get rid of two of the thirteen vamps. But while Spike and Buffy were occupied with a few of the others, five vampires thought it would be a terrific idea to give chase. So they did what any brave fighter would. They ran.
Max watched, stunned. Who were these people? They certainly couldn't be the semi-normal if slightly odd people she had met at the Magic Box. No, these people were crazed maniacs being chased by demonic… things. She looked closer and saw their faces had large bumps above their yellow eyes, and sharp fangs protruded from their mouths. She couldn't move, could only stand slack-jawed as she watched Buffy leap into the fray from nowhere and jab a long lethal-looking wooden spike into several of their chests. The creatures vanished in a shower of dust.
Buffy sighed to herself as the last of the vampires disappeared. She resisted the urge to cough as she inhaled some of the grit in the air. She turned to her friends who were smiling between gasps. "We should have this gook analyzed sometime, Giles. I've swallowed enough of it tonight, I want to know if it's going to give me lung cancer." She turned to look for Giles' reaction, when she saw something standing past him about thirty feet or so. She peered in the darkness, trying to make out… "Max?" She then saw something else and her eyes widened in horror. "Spike! Stop!"
Spike never heard Buffy. Instead all his senses remain concentrated on the fight. He grabbed the creature he saw by the shoulder and spun it, swinging a fist. It was too late to pull his punch when he realized he recognized the creature.
Max's head snapped backwards with the force of the blow. One part of her chided herself for getting distracted by the antics of these Sunnydalians. The other part wanted blood. Her head snapped forward, but stopped when her minds eye overlapped this lumpy, fangy… whatever with the man who had been introduced to her two nights ago. He was staring at his fist in utter perplexity.
Buffy broke into a run.
"The chip," Spike mumbled. "My head. It doesn't hurt." He slowly looked up at Max and bared his fangs as he demanded, "What are you?"
At the same time, Max hissed, "Nomalie!"
Buffy, for her part, could only be glad she didn't blink. She might have missed the whole thing. Spike leaned towards Max, as though he was going to charge, but ran into only air. Max leaped high and straight in the air, flipping herself completely over Spike's head. As she flipped, she somehow managed to turn herself completely around so she was facing his back, grabbing him, and throwing him face-first into the ground as she landed in a kneeling position over him. She grabbed his collar and yanked it down. "You've got to have… no barcode." She sat up in surprise.
Buffy called as she reached them, "Max! Don't kill him! He's not a totally bad vampire!"
Spike spit a small mouthful of dirt and glared at Buffy. "Am too," he grumbled. "Ow!" Max had shoved his face back in the ground. "Do you mind?!"
Max was now completely confused. She looked up and saw Buffy standing in front of her, looking down at her with a touch of wariness. She glanced around and saw that Giles, Willow, and Xander had also apparently seen her aerial acrobatics. Caught.
Buffy saw a shudder of alarm pass over Max's face. Buffy tried her best to put what she thought was a claming smile on her face. She said simply, "You're a Slayer, aren't you?"
Max bolted.
That time, Buffy did blink and missed the move. One second Max was there and the next… she had already reached the edge of the cemetery. "Where's she going?" Xander asked.
Buffy swallowed. "Home." She took off running after her, with the rest of the gang following.
Yet again, Max found herself running for her life, running through the unknown to save herself. Her mind was racing in a million directions, none of them remotely rational. She only had one coherent thought among all of them: get Logan and get out. She hadn't turned up to full speed – to hopefully keep the neighbors in the dark – but figured she had managed to reach the Summers' residence about three minutes ahead of Buffy and her cronies. She flung open the door to the house, not caring that it bounced hard against the wall. "Logan!" she called. She ran into the living room where he was fast asleep on the couch. She skidded to a stop on her knees in front of him. "Logan!" she gave him a solid shake. She reached over and flipped on a light.
Logan thought he heard Max calling him and struggled towards consciousness. He tried to blink himself awake. "Max?" Without his glasses, he could just make out her expression: frantic with a hint of panic. He sat up quickly and reached for his glasses on the end table next to the couch. "What's wrong?"
She tried her best to focus, to work through the emotions ravaging her brain. "We've been played, that's what. We've got to go," she told him. "NOW."
He slowly pulled the seat of his wheel chair to bring it close enough to transfer to. "Why?" he asked.
Max could not figure out why he wasn't moving or appearing to understand her order. She looked around and quickly grabbed his clothes off the floor, shoving them at him. "Because these so-called normal people apparently have a nighttime ritual of playing commando and hunting nomalies."
Logan shook his head. He couldn't remember a time when he'd seen Max in a state like this. "Nomalies? Max, you're not making any sense." He pulled the sweatshirt Max had shoved at him over his head, and figured that the sweatpants he had worn to bed would suffice for now. He transferred into the chair and snapped up the brakes, resting his hands on the wheels.
Joyce and Dawn had evidently heard Max's entrance, because they both stumbled down the stairs and into the living room, blinking their eyes at the change of light. "Max? What's wrong?" Joyce asked in concern, pulling the belt on her robe tight.
Max stared angrily at her. "You lied to us," she clipped out.
Logan was getting really worried now. Max had worked herself up into a complete frenzy. And he knew that had the possibility of becoming extremely dangerous if he couldn't get her to calm down. "Max. Could you compose yourself for just one minute. You're scaring Dawn." And me, he didn't add. Max glanced briefly at Dawn, seeing that the girl did look upset.
The sound of more footsteps thumped across the front porch as Buffy ran in through the still open door, closely followed by Xander, Willow, Giles, and Spike, the first three huffing and gasping for breath. Buffy saw Max standing in front of Logan, seemingly guarding him, and facing off against a confused Joyce and a distressed Dawn. Buffy could only assume the worst. "Back away from them. Now," she demanded.
Max turned sharply. Much to the shock of everyone in the room, Buffy and Max assumed fighting positions at the same time. Identical positions, right arms raised in front, left arms held tightly against their sides. When each saw what the other looked like, surprise flashed across their faces. Everyone else reacted by exploding with a cacophony of exclamations.
"Would you look at that?"
"Holy heap of Chiclets. She was right!"
"Two of them! Here! Now! As in… wait, that means there are three now?"
Giles and Logan both reacted at the noise by shouting, "Would everyone calm down for a second? Please!" It was their turn to give each other startled looks. Luckily, silence ensued.
Max began shifting her weight from foot to foot in almost a half hop. She could feel her blood racing through her system and every ounce of her genes burning for a fight. Logan turned to Max, since she was the only person there he knew, and therefore trusted to impart at least what she thought was accurate information. "Max could you please – calmly – tell me what happened?"
She forced herself to turn to him, slightly, keeping the others in her peripheral vision. "I saw her," she glanced pointedly at Buffy, "leave he house through the window, so I followed."
"You saw me leave?" Buffy asked.
"I was on the roof." She turned back to Logan. "And I followed her to a cemetery of all places and saw them wailing on these… beasts… when he— " She looked at Spike this time, and did a double take when she noticed that his face had returned to the way it had looked the first time she had seen him. She didn't break stride and continued, "He hit me. So I took him down." Logan figured he could assume the takedown was of the genetically engineered soldier sort.
Buffy looked down at the floor, trying to compose herself. Something wasn't adding up correctly. So she decided to just lead with her instincts. "I've never seen anyone move like that. I haven't been able to help but notice you're different." She looked up and motioned to Spike. "That first night, you seemed to sense something wrong with Spike."
"Yeah. I sure managed to get that one right," Max said sarcastically.
"Well, he's a vampire. But, he doesn't hurt us. Well, much." Buffy crossed her arms in front of her chest. "So… are you a Slayer?"
Max stiffened even more than she had been already. "A murderer?!? That is not who I am!" she ground out between clenched teeth.
Spike walked through the cluster of people in the doorway and dared to stand close to Max and look her dead in the eyes. "Well, you see, ducks, a while back the government got the brilliant idea of sticking this nifty little chip in my head to keep me from snacking on the likes of humans. Whenever I try, feels like my head is about to bloody well explode. But when I gave you that little love tap—" he raised his open hands "— no headache, no grabbing my head, no Big Ow. Which must make you… a demon."
Max stared at him, trying to process his words. "I'm not a demon," she finally managed to say.
He stepped slightly closer and ran his tongue along his fangs under his upper lip. "Well, you're not human, love."
Max felt like the walls were closing in on her. She couldn't move forward or backwards. Either way she felt she was in trouble. Either way, she lost. She turned to Logan, the dismay shimmering in the black pools of her eyes. "You told me I was safe here." Her voice gave a slight tremble that was only audible to someone who knew her well. Logan was the only person who heard it, and he felt his very soul react. "I'm not safe anywhere."
Joyce stepped forward. "Max, you are safe here. Nobody here will hurt you. It's okay to tell us what… who you are."
"Max," Logan said softly. She closed her eyes and tried not to shiver. "Maybe it's time for you to take a chance. Trust someone."
Max sighed. Logan always seemed to be right about these things, somehow. She sat on the couch, deflated. She put her head in her hands as she could feel the energy drain out of her.
Can't fight. Can't run.
"Every time I trust someone, or they trust me, they get hurt." She didn't dare look at Logan. Instead, she bolstered herself and looked Buffy straight in the eyes. "I'm a chimera," Max said stiffly, opting for the technical term to delay the inevitable.
Giles snorted. "I could hardly think so. You certainly don't look like lion, goat, or snake, and I haven't seen any fire breathing from you."
Max almost gave him a wry smile. Almost. "Yeah, well, I'm sure if someone had thought of it…"
Something in Willow's brain seemed to click at the words. She looked at Max, suddenly understanding what she meant. "No, Giles, she means… really. Wow. Max, you mean… really? Wow. She means… oh, cool." She tried not to cringe at the contorted look that Max gave her.
Xander cleared his throat. "Will, would you mind providing the translation for those of us who… have no idea what you're talking about?"
Willow opened her mouth, but she was interrupted by Max.
"Will means that someone in a secret government lab got it in their sick minds to see what happens when they mix human DNA with DNA from a few other things. In short, they made me." She took in their dazed expressions with a bitter laugh. She hated this. Hated the way everyone stared at her like she was something that just crawled out of a test tube, however appropriate it might be.
"Why?" Buffy asked.
"Because they decided they wanted a super soldier. They wanted a whole bunch. So me and my brothers and sisters were nothing but soldiers every day of our lives until the day we blitzed. Funny thing is, they took exception to that and they've hunted us every day since then." Max clenched and unclenched her hands. She was starting to get a headache.
"How old were you when you left?" Dawn asked with wide eyes. The whole conversation seemed so surreal.
Max turned her head. She'd forgotten that the young girl had ended up as a witness to this whole mess. "Nine," she answered.
Joyce took a deep breath, steeling herself for a difficult question. "Are you dangerous?"
"Mom," Dawn exclaimed in protest.
Max never flinched as she looked at Joyce and answered as truthfully as she could, "Yes."
"Max," Logan said sharply, protesting her answer.
She whipped her head to look at him, "They trained me to kill, to be a killer." She looked back at Buffy. "So, yeah, I guess that does make me a slayer. But that's what I am, not who." She stood slowly on shaky legs. "And that's probably what makes me more dangerous than anything. We'll pack up and leave now. I won't bother… I'll leave."
Joyce shook her head. "Would you ever hurt us, Max? Willingly?"
Max tried to search Joyce's face for any hint of fright or disgust. All she saw was the question. She said quietly, "I would never do anything to hurt you or your family."
Joyce nodded. "Then stay."
Max stopped breathing at her words. She couldn't believe it. She looked at each person's face and instead of looking at her like she was some kind of freak or monster, she saw something she never expected. Acceptance. Only Spike was still looking at her like she was a demon, but since she'd seen what he had looked like, well... it wasn't like his opinion really mattered.
It seemed Logan had been right, of course. She had taken the chance. Trusted someone. And this is what it led to.
Dawn smiled. "Welcome to Sunnydale."
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