Disclaimer: Not mine… Joss's
Explaining
The new arrival in the Summers household was causing quite a stir, thought Buffy. The girl had only been here a few hours and already everyone was talking about her. Spike was muttering something quietly to Angel… since when did those two even look at each other, let alone talk. Cordy had gone outside to see if Gunn was okay, Willow was updating Xander and Dawn on the 'Eleanor Saga' and Fred was trying to get Anya to stop talking so loudly about the situation.
Buffy wasn't entirely sure what was the big issue, but she had managed to ascertain that Eleanor and Gunn had been together for a while and then she had had to go back to England. To be honest, Buffy didn't really have time for romantic entanglements. She was more concerned with the end of the world and if she could cope having her first love and her current one in the same house then couldn't this Eleanor chick just deal.
Sighing, she broached the subject,
'Uh, Will, I don't suppose you could get some of the girls together and uh… well teach them something?' She tried. Willow looked up at her,
'Oh, of course Buff, sorry. I'll just round them up.'
'What do you think of the new girl Buffster?' asked Xander, after Willow had gone to find some Potentials,
'Well I dunno – I've known her for like, six hours, and as far as I can tell she's a little emotional. But I haven't seen her fight – she doesn't seem that strong to me but then, who knows? Uh, Angel?'
'Well maybe we should… sorry, yeah Buffy?'
'Sorry, I'm not tearing you away from anything more important than an iminant apolcalypse am I?' she asked, trying to keep the edge off her voice. Luckily Angel still seemed preoccupied,
'Oh, no, no, of course not'
'Good, then can you possibly go and train some terrible fighters how to fight,'
'Right, yes' he muttered heading towards the basement. Okay, thought Buffy, that's most of the Potentials, Willow and Angel occupied. Moving on… she went for the easy option,
'Dawn, can you go and tidy your room please,'
'Aw, Buffy… it's perfectly tidy you know that'
'I said… tidy your room' glaring at her sister Dawn headed off towards the stairs,
'Spike and Xander, can you guys go and get some supplies?' The two enemies looked at each other in horror,
'Uh, are you sure you don't need any help around here luv?'
'Nope I'm fine, see you later – just be careful out there okay?'
'Anya and Fred,' she rounded on the only people left in the room, 'I need you to find out where Faith and Jonathon are, and go and get them back. They need to know whats going on.'
Sighing happily, Buffy surveyed the empty kitchen. Now all she needed was a plan to overthrow Caleb. Giles was at the library getting books to bring back to the house, and she was hopeless at devising strategies alone. She frowned to herself,
'Is it okay if I make myself a cup of tea?' a small voice asked from the door. Buffy looked up to see Eleanor wavering there, she could barely conceal her irritation,
'Fine' she said shortly, and pointing 'Kettle, mugs, teabags.' But as she watched the younger girl boiling the kettle she noticed that she had red rings around her eyes, and she felt sorry for her,
'You okay?' she asked in a kinder tone,
'Yup, I'm fine.' Replied Eleanor, still wary of the older slayer. At that point Cordelia came in the back door, looking fairly frustrated,
'God, men are just so…! Oh hey El, so what you been up to?' Cordelia tried to feign a casual tone,
'Oh not much really,'
'Oh' Cordy didn't really know what else to say. There had been a time when she had almost thought of El as a younger sister but then she just upped and left with no word and well… that had hurt.
Eleanor couldn't stand the tension in the room, so when she had made her tea she moved towards the door,
'Boy, do I need nicotine'
'Uh,' said Cordelia, 'You may not want to…' Eleanor started laughing,
'Oh Cordy, I know the drill… I'm gonna die from it and blah blah blah. You know it doesn't work on me' and with that she left the room.
Oh shit, though Eleanor as she saw Gunn sitting exactly where she had left him about four hours before. Then suddenly she decided she didn't want to run away from this any more, she wanted to deal with it and sort out the issue that had been plaguing her for the last two years, most of all she just wanted to know…
'Why?' Gunn turned around in surprise, obviously lost too much in his own thoughts to notice her approach.
'Why would you do that to me when you knew what I felt about them and how I felt about…about you' At that, they both looked down, until his reply,
'O God Ellie, don't ask me that'
'Why not? I think it's a fairly viable question considering what you did to me. Not only did you lie and decieve me but you did it so that you could hand me over to the one institution that represent everything I hate in this world. What was it? Were you bored of me and couldn't think of another way to get rid of me for good? What?' Gunn looked up at her in astonishment, he never thought that she would think that badly of him,
'God, Ellie, god no… I mean… how could you think that?'
'Well, I've had a good couple of years to think it over – you think I haven't been through every possible reason?' Gunn sighed, maybe today was the time for the truth,
'Look, they made me do it okay. And the reason I don't want to talk about it is that it'll sound like I'm trying to justify myself and I know that there was no excuse, I just couldn't see any other way out of it.'
'How could they make you? They didn't even know where I was, or who you were.'
'Yes they did.'
Eleanor digested this. 'How?' she whispered almost to herself. When she had run away she had taken huge precautions. She had dyed her hair, changed her name, got a new passport from an underground demon dealer. She had moved from Washington to LA reckoning that the Council would probably think she had skipped the country and returned to England. How on earth could they have tracked her?
'I don't know' said Gunn, 'But they knew everything. They had pictures of you leaving the Hotel, of you and I fighting, of everyone else… well apart from Angel of course… but they knew where you were.'
'So why ask you? They had drugs and power… they could have just taken me'. Gunn swallowed nervously, this was what he really didn't want to discuss,
'They thought that if you had nothing left in LA you wouldn't feel any urge to run away again and that they would be able to watch over you. Basically they thought that if you hated me you wouldn't care where you were.' Gunn looked down at the grass, trying to ignore the urge to take her in his arms again. She looked so scared, and was doing a terrible job of covering it up,
'Oh…' she said quietly and then she found her anger 'So, what? They just approached you, showed you some photos and asked you to be a good boy and give me back?' Her eyes were flashing dangerously and she was standing right in front of him daring him to look at her instead of his feet,
'Not exactly.' Gunn sighed, 'Look Ellie, they've had instances of this happening within the council before and they have photos of what happened to the slayers that didn't co-operate. They showed me some of the most horrific images I have ever seen. And those slayers were the lucky ones. If you hadn't complied with the council then they would have killed you. Anything to keep their secret safe. The only reason they didn't try to get rid of me is because I pretended that I knew nothing about why you ran away from your watcher.' He looked up at her then. Her eyes were full of tears,
'Fuck.' Was all that she said, Gunn almost laughed, he had often berated her for her language, 'Fuck… oh Gunn…oh fuck… I'm so sorry.' With that she turned on her heel and ran off past the trees.
'Ellie! Ellie, get back here – its dangerous out there. Ellie!' After a few futile steps he knew there was no point chasing her, on a good day El could run like a cheetah.
TBC
More angst… yup sorry – but I guess u gotta have the bad times to appreciate the good! Please review lots and lots *grin* I really need people's opinions or just let me know that you are reading so that I carry on writing!