Chapter 4
"Condemned," Kennedy thought, was a rather polite description of their new home. Trashed. Rotting. Unsafe. Filthy. About to collapse. . . any of those might have been more accurate. Still, this was it: the new Slayer HQ. Sulking about it wouldn't help, and it would set a bad example for the other girls.
"Alright," she said, turning to address the girls following her down the hallway, "I know it looks kinda nasty now, but just give us a couple days to clean up and it'll be just like home, right?"
Blank stares of incredulity and disgust were the slayers' only response, so she fell back on the lesser of evils argument, "Besides, anything beats another night sleeping on that bus." She turned to peek into one of the classrooms but stopped when she felt something nearly invisible across the doorway brush against her. "Oh! Ew, spider webs! Get them off me!"
Giles had let Kennedy lead the girls on their tour while he stood by the main entrance fuming as he tried to follow Xander's half of a cell phone call. It wasn't easy to concentrate as his conversation with Father Benedict raced through his mind repeatedly. If there were another option available, he'd move on - but where else could he find an empty school and an authority that would ostensibly legitimize their activities?
"Ok, thanks, Dawnie. You take care of those two and get them up here as soon as you can. Bye." Xander flipped the phone closed and met Giles' anxious look. "She's doing better. The hospital thinks she was just dehydrated or something. Maybe hit her head when she fell."
"She is OK now though?"
"I guess. She says it just took her by surprise. Next time it'll pay for messing with her."
"I've told her countless times to protect herself. That adequate shielding is imperative when. . ."
"Right, and I'm guessing she learned her lesson. It's just a good thing Dawn was there to break things up."
"Yes, she's certainly matured and learned a great deal in the past few years."
Xander fiddled with his eye patch, remembering the little girl who'd moved to Sunnydale with Buffy. Yes, they were false memories; but they were the only ones he had - and true enough given that they fit with his current reality. He tried sliding the patch a bit further to the right - as if it wasn't bad enough to be down an eye, the damned patch itself was uncomfortable as hell.
Concern overshadowed the fury in Giles' face as he also remembered a younger, more innocent Dawn and looked on the stream of young girls parading down the halls of what was to become a Slayer academy. "So many people," he said, "in so deep."
Xander stopped fiddling with his eye patch. "I know what you mean."
Two cars pulled off the highway a few miles south of the US-Mexico border and Faith got out of one, wiping the sweat from her forehead, then wiping the resulting grime on her pants. Rona exited the other car and walked over to her. "So, boss, you're really not coming up with us?"
"This is as far as I go. I try a legit border crossing and I'm going to end up back in the slammer for the rest of my life." She gazed north along the highway, toward the country she'd never left until a week ago. The country that held Boston and New Orleans and everything she'd ever known. A country she'd probably never see again. "You have Giles' directions?"
"Yeah," Rona replied, patting the hip pocket of her tight black jeans. "All right here." She looked long at the leader of their Mexican expedition. "Are you sure? I mean, maybe we can sneak back across, like we came in?"
"Nah. Too risky. Even if we did get across, I'd just be bad business to have around all those impressionable young slayers anyway - convicted murderer and all." She turned and looked back southward, toward her new home and made a sweeping gesture to the landscape, "Besides, I'm more the free agent/loose cannon type anyway."
"OK. . . " Rona said, trying to gauge just how much of that was true - some of it certainly was - and how much was just false bravado. "But not too loose."
Faith shot her a look. Just what was that supposed to mean?
"Adina did good in the end. I think she'll be all right. But she still has a lot to learn and you'll be the only one here to teach her. And anyone else we find down this way."
"Yeah, responsibility. It's a thing I'm learning."
A Winnie the Pooh nightlight grinned cheerfully at the rest of the toys in the nursery, casting it's warm yellow glow over the otherwise dark room and providing safe passage to the mother who walked in, cradling her infant daughter. The young woman kissed the sleeping baby on the forehead and laid her gently into the crib, careful not to disturb the deep innocent slumber of childhood.
She lingered a few moments, basking in that cherubic face and those stubby little fingers clutching at her blankie. The mother brushed a few imaginary strands of hair from her child's forehead and turned to leave when she heard the soft voice. She grinned - nearly giggled - at the serious intensity of those nonsensical syllables, then went to join her husband in bed while their pride and joy held discourse in her sleep.
The child continued muttering those grave words. Oh, it wasn't English - it wasn't any language previously spoken by man - but it certainly wasn't babbling. And it wasn't alone.