Changing of the Guard - Part 1

Even in her quiet moments, she was always in motion, always hyperactive. A finger tapping wildly, erratically against her knee, eyes moving from left to right, body swaying to a song in her head. Calm just didn't do it for her — not with all that energy to burn. And hey, she was the Chosen One — Two — and sitting still wasn't her thing. Not with vamps to stake.

And there was one hella big vamp for her to stake that night. That son of a bitch was goin' down if she had to put a freakin' mast through his chest to do it. No way was he gonna be in one piece come sunrise. All she had to do now was a final weapons check, then she and E could get to it. And damn if that wouldn't feel good. Good enough, maybe, for her to look up Charlie and give him one last shot at her.

"Faith."

She turned, her movements liquid for all that she was nearly bouncing, and said, "Hey, E! Just about ready."

The other woman grimaced slightly at Faith's chosen appellation for her and said, "I'd like to string Charles up for teaching you that dreadful habit."

Faith grinned at her Watcher and said, "That ain't the only bad habit he taught me. Wanna spice up that diary you're always writing in?"

Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth Douglas said, "Thank you, but no. I'm quite certain I don't wish to give future generations of Watchers a joint heart attack." Standing only five feet, two inches, Elizabeth wasn't as tall as Faith, yet she managed to intimidate her even without a size advantage.

"I'm just sayin' —"

"I know what you're saying," she interrupted, "and you needn't go into further detail with me." At the age of fifty-three, Elizabeth thought she'd had a fairly good grasp of human sexuality. Despite that, her charge continued to surprise her at every turn. It wasn't that she was a prude — not by any stretch of the imagination. She'd grown up in Edinburgh, a street urchin much the way Faith had been, and she'd seen more than her share of human and demonic depravity as a young girl, thanks to the pillock she knew as her father. But Faith always managed to take one step beyond where Elizabeth had gone. It was a tendency that worried her to no end, and she'd been doing what she could to temper the girl's more insane behaviors.

"Okay, okay," Faith said, missing the look of concern on her Watcher's face as she did one last weapon check. "So who was on the phone?"

"Mr. Travers," she answered carefully. It was a tricky thing, training a Slayer who despised the Council, though it was hardly a unique situation.

"Bastard," Faith said, her stance changing to a defensive posture.

"Yes, well, I'm quite certain his mother would agree with you. Be that as it may, we've been ordered to go to the Hellmouth in California immediately." Elizabeth didn't have long to wait for the inevitable explosion.

"No way!"

"Faith —"

"Kakistos, E — I gotta get Kakistos." When Faith made to leave the room, Elizabeth stopped her by the simple expedient of tripping her. She was a relatively inexperienced Slayer, and she didn't expect her Watcher to stick her foot in front of her. She started to stand up, but Elizabeth had a few more tricks up her sleeve, and she was able to keep Faith down with perhaps a bit too much ease.

In a conversational tone, she said, "If you'd been paying attention last month, you would know how to get out of this hold. Ready to listen?"

She allowed Faith to vent for a few moments before slightly increasing the pressure on her spine. The resulting pain was enough to shut the girl up, and Elizabeth continued, "Council will deal with Kakistos in another way. Trust me, he won't be permitted to continue, so you needn't worry about that. We have been ordered to go to California, and to California we will go. There's a private plane waiting for us at Logan Airport, and we have about an hour to pack up the necessities. Still listening?"

"Bitch," Faith said in a sullen, angry tone.

"Quite," Elizabeth answered, trying very hard to mask her amusement. "Council have assured me that they will send someone 'round to pack the rest of our belongings, but I think you and I both know it will be best to take our dearest possessions with us, right?"

"You can let me up now," she answered, trying to wriggle free of her Watcher's hold. And damn, she should've paid more attention. What good was being a superhero if you could still get pinned to the ground by an old lady?

"Right. I could also drop in at the White House on a whim and pay a visit to President Clinton, though I don't think that will be happening any time soon either," she said, maintaining an even pressure. She could hold Faith down for another hour — or longer — if she had to, but she hoped she would see reason before that. And it was far too early to consider letting her up. Elizabeth knew just how conniving her Slayer could be, and she didn't trust her yet not to go after Kakistos.

"E —"

She increased the pressure enough to get a yelp out of Faith, then eased off as she said, "I've asked you time and again not to call me that. Council have ordered us to go to California, and no amount of whinging on your part will change the fact that we will be going to the Hellmouth there."

"After the crap they pulled when I was called, how can you trust them?" Faith continued to waste energy struggling, convinced that if she kept at it, Elizabeth would get tired, and she could then go after Kakistos.

"I trust them, because I must. If I can't trust the Council to do the right thing ultimately, what else is there for me?" She sounded tired and fed up, and Faith didn't bother pointing out that E — that Elizabeth — could trust her. She'd proven too many times that she wasn't that trustworthy. Still, it was the first time Faith had heard anything close to defeat in her Watcher's voice, and it was enough to make her pause.

She stopped fighting, and asked in a low voice, "Why?"

Reluctantly, Elizabeth said, "Have you ever wondered how I came to be a Watcher?"

"Hell yes." It had been one of the first questions Faith asked after Elizabeth gained custody of her. The woman had refused to answer, though, saying instead that Faith had better things to worry about.

"I was eleven years old when the Watchers' Council sent assassins after my father," she said quietly, ignoring the sudden tension in Faith's shoulders. "He'd been raising demons as part of a money-making scheme, and one got away from him. It killed over thirty people before a local coven was able to take control of it and send it back to Hell."

"Shit."

"Precisely. That's the home I grew up in, and I hated it. When I heard there were men trying to kill my father, I tracked them down and offered my help," Elizabeth said, her voice trailing off at the memory.

Faith didn't know what to say. She'd always imagined that her Watcher grew up in a nice, comfortable, middle-class home with a mother who didn't turn tricks and a father who wasn't a dealer. Come to find out, E had it worse than she did.

"When he was dead, Council took me with them so they could learn more about his activities. It took six months, and at the end, they realized they couldn't turn me loose on the world as I was, so they chose to raise me themselves. It was safer, you see," Elizabeth said, maintaining tight control over her voice. More than forty years later, and she still felt intensely grateful to the Council for setting her free.

And yeah, Faith could get that. A foster home probably wasn't the best thing for an eleven-year-old kid who volunteered to help kill her old man. And if that didn't send chills down her back, she wasn't sure what would. Yeah, she knew Elizabeth could be a bitch when she set her mind to it, but murdering her dad? Damn.

"I owe Council my life. They saved me, you see. And whilst they can be right bastards, they're still the best chance we have to fight evil. And that, my girl, is why you're going to pack your things and get ready to go to California," she said, feeling that she was back on firmer, familiar ground again. Talking about her childhood always made Elizabeth uncomfortable. Some part of her remained convinced that if she spoke of it too often, she would be sent back to the streets of Edinburgh without a second thought. It was a child's nightmare, but one that remained into adulthood.

Though Faith couldn't see Elizabeth, she didn't have to to know what her face looked like. The bitch had an I-want line that was a mile long when she sounded like that, and Faith had learned there wasn't much that could change her mind when she was that determined to do a thing.

"What about that other chick?"

Elizabeth sighed at Faith's continued refusal to say the other Slayer's name. Then again, she'd had a hard time keeping a straight face saying it, so she really didn't have much ground to stand on. "I'm not sure. Mr. Travers said only that Miss Summers was no longer able to continue her duties. I expect I'll get more information from her Watcher."

"Right. Like he'll say anything." Faith was starting to get uncomfortable. Elizabeth had a knee in her right kidney, and she had enough weight to press her hip bone into the floor.

"I met Mr. Giles a few years ago. He was a bit stuffy in an earnest sort of way. I believe that when we arrive, he'll explain what the problem is with Miss Summers," she said. She actually knew quite a bit more than that about Rupert Giles — his rebellion had been the stuff of legend for the Watchers of her generation — but Faith had no need to hear that particular piece of gossip. In the event, he had acquitted himself quite well over the years, more than making up for the grievous sins of his youth. She continued, "Now. If I let you up, are you going to try to leave again?"

"Probably," she said without thinking. And then Faith wanted to kick herself for it. She couldn't lie to save her ass.

"At the risk of repeating myself, we leave Boston today to go to Sunnydale. You will not go after Kakistos," Elizabeth said in a calm, patronizing voice. She only talked that way when they were fighting, and Faith had the idea that she did it just to wind her up a little bit more.

Whatever.

It worked.

She started fighting harder than ever, managing to wear herself out far more effectively than Elizabeth could have accomplished on her own. Had she been able to flail, she would have been able to free herself. But her Watcher had forgotten more tricks of street fighting than Faith had a hope of ever learning, and she maintained control the entire time.

After a good twenty minutes of keeping Faith on the floor, she asked again, "If I let you up, will you go to your room and start packing?"

Tired, defeated, Faith answered, "Yeah."

'Thank god for small favors. Never thought I'd be too bloody old for this,' Elizabeth thought as she stood and offered a hand to Faith. "I know you're unhappy about this, and I know you trust Council as far as a small child could throw them. Despite that, I have to believe this is for the best."

"Whatever," Faith muttered, stumbling slightly as she turned to go to her room and start packing.

~*~*~

At the Council's headquarters in London, Quentin Travers was clearing the last of the paperwork from his desk in an attempt to have things at least moderately under control before he left for California. As head of field operations, not only was he responsible for overseeing the current Slayer and her Watcher — rather, Slayers and Watchers — he was also responsible for managing a number of ongoing investigations into both demonic and magical events. The work was never-ending, and he could have done with a vacation, but this business with Miss Summers put an end to his plans for a week of fishing in the Highlands.

"Quentin? Working late, I see."

He'd been playing at Council politics for far too long to allow the other man to see just how distasteful he found his sudden appearance. Instead, Travers looked up with a slight smile and said, "Roger. I'm not the only one, apparently."

"Yes, well, this business with the Summers girl —"

"Woman, if Rupert is to be believed," he interrupted. It wasn't often that he could get such an easy jab at Wyndam-Pryce, and he assumed it was because the man was still upset over Council's failure to appoint his son to a position in the field.

"Yes. Quite," he answered, sounding a bit grim.

Travers took a closer look and decided that the tone was more for effect than for any true problem. "Was there something you needed before I leave?"

"I was thinking you might take Wesley with you. He's still a bit ham-handed, and a trip of this nature might knock a few rough edges off him," Wyndam-Pryce said, a little too casually.

Actually, Travers had been thinking the same thing and had already notified the younger Wyndam-Pryce that he would be going to Sunnydale. Still, no reason to let the elder Wyndam-Pryce know that just yet. Better to have the man think he owed him a favor.

"Oh? After that business with Lady Haversham, I would have thought you'd be keeping young Wesley at home for a bit," he said, taking careful aim at Wyndam-Pryce's ego. The flush on the older man's neck told Travers he scored a direct hit.

After a brief stammer, he answered, "I've been given to understand that Wesley might have done a better job of it, had he been given a bit more experience."

Travers smiled blandly, keeping his amusement out of his voice and eyes when he said, "Perhaps. Are you certain he won't make an ass of himself?"

In any other case, Travers might have felt a momentary surge of guilt for scoring points off Wyndam-Pryce's son, but the young man was a complete prat. He thought that while much of that may well have been due to having Roger Wyndam-Pryce as a father, Wesley had just turned thirty, and he should be able to stand apart from his father by this time.

"I've had several chats with Wesley, and I can assure you that he will do well enough," he said.

'I imagine you have, you old fool,' thought Travers. Aloud, he said, "If you're sure, then, I'll make arrangements to have him along."

"I can let him know."

"No need for that, Roger. I have to go to the Watchers' quarters as it is. I'll talk to him myself," Travers said, determined not to let the man destroy what little confidence Wesley had gained as a result of being told he would be going to Sunnydale.

"It's no trouble —"

"Of course not. As you said, though, it's getting late. I should imagine Myra is waiting for you at home. And I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear that Wesley is taking a trip to the Hellmouth." While Travers was not unmindful of the irony of his statement, Wyndam-Pryce, stolid and unimaginative, would never see the joke.

Outmaneuvered by the other man, Wyndam-Pryce nodded once and said, "You're right, of course. Shall I see you in the morning?"

"Unlikely," Travers answered, putting a few files into his briefcase before standing up. He turned off his desk lamp and moved to leave his office. "I think we'll want to leave as early as possible. Any messages for Wesley?"

"Hm? No. I don't think that's necessary," he said, leaving the office just ahead of Travers.

And Travers, locking the door behind him, thought, 'Of course it's not necessary. What father would want to wish his son well? Perhaps giving Wesley a potential might not be such a bad thing after all. If we get him out of the country for a good, long while, maybe he'll get over his father.'

Neither man said another word when they parted company. There was, after all, nothing more to say.

~*~*~

Confused, Buffy looked around as she tried to determine where she was. She had a distinct memory of being on the plains outside Kilsop just a moment earlier and a moment before that, she thought she'd been at the diner in Los Angeles. But neither location was anything like the sight in front of her now. Gentle hills, covered in a lush, green grass stretched as far as she could see, and stone walls cut across the landscape, dividing it neatly.

"Where —"

"Ireland, my love," George said from behind as he wrapped his arms around her.

Smiling, she leaned back into his embrace, closing her eyes so she could focus on the feel of him, the scent of him. "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you."

"I've been waiting for you to find a bit of balance, a ghrá mo chroí. After all, you've had a busy time of it these last few days, what with seeing your family and friends," he said. The last few words were only just audible, because he'd buried his nose in her hair.

"Did you miss me?" She tried to snuggle deeper into his arms, but they were already as tight against one another as they could be.

"You know I did. I always do," he said, nuzzling her ear. He pushed his hips forward slightly and said, "And if this doesn't prove it, I don't know what will."

"Gotta say a frisky husband is a thing of beauty." She turned her head, trying to capture his lips for a kiss, but he pulled away slightly, laughing at the look on her face.

"Greedy old cow. You only want me for my body."

She looked into his dark eyes, melting inside at the love she saw there. "Kind of like you for your mind better, but right now, I'll settle if I have to."

"Settle, will you?" His hands started wandering down her body, touching —

Buffy awoke with a start, uncertain what had broken her sleep, angry that her dream time with George had been cut short. She looked around for Annie, nearly allowing panic a foothold before she remembered that her mother had invited her to spend the night. Buffy had been reluctant to allow it, but the combined persuasive efforts of Joyce and Annie proved too much for her, and she agreed. She was glad the two of them were getting along so well, but part of her — the paranoid part — was convinced it was all happening too fast.

"What's happening too fast?" Buffy looked up to see Giles peering at her, a quizzical expression on his face.

Blushing slightly, she answered, "Did I say that out loud? Sorry," before she crawled out of her sleeping bag.

"There's no reason to apologize. But I am curious as to what's happening too fast," he said. Then, stammering a bit, he added, "I know this is a difficult time for you — for all of us, really — and if there's anything I can do, you will let me know, won't you?"

She wanted to give him a fake, bright smile and tell him nothing was wrong, but she couldn't force the lie past her lips. After a few false starts, she sighed, then stood up. "I spent years thinking about what it would be like to come home, and I had it all planned out. Annie and I would hide out here in your place for a while. I'd let Mom know what happened, and I would tell her about Annie. If she didn't freak about George being half demon, and she didn't harp about demons being monsters, then I'd introduce the two of them. Maybe."

Picking up the narrative, Giles said, "Instead, you find yourself odd man out when it comes to your mother and daughter?"

"Something like that. They've been getting along so well these last couple of days that I'm —"

When she didn't finish her sentence, he said, "Jealous?"

Looking down at her feet and feeling as if she were ten years old, she nodded and muttered, "Yeah."

"It's hardly surprising, you know. Grandparents the world over have been driving their children mad from the beginning of time because they get along so well with their grandchildren," he said thoughtfully.

She looked up at that and said, "Huh?"

He smiled at her before turning to go to the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he answered, "Grandmother Giles used to make my father quite angry, particularly when she would spoil me with treats and outings she'd denied him at that age."

She followed him, asking, "Did they fight in front of you?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. Dad told me about it after I returned to the Council. It was his way of reestablishing family ties," he said, pulling eggs out of the refrigerator. "Sunny side up, I think you said you preferred?"

"Yeah. That's fine. So you and your dad were able to talk after you returned to the fold?" She leaned hipshot against the doorway, watching him as he fussed with breakfast. The scene was sufficiently domestic and sane to make her feel slightly unreal, given all that she'd been through. In the last few months especially, with the push to the capital, meals had been hectic affairs. Camp fires had been hastily built, and as soon as the meat was cooked, they were extinguished, and the army marched on again. She shook the images from her mind and concentrated on enjoying the sight of a meal being prepared in leisurely fashion.

"We were able to talk before then, actually. Of course, much of the time it was at the level of shouting, but we did communicate," he said. "It's just that after the Eyghon business, he and I were finally able to react to one another as adults rather than as father and son."

"Funny. I thought you didn't get along with him. Ever."

He turned to her, confused, and said, "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Well — you know — you told me. Something about an irritating speech when you were a kid," she said, feeling more than a bit defensive at discovering she'd gotten it wrong.

"I was a ten-year-old boy who was impatient to get outside to play with his mates when my father told me about my destiny. He could have been lecturing on the merits of my favorite comic book, and I would have found it tiresome," Giles explained, just barely managing to suppress a chuckle. It was clear she was embarrassed, and he had no desire to add to her discomfort.

When he turned to put the pan on the stove, she said, "Okay. I can get that. David used to get the same way when George and I kept him from going out to play with the soldiers. He thought history was boring."

Looking over at her, he asked tentatively, "How old was David when he —"

"Nine. Carrie was six. And George, as far as we were able to figure out, was forty-one," she said. "Wait a minute — you read comics? And you still didn't get the Spiderman references?"

Exasperated, he said, "England had its own comics, and very few of them had anything to do with superpowers. Even if they had, I doubt my parents would have allowed me to read them."

Pleased at being given a rare glimpse of Giles as a boy, Buffy said, "Why not? I mean, with the whole Watcher thing."

"It would have been precisely because of the 'whole Watcher thing.' I would have found it confusing — any child would have — to be told on one hand that the comic books about superheroes were fantasy, but on the other, there was in fact a true superhero," he said, sliding Buffy's egg onto a small plate and handing it to her. "Damn. Forgot the toast."

"No big. I don't need it," she said.

Ignoring her, he put two pieces of bread in the toaster and continued, "In any event, I believe my father would have found the American comics of that era appalling."

Buffy reached around to pull out a fork and asked, "Because they weren't British?"

He directed a mild glare at her and answered, "Because almost all the superheroes were men. Given that the one true superhero in the world is — usually — a teenaged girl, I'm sure you can see why there would have been a problem."

"Ah," she said delicately, before eating her egg. Still standing in the kitchen as she ate, she thought about other questions to ask about his life while he was still in a talkative mood, but she couldn't come up with anything just yet. Instead, her mind kept turning to Kendra's replacement. She and her Watcher were due in that day, and Buffy wondered what Faith would be like.

"You know, I do have a marvelous piece of furniture I call a table. I find it works quite well when taking a meal," Giles said, watching her eat.

"Ha, ha — not. I was thinking about Faith," she said, refusing to budge from the doorway.

He sighed, giving up the notion that they would have breakfast in a civilized fashion, and put his own egg on a plate. When the toast came up, he handed a slice to her, shuddering slightly at her preference for eating it dry. "What is it about her that you were wondering?"

"Will she be like Kendra? Not knowing who her family is?" It had been more than twenty years, but Buffy still felt a chill run down her spine whenever she thought about the fact that Kendra had been raised by her Watcher and had never known her family.

"From what I understand, Faith moved in with her Watcher three years ago, so in answer to your question, no, her background won't be the same," he said before taking a bite of his egg.

Buffy frowned at that piece of news and said, "The Council didn't trust her family?"

"The Council obtained custody of Faith from the State of Massachusetts. I don't know the specifics, but Faith had been removed from her home before she was identified as a potential Slayer," he said, irritated that she'd so quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion. She hadn't said it in as many words, but over the past few days, her comments about the Council had given him the distinct impression that she found the organization wanting. Granted, it had a certain ruthlessness, but Buffy certainly hadn't come in contact with that aspect of the group. As a result, he felt as if she were judging him — her only direct experience with the Council since Merrick — and finding him wanting.

About to continue the conversation, Buffy paused, realizing she'd hit a nerve. "Sorry. It's just that for the last twenty years or so, I've heard stories about the Watchers' Council, you know?"

"Ah yes, Hell's rumor mill. The perfect source of accurate information about the Council," he said, feeling increasingly defensive. She'd never bothered to learn about the group when she was a teenager, and now, here she was with twenty years' worth of demonic propaganda filling her head as she sat in judgment.

She put her plate on the countertop, using more force than necessary. It didn't break, but a fine crack ran from the center to the rim. "It would be nice if you'd give me the benefit of the doubt and assume I took the rumors with a cup of salt. But some of the stories were pretty damned persistent, and the details were pretty much the same."

"Oh?" Giles raised a single eyebrow and asked, "What might those stories have been about?"

"How 'bout the one where the Council throws a Slayer into a locked building with a vampire when she turns eighteen?" Buffy groaned inside as soon as the words were out. She'd wanted to have this conversation when they were both calm and could discuss it like rational adults. She hadn't wanted to use it as a salvo in an argument. And judging by the way Giles paled when she said it, she guessed it was a direct hit.

He swallowed convulsively before finally saying, "The cruciamentum." No longer defensive, Giles felt an uneasy guilt at her revelation.

Forcing herself to keep a mild tone, she asked, "Is that what they call it? In Hell, the demons who knew about it called it home delivery for vamps. They used to ask me why the Council didn't do the same for everyone else."

"Buffy —"

"I had no trouble at all convincing myself that you wouldn't have put me through that," she said, giving him a look that spoke volumes on her feelings about the subject. "I'll be very unhappy if someone tries to burst that particular bubble."

He hesitated slightly before saying, "Understood."

Giving him a bright, patently false smile, she said, "Glad to hear it. Because I have a feeling I'll need your help to make sure the Council never, ever does that to a Slayer again."

"That particular tradition has been in place for centuries," he said, carefully choosing his words so as not to accidentally destroy her illusion that he would have said no to the test. "The Council are unlikely to give it up on your say-so and mine."

She nodded, saying, "Believe it or not, I get that. But I'm sure you and I can come up with a pretty convincing argument."

"And if we can't?"

"Then we move on to Plan B," she said.

Buffy suspected he may have jumped to the wrong conclusion when he lost more color and started stammering badly, at last saying, "You wouldn't — that is to say — not war?"

"No, silly! Declaring war on the Council is Plan C, to be used only if Plan B — blackmail — doesn't work."

to be continued...