Characters. Not mine. Except the ones you haven't heard of. Those I own heart and soul. All else is Joss Co.'s So don't have a cow.
~Star Mouse
@ @ @
"You see, my ...employers, I guess... have this library of prophecies. It's
kind of an obsession, or something." She took a sip of tea, and set it back
on the coaster on Giles's coffee table before continuing in her slightly
nasal Boston accent. Buffy sat across from her, Giles rested in the
olive-green wing chair next to it, and Spike leaned against the wall next
to the open door, smoking. "I know most Watchers and Slayers are into
the whole prophecy thing, what with the whole, 'usually involving them'
deal. But these are first and only editions. First and only copies, so I can
safely say that you've never seen any of these before."
Giles held up a hand, asking her to pause. "These employers... Are they the ones who have scarred your face so badly? I'd like to know that before anything else is decided."
"Yeah," Spike called. "Like whether or not we should kill them."
"It's not just my face," she returned, quietly. "But no. They didn't do this." She coughed. "But the prophecy-- they have several volumes on the Slayer. Mostly it's the weird stuff that makes you remember most of these prohets were neurotic drug addicts. Like the Slayer 'loving those of the grave twice,' or 'killing and angel and fleeing to the city of angels and into hell,' and stuff like that. You know, weird stuff. But, anyway, we were reorganising, and," she shifted, bringing her hands into the conversation, gesturing as she talked. "You know that thing where you have too many books, and you start pushing them back on the shelves and putting new layers of books in front?" Giles, former librarian, nodded. He hated when people did that.
"Well, we had been doing that, and this one volume --well, lots of volumes, but notably, this one-- had gotten hidden behind some others..." She pulled a slim, decomposing book out of her jacket pocket. Cloth bound, fraying, and with a flourescent pink post-it note sticking out, somewhere near the middle. Giles perked up.
"I say," he tried to conceal his excitement. "Ah, may I?" He held out a hand. The young woman handed the book over to him.
"Careful," she said. "It's, like, really old, and it's not mine."
"Ah, don't worry," Buffy waved a hand. "He's a librarian. The worst thing he could do to an old book is drool on it."
Giles reverently cracked the cover open, and read the first page. It was in an early Germanic script. The title translated to...
"My word."
Spike stamped out his cigarette and stalked over. He leaned across to read. He blinked. He looked at Buffy.
"What's the post-it to, Watcher?" he asked, still staring at Buffy.
"Why are you looking at me like that? What's it say?" Buffy's eyes darted back and forth between Spike and the young woman sipping her tea.
"Oh, my God."
Spike's head snapped round to the book, and he swiped it out of Giles' grasp, reading from the open page.
"Oh, bugger."
"Okay, inside joke, cryptic mutterings thing not funny anymore. What does the freakin' book say?"
Spike's voice was low and monotonic. "And the Slayer shall fall, and the next shall be called, and none shall save her from her fate. For she who defied the ones who keep her cannot be saved, yea, replaced as new.'" Spike looked up, noting Buffy's expression, more startled he could read than anything else. "This book's a chronical of the death of every Slayer, pet."
Distraction, distraction. "Small book."
"s Volume Twenty-Nine."
"There are nearly two hundred, before the author died."
Giles stared at the young woman. "You would keep something like this from the Watcher's council? The ones who would need it most?"
"The Watcher's council can blow up, as far as I care. They'd just misuse the knowledge. You work for them, right? You must realize that."
"No, I don't work for them any longer. That, I'm sure, is the 'defied the one's who hold her' reference. Unless...." He looked at Buffy. "Faith. She was more 'defiant' than you ever were..."
"No." Spike tapped the book, flipped several pages towards the back. "Here's reference to she who 'fought the light with darkness, and yea, was nearly felled by light. Indeed, was locked in four~square walls with those who kill and plunder.'"
"I put her in a coma, senior year. She's in prison now."
"That'd be it, then."
"But... Are you sure it's really me? I mean, *this* person," she gestured
at the young woman on the couch, "thought I was in Bangledesh. Was
there a new Slayer called there? Two years would be about right, right?
You know. My morbid summer?"
Giles and Spike shared a look. Giles attacked his glasses with the swede.
"I-it's possible, Buffy. We, we'll just have to see."
The young woman blinked. "This is starting to make sense. You," she
pointed at Buffy, "You're the Slayer, aren't you?"
Buffy rolled her head around to give the girl a 'duh, not needed right now'
look. "Yeah," she said. "I'm the Slayer."
"But... Wow. I thought. There's just one, right? There's supposed to be
one."
"Apparently there are three, all told," said Giles. "Though we will have to
confirm the existence of the third before we can draw any conclusions.
Now it is starting to come together."
"But how did this happen? The Slayer's not supposed to get called until
the old one--"
"--dies. Yes. Buffy has died twice. Once in 1997, and again in 2001. Both
times, she was subsequently revived. This caused the Slayer line to...
Branch somewhat." Buffy bit her lip. She glanced up nervously at Spike.
The young woman nodded at Giles to go on, and he did, enthusiastically.
He always loved an opportunity to give the "One girl in all the world..."
speech.
The look didn't go unnoticed. Spike shut the book and stalked the two steps to the couch. He leaned down so that he could speak into her ear.
"All right, pet?"
"Just fine," she whispered back. "I love getting my deaths forcasted for me..."
"Something else."
He could always read her. Even when he didn't lo-
"Yeah. I...I've died three times."
@ @ @
"Yes, hello. This is R-- a call for Thomas Ingle. Long distance, and extremely urgent. .... Well I assure you he'd rather be speaking with me. .... You really don't have any way to know that. .... I'll bloody well not have him call me back! .... Look, miss, if you honestly..."
Buffy turned her attention back to the young woman sitting across her. Her arms were folded against her chest and she was looking around her at the interior of the Magic Box. It hadn't been really voiced aloud, but Buffy figured Giles would rather save his apartment than the shop. You know, just in case the girl got the boom~happies again. Spike had left, so as not to be caught by the rising sun. Giles had gone to make with the Watcher Council phone-a-friend hotline, and Buffy had been told to engage in light~hearted girl-talk.
They had been sitting in silence ever since.
"So-" Buffy started, for the fifth time.
The girl blinked politely. Buffy finally thought of a topic of conversation. And kicked herself for not thinking of it an hour ago. Funny how finding out you're gonna die can throw you off the details.
"What's your name, anyway?"
The girl looked startled. "We haven't done this already?"
"Un-uh."
"Oh, well then-" she half stood and shook Buffy's hand. "I'm Katherine,"
she said, but immediately backtracked. "Kind of. Technically. Officially. But
I like Birdy' better. It's what I go by, anyway. I'm not sure why I even
mentioned 'Katherine,' because I've been Birdy for years... Heh. So I
guess you can call me that." She resettled on the couch. "I'm the, uh, sort
of courier for some crabby old men in togas in east Asia."
"Buffy. Killer of Corpses in southern California, stationed in a town
situated on the mouth of hell."
"Charmed."
"Pleasure's mine."
There was another silent moment. Birdy cocked her head.
"So. Who's the guy?"
"The tweedy one or the leather one?"
"Tweedy one's Mr. Giles, right? Renagade Watcher. I mean Young
Hot Guy."
Buffy thought about how the description was so dead wrong.
"That description is so dead wrong," she said.
Birdy raised an eyebrow. "I'm not blind."
"No. Me either. Trust me, totally with you on the hotness. But it's just funny, considering he's, oh, about one-hundred-twenty years old, and tends to stay below room temperature."
More silence.
"Oh. So he's a vampire."
"Yeah."
"Ah." Buffy waited. The inevitable question--
Birdy narrowed her eyes in slight confusion. "Aren't you supposed to drive a piece of wood through his heart, or something?"
*sigh* --
always came around now. At least this time she had a good excuse.
"Yeah, but you see, I'm in love with him," Buffy replied calmly.
She hadn't been able to use that one for years.
The silence came back. Then it went away.
"Oh." Birdy's eyebrows shot up for a moment. "Off~limits, then."
Buffy sighed. "Not exactly."
"Oh. I get it. That sucks." The young woman reached over the coffee table to pat Buffy's shoulder reassuringly. "But no fear. He'll probably get it eventually."
Buffy didn't really feel like explaining her convuluted relationship with Spike to this person. Time to change the subject.
"Um, if you don't mind me asking, why all the facial scars? I mean, there's a lot of them, and some of them are kind of with the 'planned' thing. You're not into the whole self-abuse mentality, are you? 'Cause we get enough of the masochism around here already."
Birdy drew her hand back. "It's, ah, no," she whispered. "I didn't do it."
"Oh..." Buffy sat up. "God, I'm sorry. What happened? Did those toga guys do it? Seriously, Spike'll go kill em, if you want. He's really big with the being polite to women." Sometimes.
"No. No, it's okay. The people who did this, they're already dead."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Buffy asked quietly.
Birdy stared at her.
"...no. Not really."
"Okay. How about we talk about that handy talent you have for blowing holes in bar walls?"
"Oh. That. That's just, well, I think it's a side effect of the being zapped. Like, extra energy to burn, and it has to go somewhere. Or something. I'm not a witch. Well, I can do the energy release stuff, and whatever, but usually I don't get that much of a--"
"Blast!"
Both heads turned at the British outburst from the counter.
Giles bit at the end of the plastic antenna of the phone. He looked over at Buffy.
"Our friends at the Watcher's Council have not been very forthcoming with us, I'm afraid."
"Are we talking about for the last six years, or in this conversation just now?"
"At all. I have very few contacts left on the Watchers council, but I thought I had a few friends left. Thomas Ingle and I were in footie pajamas together, but he's all ... clammed up, I'm afraid. According to him, I've been red-flagged. Propaganda runs rampant. Apparently I'm being billed as 'out of control', 'highly-dangerous', and 'engaged in an ilicit relationship with my Slayer.'"
Buffy nearly gagged, and Giles nodded agreement. "Even Thomas thought I was turning black. I think it's safe to say that we'll be getting no information from them any time soon." He set the phone roughly into the cradle. "Bugger all."
Buffy stood. "So that's it, then? No more with the queries? We just wait to see if I drop dead to find out what Slayer the prophecy meant?"
Giles scratched his brow ridge with his ring finger. "Buffy, I," he sighed and dropped his hands to his waist. "I don't know where else to look. I'm sorry."
"Look in the book," Birdy said, looking at her lap.
Buffy turned to regard her. She turned her scarred face upwards.
"Find your death in the book. That will settle this."
Buffy turned to look back at Giles, eyebrow arched. He shrugged.
"The thought did cross my mind--"
"Then get with the looking."
"I fear these phorphecies are just too...vague. But even if I could decifer yours for certain-- Are you sure you would like to know the date of your death? That is, if you don't already?" Giles' gaze pierced her own, leaving her silent.
@ @ @
As is usually the case with people who drop in on the Sunnydale gang, Birdy didn't have anywhere to stay. So, along with the rest of the town, she was going to be holing up at the Summers residence. It was gone dawn when the two women left Giles at the Magic Box, still stressing and researching.
Willow had finally moved out of Joyce's bedroom, so Buffy pointed Birdy in that direction before stumbling off towards her own room. She had been trying to get up with Dawn for school each morning, and if she wanted to be coherent, she'd have to catch a few...minutes.
She paused, just inside her room, and stared blankly at the wall for a while. She was at that weary stage where it's impossible to function and even harder to imagine falling asleep. She shuffled over to the sun~lit bed and sat on the edge.
She couldn't sleep.
There was no way. Not now. Not waiting to die.
The sun rose higher and she watched the shadows move across the floor.
@ @ @
Poor Buffy. I swear, she broods more than S3 Angel.
Reviews. Gotta love em. I think I'm an addict, or something.
Withdrawal is an ugly thing that you don't want to read.
~Star Mouse