"Wow," Donna said after a moment.
C.J looked at the collection, arrayed so neatly in her office, and sighed.
"What's up C.J?" Donna asked.
"I should never have left," C.J said.
She knelt to take the two daggers from their casing in the door. She hefted them, one in each hand, feeling their weight and balance. She liked these daggers. Her Watcher had given to her for her sixteenth birthday. She'd had to kill a Fyarl demon and they had some difficulty finding something silver to use as weapon. And she'd always liked trowing; daggers, stakes, swords. She'd thrown a brick once and had broken something's neck.
She realised that Donna had asked a question. She tried to remember what it was. "Why?" was most likely, or perhaps "what?"
"My Watcher showed me her baby," she said, absently. "The Slayer before me had had a baby. He was about four when she died, not really a baby. He watched me carefully the whole time I was there, him, me, my Watcher, and hers. I didn't want to do it. He'd come to Ohio and taken me to New York. I didn't want to believe, and I certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it. My– Miles said 'If you can't to it for us, or for yourself, or for the world, do it for him.' I tried, I really did, but ordinary guys got to me and killed me, and how could I take on the responsibility of a four-year-old's innocence? Poor Robin, I wonder what he's doing now," she ended bitterly.
Donna just watched as C.J lifted her left hand and threw the dagger, straight into the plaster directly next to the doorjamb to Josh's office. The right one followed after, landing just above its twin.
C.J stalked over to the daggers and yanked them out of the wood. She turned on one heel and threw a dagger towards Donna's face. Donna didn't try anything fancy. She dropped to her knees and caught the dagger between her palms.
But she didn't look at C.J then. She sat back on her heels and examined the dagger. It had markings along the hilt and the blade. They meant something, although Donna had no idea what. And she thought that the dagger was an odd shape. It appeared too long, or too thick, or too narrow.
Donna stood carefully and pushed aside everything in her that said that demons don't exist and therefore there can't be a Vampire Slayer, and the dream wasn't exactly what had happened. There wasn't much left, she been handed this so straightforwardly, by Toby of all people. She threw the knife, right handed. It landed between the doorjamb and the wall on the other side of Josh's door.
The door opened abruptly.
"Alright, Claudia Jean, twice is okay, but what the hell is going on here?" Josh demanded.
He turned his head to glower at Donna as well and noticed the knife in the wall.
"Okay, really what is going on?" he asked.
"We are very angry women, Josh," C.J said calmly. "It's probably better for your health to not get in the way."
Josh gulped and closed the door behind him.
"That was really easy," C.J said.
She looked to Donna questioningly.
"He is a lot of the time," she said.
A moment later she added: "You threw a knife a me."
"Standard testing procedure," C.J said.
"Testing! How many non-Slayers get killed in between times, C.J?!" Donna demanded. "You just throw knives at people and hope they can catch them out the air?"
"You did. I can," C.J said. "And it's not for us, it's for you. You can't possibly deny that you have powers now. There's no way I could have done it if I wasn't sure."
Donna could hear the faint bitterness in the edge of C.J's voice. "Okay."
Donna sank down onto C.J's couch. C.J sat down beside her. They quietly for a moment; until Donna had put her thoughts in some sort of order.
"I'm going to have to get this pretty quickly, aren't I?"
"Yeah. But don't worry too much. There's a real Slayer out there, a young woman, who doesn't have the commitments and the life that you have. And there's me. I know what it's like and I can help you out if you'd like. In the meantime we have to find out something about a demon that's set up camp here."
"As well as do our jobs," Donna said.
"I'll take you out tonight, see if we can't find ourselves some vampires."
"This is really real, isn't it?"