Standing on the Edge of Tomorrow
Previously:
Across the street, a group of four men watched the girls disappear around a corner. They were wearing black from head to toe and carried guns hidden in holsters underneath their Kevlar jackets. Pulling a cigar from his mouth, their captain spoke, his voice gruff with an overbearing English accent. "That's the one. The Council doesn't want us touching the slayer. Just the rogue," he said.
"What about the other girl?" One of his men asked.
"Best to take all precautions," he said. "We'll just kill her too."
Chapter Six:
Callum was having a particularly bad evening. He had spent several hours sitting outside in the dewy grass waiting for Buffy to finish her fight with Dracula, which Kara had instructed him not to interfere with in any way. Then, after following the blonde slayer home, he nearly been caught snooping around the Summers' house. In a fit of panic, he had bolted down the street, tripped over a trashcan, and scraped his arm. By the time he arrived home, Faith and Kara had properly demolished the Chinese food they had ordered for dinner, including his portion, and left for patrol. To top it all off, someone had finished, or poured down the drain, his secret stash of whiskey. He assumed the culprit to be Kara; after all, she was particularly adamant about his cutting back on the alcohol.
It was now a little after five o'clock in the morning and neither of the girls had returned from patrol. Callum was a bit more than worried as he paced back and forth in front of the door. A million different scenarios were flying through his mind of all the different things that could have happened to them. "They could be dead somewhere and here am I running bleeding holes in the carpet," he muttered to himself and slowed to a stop. He could hear footsteps outside. A key slid into the lock and the door slammed open, three worn out and sleepy women trudging in.
Callum stood bug eyed by the stairs. "Holy shit, you have Buffy," he exclaimed upon seeing the blonde haired slayer following closely behind Faith and Kara. "Which, of course, you already knew, seeing as to how she's standing right behind you. Yeah...I'm just gonna stop with the talking now," he muttered, slightly embarrassed as a watched a small smile creep onto Kara's face.
"Like I said, you really have to meet Callum. There's no one else like him in the world," Kara said jokingly.
"How's it going?" Callum asked, shaking Buffy's hand as she stepped further into the house, and trying futilely to recover his dignity.
"What are you, a watcher?" Buffy asked, noting his accent. His dress indicated otherwise, however. Clad in a pair of faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt for a band she had never heard of, Buffy thought he looked more like a college student than a watcher.
"Um, well, not exactly," Callum replied, wondering how much Kara had told Buffy about their situation.
As if reading his mind, Kara answered, "I haven't told her much yet. I figured it would be better for her to meet you first."
Callum nodded. "Good idea. Well, shall we sit, yeah? There's a lot we need to talk about."
The group moved into the living room. Kara was happy to see Faith and Buffy sitting next to each other on the couch. "To start, Kara and I are from the future, which I'm sure you already know," upon Buffy's nod, Callum continued. "In our particular timeline, things didn't end so well for the human race."
"Meaning, pretty much everyone died," Kara cut in.
"Yeah. Big end of the world mumbo jumbo. Not good. So the Powers that Be sent us back here to fix it. Now, what I'm about to tell you is not going to make too much sense to you yet. But I swear to you, I'm telling the truth," Callum said gravely.
Buffy had a sinking feeling in her stomach. If the Powers that Be had sent Kara and Callum back to Sunnydale, than whatever had caused the end of the world was probably her fault. "Fire away," Buffy said, bracing herself for whatever it was Callum had to tell her.
"It's about Dawn," Callum started. Buffy's head snapped up.
"What about Dawn?"
"Relax, B," Faith cut in. "It's okay. She's fine. It's just...there's something different about her." Shortly after freeing Faith from the hospital, Kara had sat down with Faith and told her everything she could about Dawn and Glory. Faith imagined it was to show her that if Kara and Callum trusted her, she could trust them.
"What do you mean, different?" Buffy asked, looking back and forth between the three.
"Dawn is something called The Key," Kara said. "Millions of years of mystical energy all bound up into a single human being."
"But the key wasn't always in that form," Callum added. "You see, a group of monks were assigned the task of protecting The Key. Recently, that task became too much for them and they couldn't protect it in the way they needed to. So, they decided to send The Key to the slayer because they knew the slayer would protect it."
"So they sent you Dawn," Faith finished. "Dawn hasn't always been your sister, but she is now. The memories you have were given to you by the monks."
"It's absolutely imperative that you protect Dawn. No one can know what she is," Callum said wearily, running a hand through his messy brown hair. "There's a god, a hell god, who wants to find The Key so that she can return to her own dimension."
"A hell god?" Buffy asked, not particularly liking the thought that some hell beast wanted her sister.
"Yeah. Glory, the hell god, wants Dawn so that she can open a portal leading back to her dimension. The problem is the portal will suck all of this reality into that dimension if it opens."
"Much like Acathla," Buffy muttered. "I really hate portals."
Kara moved over to the couch and sat across from Buffy. "I know this is a lot to take in. But it's really important that you tell Dawn everything. If she finds out on her own, or accidentally, she won't take it very well. It's better for her if she finds out sooner rather than later," Kara said gently, but forcefully. She remembered Dawn telling her about how she found out she was The Key. Dawn was convinced she wasn't real after learning her true nature and cut herself with a kitchen knife to see if she would really bleed, if she would really feel anything.
Shortly after that, Dawn took off and wound up at the hospital, where she met up with Ben. When Ben changed into Glory, she was trapped. Kara desperately wanted to avoid that entire situation. "So I can tell Dawn. What about my mom, what about my friends? What about Giles?" Buffy asked, growing increasingly frustrated. She had all of these memories of she and Dawn, memories that she had just learned weren't even real. Faith seemed to sense Buffy's inner turmoil. Hesitantly, she reached over and took Buffy's hand in her own. Ignoring that sparks of electricity that shot up her arm, Faith gently spoke, "She's still your sister, B. She'll always be your sister. Just because she's got a ball of mystical energy inside her, doesn't mean she's any less human, any less real. She needs you to love her, B."
Buffy smiled gratefully at Faith. For some reason, with Faith's hand resting in her own, Buffy felt as if everything would be okay. Relaxing slightly, she gently squeezed Faith's hand, relishing the tingling feeling that shot up her arm. "Of course you can tell your mom and Giles. They should know, especially your mom. However, I would advise you wait before telling your friends. Not because I don't trust them," Callum added quickly, "But simply because they might treat Dawn differently knowing what she is. The only way Dawn is going to be able to accept all of this is if everyone continues to treat her exactly the same. When things heat up, by all means, tell the others. But until then, I think Dawn would appreciate a bit of discretion."
Buffy sighed. "This is so screwed up," she said at last. "Okay, so I tell my mom today and together, we'll talk to Dawn." Buffy glanced quickly at her watch. It was nearing six o'clock. "I better get back home," she said and looked over at Faith. "Wanna come with? I'm sure mom would love to fix you breakfast," Buff said smiling.
Faith hesitated, but she knew she would have to approach Buffy's mom and the others eventually. "Sure," she answered.
"Give us a call, yeah? When you decide to talk to Giles," Callum said as the two girls stood and moved toward the door.
"Come to the Magic Box around six tonight. We'll have a Scooby meeting, talk about everything," Buffy said as she and Faith left.
The door slammed shut and Callum and Kara were left sitting in the living room. Silence hung over them for several minutes until Callum finally spoke. "Did you dump all my whiskey?"
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