The Dark Years
Part Seven: Hogwash
Posted: August 19, 2004
Disclaimer: see first chapter
Author's notes: these are going to be long, guys, sorry. First off, I really owe you guys an update, and this is all I have ready to update. School's approaching fast, and I have a lot to read to finish up my summer reading. Lucky me school doesn't start until after Labor Day (Sept. 6th, fyi).
The other day I realized that it would be a good idea to know the ages of some of the people I'm dealing with, and I was shocked to find out how old some of the characters are getting. Here's a run down on the ages, just so you know. Sorry for not describing most of the characters as their age, I seriously thought they were younger! Some ages aren't exact, such as Angel's, and the Charmed Ones. I just guestimated.
Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordy- 59
Dawn-53
Angel- 62
Piper- 64
Phoebe- 61
Paige- 59
Wyatt- 37
Joyce- 36
Amanda, Andrea- 33
Ashley- 34
Connor- 56
Anne, William- 22
And of course, Faith, Melinda and Grace- 13.
If you don't remember some of these characters, don't worry, they're all coming back to haunt- I mean grace us with their presence soon. I didn't figure out Leo or Spike's age, I'm not even sure if Leo ages, let's say he does, and Spike's about 34ish.
Also, I wasn't holding these chapters for ransom before, but as we get back into school and everything...I'm a good girl! I'm a mostly honors student, and I don't smoke, or do drugs, though some of my friends do, and I'm not a slut, and I'm not going to have premarital sex...I just want a few measly reviews! Reviews are my drugs, they're what keep me writing, and I need them. Please, take half a minute to click on the little button at the bottom, left hand corner of your screen, and just let me know you're there!
The end is coming fast now, I almost have it all written, if not typed up, and I'd hate to deprive you of it...This is going to end in a shocking way, guys. Don't make me be the mean, icky author!
Reader Responses:
BuffyAngelfan32- thanks for your review. It took me a long time to get where I am, and I'm hoping that I'm still improving. Lots of hard work, lots of time, and a lot less sleep than I should get, lol!
START OF STORY
"Don't fight it," Phoebe advised, sitting across the table from Grace. The table, two chairs, a ripped shirt, and themselves where the only things in the room. AI San Francisco needed something, anything, to go on for the case of a mysterious death of a teenaged girl.
"I'm not trying to!" Grace cried, frustrated. They had been trying for half an hour. She wasn't good enough to have a premonition at will. And of course it had to be her, because she wasn't that good. It was all training to her aunts.
"When I first got my powers, it took me years to learn to control it, and even now, sometimes it doesn't work. I didn't get empathy until nineteen years ago. I believe in your Grace, I know you can do this." Grace got the message loud and clear. Yet again, she was ahead, and yet behind someone else. She could never be herself, she was always being compared to other people.
Aunt Phoebe dragged her chair over next to Grace, grabbing a chunk of the pink shirt, "Concentrate," she closed her eyes, and Grace did likewise.
A young girl looked cautiously around, before crossing the street. She looked to be in her early teens, Grace knew her to be fourteen. Someone or thing reached from the shadows, and the girl squeaked. A blade slid from the darkness and flew across the girl's throat. The body was then released, and it slid to the ground. Blood splattered everywhere.
Grace felt her aunt pull back, but she couldn't pull loose as the murderer stepped from the shadows. The same dancing shivers tangoed up her spine as she looked up at the blood splattered face she had seen so many nights in her dreams.
She was released from the vision as a tear ran down her face, quickly followed by more.
"I'm sorry, baby. That was a hard premonition," Phoebe wrapped her arms around the girl, not knowing the true reason for her tears.
"SAN FRANSISCO-
"Dana Margaret Childes, fourteen, snuck out to meet one of her friends late Tuesday night, but never made the rendezvous. She was brutally murdered not a block from her downtown home. The police have no leads at this point," Buffy read out loud as Andrea fed Josh some scrambled eggs. She threw the paper down, frustrated.
"What is it, Mom?" Andrea asked.
"She was a potential slayer. We have to get those girls to safety. Now!"
"Are you going to LA to protect them?" Amanda asked.
"Yeah. I'd like you three to come with me-"
"Not everyone can leave the hellmouth. Spike and I will stay here, to keep an eye on things. The demonic world will have a field day if everyone goes tearing off for some other place."
"No-"
"Mom, nothing's going to happen to me, or Josh."
"If I lost either of you-"
"Spike would never let anything happen to me. You and Amanda go, and I'll have Spike move in here while you're gone."
Buffy sighed, "Are you sure? You haven't seen your father in ages."
"Positive. You've been bugging me to do something about Spike, and the hellmouth needs protecting. And he can get the taste of fatherhood he's been itching for."
"I think he's been itching for you, not the baby," Amanda said cheekily.
"Amanda!" Andrea cried. Their mother just laughed.
"What?! You were thinking it."
"So?"
Grace kept the vision to herself. Faith and Melinda didn't think she had seen Mom in that alley, and she knew Aunt Phoebe hadn't seen the last part. No one would believe her.
And she was starting to put things together. Grams had told them that Grammy Summers was going to LA to protect a group of girls. These girls had the potential to become slayers, Grams had explained. Something was attacking them, and killing them. Paige had told her before that the girl in her premonition, Dana, was a potential slayer.
Grace knew that that had been the First's plan, by killing the potentials, and then the slayers, the slayer line would be wiped out. And with her vision, she was finally starting to see the big picture. She just didn't understand how.
One day, a couple days after her vision, during her lunch break, she went to tell Uncle Spike her suspicions, because she had to tell someone. But he wasn't at the apartment. On a whim, she orbed to the house on Revello Drive. She knocked on the kitchen door.
"Hey, Grace. Long time no see," Andrea hugged her, "You on your own today?"
She nodded, "Uh...is Uncle Spike here?"
"Yup," Andrea grinned, "let me go get him."
When he saw Grace, he offered to take the baby for a walk, inviting the thirteen year old along. Andrea knew something was up, but she let it slide for the time being. It was the first time in thirteen years that what they had lost wasn't foremost on her mind.
She reminded him of seeing her Mom that night, and then told him of the vision. "The First is attacking potential slayers again-" she started to tell him her worst suspicions.
"And it's using your mum as an assassin," Spike finished for her, "Grace, this is serious. Your sister's don't know what you think, do they?" she shook her head, caught, "Grace, this is huge! You can't keep this a secret anymore! Last time, it took two souped up slayers, two super strong vampires, the four strongest witches in the world, the super watcher and the glorified bricklayer, a whole bloody coven the size of a....a huge coven, forty five potential slayers, oh, and the whole bloody lot of those bloody angels, to take the First out the first time! Do you really think three Sabrina's can do a job they had trouble with? Bloody well not!" without reading him, she could tell he was pissed. He almost never used so many 'bloody's, and he'd never called them 'Sabrina's before. "If you don't tell your grandmums about this, then I will. This is no longer talking about finding your mum, this is talkin' about the soddin' First!"
"What's the prophecy?" she asked suddenly, mostly to try and make him forget.
"What?"
"I heard Grams talking about a prophecy concerning us. I hoped you'd know."
"Prophecy, prophecy, whatever it is, they didn't care to share with me. And I ain't lookin' to find out. And don't think distracting me is gonna work. I mean it. Tell your Grams, or I'll do it for you."
She nodded, the only thing she could do, defeated.
"Where'd you go? We saved you a sandwich," Melinda offered it to her.
"I'm not hungry," she sat down across from them, "Awhile ago I had a premonition of Dana's death. Aunt Phoebe saw most of it, but she didn't see the end, where I saw the killer's face. Mom's face."
"How?!" Melinda asked, outraged.
"I don't know. But something is targeting the potentials slayers, and Mom's killed at least one. And the First kidnapped her."
"The First is using Mom to kill the potentials."
"Some how the First must have brainwashed her," Melinda spoke up.
"The First was able to attack the slayer line the first time because Grammy Summers had died twice, and yet still lived. I think that the First can target them once more is because there are now three slayers, Mom, Grams, and the new girl in New York. The slayer line is messed up again-"
"Still."
"I-I went and told Uncle Spike about my premonition. I didn't think you guys would believe me. He thinks that I'm right, and...he said that it's far too dangerous, and if we don't tell Grams....he will."
"What?"
"No!"
"We're so close though!" Faith cried.
"I know! But he thinks it's too dangerous!"
"Grownups are always saying that," Melinda complained.
"We're in over our heads," Grace parroted one of his reasons.
"Hogwash! We've been training our whole lives, for something! This is it!"
"Grace," Faith said slowly, "Do you think you could get a premonition of the next attack?"
Grace looked shocked and frightened at the idea, but she looked at her two sisters, both so brave and she forced herself to swallow her fear. She nodded, "I-I think I can. I can try,"s he said with more conviction.
"We have to get this done. Mel, how's your control coming?"
"G-good. It's coming. Or going...not sure where, though. It just kind of goes..."
"Wait, we're not-"
"Not on Mom, but who knows what we might run into."
"I don't want to be pessimistic, but do you really think we can do this?" Grace asked.
"I don't think there's anything we can't handle when we're together," Faith took her sister's hands and squeezed.
"There you are, Lazy Bunch," Paige teased, sticking her head through the door, "Lunch's over. Do you think I'm paying you to sit around and gab?"
"I don't think you are paying us," Faith jabbed back as Melinda directed their trash into the wastebasket. "We'll talk later, guys."
All three headed off to their specific tasks.
TBC...