Part 28: Letting Tiger-Sized Cats Out of Bags
"…so the whole mechanism for becoming a Slayer and who gets assigned as a Watcher is like totally different," Willow concluded her report. She looked at Faith, Vi, and Andrea, "Did I miss anything?"
"Nope. You got more than we did," Faith nodded. Frankly, she was relieved that Xander and Willow got the dope from Catherine, if only to balance out the picture between those that accepted it and those that didn't.
"Is Catherine even aware that it's different in this time period?" Giles asked.
"Yeah, she is, which she remembered only after Xander and I jumped on her about the whole choosing thing," Willow said. "She was really not happy about letting it slip, but she finally answered our questions when she realized she'd already said too much. Plus, none of us could see how knowing this information really changes anything right here and now."
"It sounds like an example of the law of unintended consequences," Giles remarked. "It could be that the methods for becoming mystically imbued with the Slayer power evolved over hundreds of years to the point where Potentials could have a choice whether or not to accept it."
"Get the feeling evolution has nothing to do with it," Willow grinned.
"Where'd you get that idea?" Xander asked
"We asked her."
"She said she didn't know," Xander pointed out.
"After stuttering her way through the question," Willow replied. "Something tells me something else happened that changed everything even more than they already are. Think about this: someone came along and built what we did."
"You're guessing," Xander said with a frown.
"Ohhh, yeah," Willow agreed. "But just the same, we gotta get this infor…I mean information…to the Devon coven, as in get it to them last year. Even though we don't know anything for sure, we should check into this and the more people looking into it, the better. In the meantime I'll keep my ears open and try to get more out of 'em"
"Will, you don't really think they'll crack if you shine a big sun lamp on them and start asking questions," Buffy said.
"Probably not," Willow admitted. "I actually don't think we're going to get too much more out of our friends because they just let a tiger-big cat out of the bag. Plus the way Xander and I immediately jumped on her with questions? I'm thinking we scared Catherine half to death."
"Assuming they're telling the truth," Kennedy pointed out.
"You're such a cynic," Willow gave her girlfriend an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Still, it can't hurt to see if it's anything resembling possible."
"It would be fascinating to know," Giles interrupted. "I wonder if this change happened before or after the human race started interstellar exploration."
"Or maybe it's already happened. Is any of us sure Potentials don't have a choice now?" Xander mused. He looked at Vi and Andrea. "Did you guys get a choice?"
"Hey, don't look at me. I was at ground zero," Vi said. "It all just happened so fast and I was fighting for my life. Even if the First Slayer asked me I wouldn't even notice. I was just glad to get it because my chances of surviving got that much better."
"I didn't," Andrea said sourly. "I was practicing karate moves at the dojo when I got hit and almost threw my sparring partner through a wall. No one asked me if I wanted this life."
"Would you have said yes?" Xander asked.
"Hell, no," Andrea crossed her arms. "Look, it's not like I hate it or anyone here, but I lost everything. Next thing you know, all these big scary things are coming out of the woodwork to eat me. They almost killed my parents and there was no one out there who could help me."
"So it's a good thing we found you and invited you to come here," Robin said with an air of satisfaction.
"Oh, like I had a choice," Andrea muttered.
"You did have a choice," Buffy insisted.
"Actually, you didn't," Xander contradicted, eyes not leaving Andrea's face.
Andrea offered Xander a strained smile; relieved someone in the room was seeing her poorly expressed point. "If I didn't come here, then my family'd always be a target," she said.
"And we're the ones holding all the cards." Xander scrubbed his face with his hands. "If you want help, you have to work with us."
"Xander, I think you're being overly dramatic," Giles said.
"Am I?" Xander asked. "We don't even have enough resources to find all the baby Slayers that are out there. Right now we're finding them because of luck. God knows how many are right under our noses right here in Cleveland and we can't even find them."
"The Coven in England is doing the best it can," Willow protested.
"We're all doing the best we can," Faith nastily countered. "But it ain't good enough. When we found Andrea here and whatsherface, Susan, they were in pretty tough shape."
"Hallelujah," Robin sighed. "Now everyone agrees we've got a crisis on our hands."
"No one said we didn't," Buffy disagreed. "Just that we might start making mistakes if we keep pushing ourselves to the breaking point."
"Like you have room to talk," Robin snarled.
"Any minute now the two of you are gonna whip out your dicks and see whose is bigger," Faith commented.
"Hey! Everyone back up," Xander interrupted while Buffy and Robin glared at one another. "The point is not that it's almost impossible for us to find the new Slayers all over the world, because, guess what? No matter how hard we try some of them, maybe a lot of them are going to slip through the cracks."
"And what do you propose we do about that?" Robin asked.
"Right now? Barring a miracle? There's not a whole lot we can do," Xander stated, angrily crossing his arms.
"Nice attitude there," Kennedy said. "Very inspiring."
"Xander's right," Willow quietly chimed in. "This is a pretty overwhelming problem and we don't have the resources to do everything we want. We don't even have the resources to do everything we should."
"Which brings us back to what can we do about it?" Buffy sighed.
"Look, we're getting distracted. What I mean is…" Xander paused, took a deep breath, and asked the question that no one seemed to realize needed asking. "Okay, we find a new Slayer, one that hasn't been backed in a corner by the neighborhood nasties, at least not yet. What are we going to do if she turns us down because one, she doesn't need our help, or two, doesn't think she needs our help?"
"As you pointed out, our resources are limited," Giles said. "Much as it pains me to say this, if the Slayer in question turns us down, then she's on her own."
"We abandon her," Xander flatly stated. "Just like that."
"Not loving that idea either," Faith agreed.
"Christ, do you even know what you want to do?" Robin asked with exasperation. "First you point out that we have an impossible job, which I've been saying since we left Sunnydale. Then you say that if a Slayer refuses our help, even if she's not in trouble, we should devote resources to help her anyway? While I don't like it any more than you do, sometimes we need to compromise. So, given the fact you finally get what I'm been saying all along, you believe should dedicate the resources we don't have to a Slayer who's not in trouble and tells us to go away?"
Xander's eyes narrowed in thought. "Yes."
"Whoa, hold up," Buffy said. "That's like forcing her to be a Slayer."
"No, it's more like keeping an eye out for trouble, no pun intended, and if she changes her mind, she has the option to come to us," Xander said. "I mean, once we know who she is and where she is, how hard is it to keep up with her local newspaper? Not very. If we get the Sunnydale weird vibe, we contact her to make sure she's okay."
"And we'll be doing this, when? In between searching for other Slayers? Slayers who desperately need our help? Whose lives may be at risk? Whose families are being targeted?" Robin threw his hands up in the air. "We have limited people, limited time, and too damn much work as it is. We should concentrate on Slayers who want to be Slayers or are in trouble. The girls who aren't interested can be given information about who they are and a way to contact us if they're in trouble or change their minds."
"Assuming they'll even know they're in trouble before trouble strikes. That could mean a death sentence," Xander commented.
"It stinks, I agree," Robin rounded on him. "But we may need to make some hard choices that none of us like. As much as I would like to be idealistic about this, I have to be a realist if we are going to succeed. All of us have to be if we…"
"Is he saying what I think he's saying?" Vi interrupted.
"Rationing," Xander stated coldly.
"Conserving our energy," Robin corrected. "We should focus our efforts on the Slayers who need our help or want to…"
"And what other things are going to make the checklist," Xander hotly interrupted. "Is a Slayer. Check. Wants to be a Slayer. Check. Willing to train hard. Check. Willing to put up with mind-numbing, endless patrols. Check. Wants to fit in a ballet career between Slaying. Ooops. Sorry. No can do. We only accept you if your totally committed to the special Slayer plan."
"You're twisting my words," Robin shouted back. "That's not what I'm saying."
"Really?" Xander glared. "Because I'm thinking all this discussion about limited resources and focusing only on the committed is going to lead us right on down that road."
"And once again, that's not what I…" Robin began.
"Welcome to our brave new world," Giles interrupted. "Somehow I don't think this is what Huxley had in mind."
"Robin's got a point, Xander," Kennedy said. "Once we get the brush-off, we can't just hang out in the background, even if it's from a distance. If the object of our obsession finds out, we'll get slapped with a restraining order because we're stalking a young girl. Leaving a business card is about the best we can do."
"I'm not talking about stalking. There's no stalking involved," Xander protested. "Is anyone even listening to me?"
"I heard ya," Faith said quietly.
"So did I," Vi said. "And for the record, I'm with Xander. The situation stinks, but keeping an eye on the Slayers we find, even if they don't join the Slaying-is-cool squad, is the best we can do."
"Robin's right," Buffy said. "The whole point of the spell was to give girls the choice. And guess what? Someday, somewhere, they'll get that choice."
"But they don't in the here and now," Willow said.
"Yes they do," Buffy said. "Okay, they've got the Slayer powers, but that doesn't mean they have to be Slayers. They can be whatever they want. They can achieve anything. It's up to them if they want to work with us or not. Bad situation, but we're trying to do the best we can and much as it kills me that Robin's right, he's right."
"You can't be serious," Xander said.
"We don't have enough people or resources," Buffy pointed out. "If we did, that would be different and I'd hiking you on my shoulders and carrying you around the house. But if they say no, we have to leave them with as much information as we possibly can, walk away, and work with people who want to work with us or help the Slayers who need help."
"And if they decide to rob banks, we're just going to let that slide?" Faith asked. "Count me on Xander's side."
"Me, too," Andrea said.
"Side? What? Whoa. Hold up. There are no sides here," Xander protested. "All on the same team, remember? I just made a suggestion on how to deal with…look, the last thing we need is to argue about this. I'm just doing a 'what if'."
"But it's something we will have to deal with, sooner or later," Giles said as he looked thoughtfully at Xander.
"But we aren't." Xander sounded desperate. "At least, we're not dealing with it yet." His eyes locked on Willow. "Besides, we have other problems. Tell 'em Wills.
"Ahhh, yes. Finding the arrow," Giles said, although his eyes didn't leave the squirming Xander. "How is that going?"
"It's not," Willow admitted. "And that's a huge problem."
"Agreed," Robin said. "They've only been here a couple of days and we've been at each others' throats since they got here. I shudder to think what would happen if the visit stretches out to a month."
***
"This is getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse…"
"We know Charlie, we know," Catherine dejectedly said.
"No, I don't think you do." Charlie was on the verge of jumping up and down. "Mush, people! We are talking smushed on re-entry! At this point, there's not going to be anything left for us to save! Assuming we survive going back! This is bad, bad, bad, bad…"
"Charlie," Catherine growled her warning.
"You must admit, Charlie does have a point," J'Nal calmly said. "However, doctor, you really do need to settle down since we don't know…"
"Look at him! Calm as a vegetable!" the doctor flung his arm in the witch's direction. "How can you just sit there! Wiggle your fingers, mutter something incomprehensible, and do something!"
Catherine dropped her head in her hands while next to her Ruda held her breath. Charlie-and-J'Nal bickering in times of stress was legendary among the Watcher Honorias.
"I do not 'wiggle my fingers,'" J'Nal protested.
"Well, whatever the hada you do, just do it!" Yup. Charlie was well on his way to full-blown hysterics. "Make them forget or something."
"I can't!" J'Nal shouted back. "It's against every principle that we…"
"People!" Catherine shouted as she jumped to her feet. "Arguing about this isn't helping!"
"Especially since we can pretty much point the fingers at everyone in the room," Ms. Tikri said quietly from her corner.
"Don't look at me," Charlie huffed as he crossed his arms. "I've been a lot more careful than anyone else around…"
"J'Nal is pretty much the only one who hasn't inadvertently given something away," Catherine corrected.
"Oh really?" Charlie began. "I gave away nothing more than what I needed to in order to explain…"
"You told Giles that the journal in my possession was written by one of the Founders," Catherine said with deadly quiet. "You didn't need to say that."
"So? It's not like he knows who your Founders are," Charlie huffed.
"They know the journal's from 2008. It's not a huge leap of logic to figure out that someone living in this house right now wrote it," Catherine pointed out.
"Something tells me they're not big on logic," J'Nal grumbled.
"Here, here," Ms. Tikri muttered.
"Giles strikes me as logical and if he starts thinking about it…" Catherine trailed off. "I don't know if you noticed, but we're in a house full of Slayers. We won't be able to stop them if they decide to take the journal from me. If that happens…"
"Definite mashed Charlie," the doctor finished for her.
"See Charlie? It can always get worse," J'Nal pointed out.
Charlie began pacing, hands clenching and unclenching. "This is just unbelievable!"
Catherine made a defeated sound. Much as she adored Charlie as a friend and respected him as a doctor, when he melted down like this—which on those rare occasions it happened tended to happen in the lull between Very Bad Things Are Happening—it was best to let him run out of steam until he could think clearly. There was no point in trying to get him to shut up until then.
He spun and pointed at the still-standing Catherine and Ruda sitting on the end of the bed. "How could you just forget that Potentials automatically become Slayers in this time period? How?"
"Don't look at me," Ruda protested, "I thought Potentials always had the choice. I didn't know. Besides, who thought of that stupid system? One minute you're a Potential and then—WHAM—next minute you're a Slayer. What happens if the Potential doesn't want it? Or what happens if the Potential isn't right in the head? That's just asking for trouble."
"I knew it, but I just forgot." Catherine ran a hand through her loosened hair. "It's one of those trivia questions that they stick on a history exam to see if you read all the material and you forget the answer right after you check true or false. Stupid, stupid, stupid."
"If we're pointing fingers, let's not forget pointing one at me," Ms. Tikri said, a cascade of ice blonde hair hiding her face. "I completely lost control of my interview with Buffy Summers. By all that's holy, the fallout from that alone…"
"I'll be damned. A witnesser even thinking about taking responsibility?" Charlie sarcastically asked as Ms. Tikri cringed under the verbal assault. "You must really be afraid we'll haul you before the Commission to get your license pulled."
"Assuming there's a Commission to haul her in front of," Catherine said. "And can I just point out again that—with the exception of J'Nal—none of us are innocent here."
"I know, she's worried we'll haul her before the Slayer Judiciary Committee and make her explain why all their religions disappeared without a trace," Charlie snarled.
"Stop it!" Ruda was on her feet. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! It just happens and she didn't mean it! And sometimes you just want it to happen! Leave her alone!" On that note Ruda stomped into an adjoining room and shut the door firmly behind her, leaving her stunned teammates to look at each other in shock.
A few uncomfortable beats of silence later, Catherine turned to follow her Slayer. "Not another word until I get back," she ordered over her shoulder as she opened the door.
When she entered the room she saw Ruda staring vacantly up at the ceiling. Catherine took a deep breath, shut the door behind her, and sank on the edge of the bed. "Hey," she quietly said.
"Hey." Ruda's voice sounded like she wanted to cry.
"Don't let it get to you," Catherine soothed. "You made an honest mistake and…"
"I met Knowles-sen tonight."
Catherine scrambled through her mental rolodex for a few tics until she could picture the encyclopedic entry in her mind's eye. Knowles, Violet (Hero). She could feel her tongue stumbling for a few more tics after that until words finally dropped from her lips. "Which one is she?"
"The one with the hat." Ruda sat up, hugging her knees to her chest, looking younger and more uncertain than Catherine had ever seen her.
Catherine felt her eyes narrowing with the mental effort of trying to come up with face to match the name and failed miserably.
"She was on patrol with me tonight, along with Lanoire-rah-sen and Andrea," the way Ruda said 'Andrea' was a pretty clear indication that she didn't like the girl.
Catherine scrubbed both her hands in her hair. I am such an idiot. I didn't think. "Ruda, I'm sorry. I should've never let you go on…"
"You were just giving in because I begged," Ruda flashed her weak smile. "You can't resist big eyes and I know it."
Catherine reached out and played with a strand of her Slayer's hair. "Most deadly weapon in the Ruda arsenal. We should package it and give it to all the other Slayers to help them manipulate their Watchers, too." When Ruda giggled, Catherine let her hand drop and quietly asked, "So that's why the big explosion back there, hunh little girl?"
"She's really nice, you know," Ruda said, sinking again into low spirits. "And she's funny, and she's sweet. And she has no idea what's going to happen. And I can't do anything about it."
Catherine frowned, this time because she had connected name to story and could feel for what her Slayer was going through. "No, you really can't," she agreed.
"But it's not fair." Ruda's chin sank to her upright knees. "I'm supposed to save people and that includes yelling 'Look out, bad things ahead' when people are about to walk right into it. Just doing nothing when you can stop it is wrong."
"Unless it's the right thing to do," Catherine disagreed. "Every screw-up we've done…well…we don't know how it'll affect the future. For all we know, time might be more resilient than we think and everything we've said and done might fall on deaf ears and nothing changes."
"Or the wrong breath at the wrong time means we've got no home to go back to. I know, I know," Ruda said. "I was awake during the lecture the Prima made us sit through three times."
"Look, tell you what, if it turns out that we've screwed up the timeline beyond salvaging, you can yell 'look out' all you want at all the people you want because then it won't matter any more. Deal?" Catherine asked.
"I'll be good until then," Ruda promised, as she looked at Catherine with suspiciously bright eyes. "Is it wrong for me to hope things go really, really wrong so I can do that?"
Catherine gave her Slayer a tight smile. "No. Not at all. I'd be more worried if you didn't." She looked back at the door. "Why don't you rest a bit, hmmm? Let me smack some sense into the Battling Beebles out there and we'll come up with a plan to limit the chances of us really making a mess of things."
Ruda let go of her knees with a breath and was back to staring at the ceiling. Catherine leaned down, planted a gentle kiss on the girl's head, and headed for the door.
"Catherine?"
"What is it little girl?"
"How do you do it? Knowing what's going to happen to everyone in this house and how it all ends up? How come you don't want to tell them about all the big, great things they're going do and all the big, terrible things that they've got to face?"
Catherine crossed her arms, looked down in thought, and asked a question where she knew the answer is 'no.' "Did I ever tell you what the First Slayer said to me before she attacked me in the desert?"
Ruda sat up. "The First Slayer never speaks to you before she attacks you. You don't get your personal message until after."
"I know, which is why I never told anyone about this or about my personal message. But you've got to promise to keep a secret. This is between me and you."
Ruda nodded.
Catherine took a breath and let it out. "I was in the desert and I really had no idea what I wanted. I didn't want to be a Slayer, but I didn't want to be the first in my family to walk away. Follow?"
"Yeah."
"So, I hear a growl and there She was, standing right behind me. She was just watching me, head turned to the side like this," Catherine tilted her head to the left, "and She said, 'You think you know what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.' Then she attacked me."
Ruda's forehead creased in a frown. "What does that mean?"
Catherine went to the window and looked outside at the odd Taran greenery that seemed to glow in the moonlight. "If you asked me last week, I would've had no idea. It's just one of those things I shoved in the back of my brain and didn't think too much about it. It didn't make sense and, because I wasn't a Slayer, I figured what She said didn't apply anymore. Since we got here though," she turned around to face Ruda giving her temple a single tap, "I keep hearing Her."
"Catherine, do you think She knew you'd…"
"I don't know," the Watcher Honoria shoved her hands in her pants pockets. "All I know is that everyone I look at—everyone in this house—the Founders, the Founding Lights, the -sens and the sinners, all I can see is them stumbling around in the dark. They think they have a plan, they think they know who they are, they may even have a pretty good idea of what they think the future has in store for them. Or, they may be feeling their way along the path with no idea of where they should go from here. In either case, they honestly don't know who they are and what's to come because they can't know."
"I know," Ruda said in a low voice.
Catherine sat on the edge of the bed again, tapped a finger under Ruda's chin, and lifted the Slayer's face up so she could look directly into her eyes. "The point is, when I look at all these people all I can think of is this: their future is our past. They're at the beginning. What they started, well, that story keeps going and the fact we exist proves that. But the details of who they are, who they'll become, they'll never know that until their individual stories end. Maybe that's the way it should be, for their sake and for ours. We don't know if telling them the future changes everything, which would be bad for us. We don't know if telling them will change nothing, which means we'd be torturing them with knowledge they can't do anything about."
"So best to say nothing at all."
"Until we know for sure," Catherine agreed as she stood up. "Get some rest."
As she turned to the door, Ruda again called her to a halt.
"Catherine? What was your personal message after you said no?"
Catherine looked over her shoulder and said as gently as she could, "Not for your ears."
"Fair enough," Ruda yawned, obviously feeling at least a little better for the talk. "'Night."
"No Slaying the pillow," Catherine joked their old joke as she slid out the door.
On entering the other room, she was relieved to see that Ruda's uncharacteristic outburst had quieted everyone into shamed silence. All three occupants gave her long-faced expressions as she clasped her hands behind her back and fixed them all with a glare.
"It's no secret we have a problem," Catherine stated.
Three heads nodded in agreement, but three mouths kept shut.
"That little Ruda-tantrum you just witnessed is because she's doing her duty to the best of her ability by giving as little away as she can, even though in some cases it goes against everything she holds dear as a Slayer," Catherine said tightly. "We can do no less than live up to her example."
"How?" Ms. Tikri asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but we have no idea what's going to tip the balance or if it's been already tipped."
"Pity we can't check," Charlie said.
"Can't check until we open the portal to send us back," J'Nal reminded him. "And I can't even try to open the portal for a few more days because…"
"There's a good chance of everything going boom or that your head will explode or that we'll mashed into mush," Charlie finished for him. "Why did we think this could work again?"
"I hate unanswered questions. They give me a stomachache because then I think I'm not doing my job," Ms. Tikri said. "Short of locking ourselves in these rooms for the rest of the stay, I don't see how…"
"Good idea!" Catherine smiled. "Separation of us from them is the best way to go."
"Hold on. Wait. Bad idea. Very bad idea," Ms. Tikri protested. "Interviews! Bosses! Bar bills that need to be paid for! I've got a job that I have to…"
"Do so you can make an even bigger mess?" Charlie asked with deceptive sweetness.
"Young love in bloom does my heart good," J'Nal commented with amusement.
While Charlie and Ms. Tikri gave J'Nal offended 'heys' in stereo—most notably because they didn't actually like each other—Catherine bit her lip in thought.
"Fine. We can't cut off completely. But we should limit exposure to doing only what is absolutely necessary to succeed," Catherine decided. "J'Nal, you'll be working with Willow and Alexander, since they've been assigned to find the Arrow and you've proven that you can stay out of the most trouble. The rest of us will stick to our quarters and if we need to mingle with the people in the house, we keep the conversation to the weather, what they're doing, anything that keeps us focused on the here and now."
"But…" Ms. Tikri began a protest.
"You can finish your interviews," Catherine sighed. "You've at least shown awareness that you could cause problems if you let too much infor slip. I'm sure you'll be more mindful of it in the future."
Ms. Tikri looked surprised to get a concession as she said, "Thank you."
"But…" Charlie began his protest.
"Ms. Tikri has a job to do and she is a professional," Catherine said through a clenched jaw, a clear sign that Charlie was stepping dangerously close to her last nerve. "As it stands right now, she hasn't conducted all the interviews she wants and, given some muttered comments I've heard while she's organized her notes, she does not have a balanced picture of this household. In the interests of historical accuracy, I'm letting her move ahead."
"Unh, thanks." Ms. Tikri's surprise had turned to shock.
"Are we agreed?" Catherine asked.
Both Charlie and J'Nal knew that "Are we agreed?" pretty much meant, "I'm giving you a direct order and you better follow it and behave," so they nodded.
"Good," Catherine gave a single clap. "To bed, everyone."
Charlie and J'Nal grumbled their good nights and headed to a second adjoining room, leaving a hesitating Ms. Tikri behind. Noticing that the witnesser was working up the courage to talk, Catherine rubbed her temples and snapped, "What is it?"
"Look, really, thank you. And I think you're right. But," she took a breath and spit it out, "you've really got to watch yourself, too."
"I know that, Ms. Tikri," Catherine said wearily.
The blonde's expression was sympathetic as she contradicted, "I know you do, but I don't think you do at the same time."
"Oh, really," Catherine deadpanned, her jaw set.
"Your interactions with Robin Wood," Ms. Tikri pointed out, "pretty much tells everyone in the immediate vicinity that you want to shove him out an airlock without an environsuit and watch him explode into chunky, bloody bits."
"I'll be more polite," Catherine said through a warning clenched jaw.
"I don't think you're wrong, by the way," Ms. Tikri quickly added.
That admission stopped Catherine cold and she looked at the shuffling witnesser. Taking sides? Since when does a witnesser do that? She got what she wanted, so what's her game?
"The thing is, the Watchers Educationary, well, we know who their Founding Light is and we know their opinion of miscegenation between Watchers and Slayers," Ms. Tikri thoughtfully looked at Catherine. "Much as your family has contributed and sacrificed for centuries, it's no secret that they believe your bloodline, and a number of others associated with the Council Honoria, are a travesty."
Catherine suppressed her anger at the witnesser for bringing up ancient history and old personal hurts. "You make it sound like the Watchers Honoria have no morality when it comes to how Watchers interact with their Slayers…"
"Not saying your Council doesn't. In fact, in its own way, the Honoria Code of Conduct is as restrictive as the Council Educationary's, with the key difference being that at least the Council Honoria is willing to accept that sometimes the human heart is what it is."
"Why Ms. Tikri, are you suggesting one system is better than the other?"
The witnesser waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter to me. The Council Educationary can paint the Council Honoria as light on morality all they want, but I've never seen a scandal erupt with the Council Honoria like the one I covered with the Council Educationary three standard years ago. Seems to me that admitting to the possibility has put the Council Honoria in a better position to police its own."
"Police," Catherine deadpanned. "We're not like that. I'll have you know that I attended Giddeon's wedding—Giddeon who is still a Watcher Honoria in good standing—when he married Selina who was his Slayer."
"Who probably had her assigned to another Watcher the second he realized he was falling for her and who probably didn't even do that until she was of age," Ms. Tikri said.
"That's procedure," Catherine protested. Her eyes narrowed. "Ms. Tikri, need I remind you that they don't have anything resembling a Code of Conduct like we've got in our own…"
Ms. Tikri's expression turned sly. "Don't worry about that. Especially since there weren't any problems in the case you're clearly worried about, at least according to all the information we have. And we do have a lot of information even from quarters that were, shall we say, less likely to give your Founders their due. But, follow me here, it seems to me that a certain Founding Light, the very person who suggested that the Watcher's line needs to stay separate for the Slayer line at all costs because it might affect the Watcher's judgment? Not exactly following his own good advice, is he?"
Catherine swallowed hard. Oooooh, this was tempting. Very tempting. Much as she wanted to agree, it was wrong to go along with what Tikri was hinting, especially since her entire family going back to this very household wasn't in any position to shoot arrows at atmospheric force fields. "Ms. Tikri, you are not going stick knives into anyone's back. I don't care who it is. Sheathe the claws, do your job, and don't drown someone just because…"
"That's what I thought you'd say," Ms. Tikri's expression shifted from sly to relieved and, dare Catherine even think this, almost friendly. "Thing is, I know how hard it was for you to say that. I know given the long contentious history between the two Councils that it's very difficult for you to see Robin Wood as nothing more than a bug that needs to be squashed. Just, I don't know, back off. Try to be a little more professional about it."
"Is this off the record?" Catherine asked suspiciously.
Ms. Tikri held her empty hands in the air. "See? Nothing crossed. Not my toes or legs either. Off the record."
"I can't help how I feel," Catherine admitted.
"So feel it," Ms. Tikri shrugged. "Hada, I can't tell you how many disgusting human beings I've interviewed in my career and they have no clue how much I wanted to strangle them with my bare hands. The trick is to be good at not showing it. As you pointed out, it could be anything that might destroy our home, that includes dirty looks I'd think."
Catherine just hated the fact that the witnesser had a point. "Aren't you supposed to be a pain in the astrum?"
Ms. Tikri gave her a perfectly toothy smile. "And don't you forget it."
"So what's with the friendly advice? I thought you weren't on anyone's side."
The witnesser gave Catherine an eloquent raised eyebrow. "When it comes to making sure we all get back in one piece to a future we can all recognize? Near as I can tell, there's only one side I can be on."
TBC…