Author: mkcrl120
Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned in this story belong to Joss Whedon or Mutant Enemy or some other people. I own nothing and wrote this just to get it out of my system.
Summary: I'm writing some of these, as I've come up with ideas that I honestly don't know what I'll be doing when the Ultimate series gets that far. In the meantime, these won't go away from my brain unless I do something with them. Warning: It may be a standalone it may be spoilers for something later; only time will tell.
Rating: 15 probably… mainly for language.
Setting: Season 3 - I think you'll recognise when.
What The Hell(mouth) Happened?? - Chapter 31
"Family..?" Xander repeated with a small gulp; Jesse instinctively looking over at him.
"Mine." Jenny stated. "Mine was the..."
"I know I'm missing a lot of the back-story, but how the fuck could your family be responsible for Angelus..?" Faith asked, getting impatient with all the hints. "Unless one of them got vamped, and you know... sired him. Cos even then, not really looking at it as being your fault."
"Darla sired Angelus." Buffy informed her sister Slayer without thinking about it. "Which does leave the question the same... what does your family have to do with Angelus..?" She asked in an accusatory tone.
"My family..." Jenny took a deep breath, unsure exactly how this revelation would go down. "I'm descended from the clan that cursed him."
"Of course..." Willow became excited. "That's why Cordy said you got the spell off your uncle. It all makes sense now."
Jesse simply stared at his girlfriend with wide eyes. "I'll never understand how you can link seemingly unconnected pieces of trivia together to form a solution but have failed your driving test four times."
"People leap out at me..." Willow pouted. "They seem to get death-wishes when I'm on the road."
"No-one goes near you." Buffy commented. "You just over-react whenever someone goes near the kerb."
"We were listening to Miss C's story." Xander reminded her. "And you've got no basis commenting on anyone's driving."
"Quite." Giles insisted Jenny continue with her explanation.
"Hey." Buffy began.
"He wasn't taking about you." Xander informed her.
"I can't see how you think just because I'm safety conscious that I'm a danger." Willow argued to Buffy. "Especially as you seem to have no concept of what road signs are for... or which side of the road we drive on most of th..."
"Angelus killed a member of my tribe." Jenny admitted. "Romany. Gypsies..." She continued, after seeing the blank looks on most of the students faces. "The elders cursed him."
"So..?" Faith asked.
"That's why she and her uncle were killed in my reality." Cordelia commented.
"I got that... I just meant 'so'... as in what's the big deal..?" Faith ignored the cheerleader's tone.
"She never mentioned the curse." Giles answered in a cold voice. "In two different realities, she never mentioned the curse to any of us."
"You knew about the curse." Jenny tried to explain. "When you first introduced me to Angel, you told me he was a vampire with a difference... cursed with a soul were your exact words."
"I didn't know it could be broken." Giles replied. "You kept that information from us and in one reality that ended in Angelus becoming free again."
"Giles, I'm sure she never put us at risk on purpo..." Xander began, noticing Giles's temper coming to the foreground.
"I didn't know it could be broken." Jenny countered. "My people sent me here to watch Angel and ensure that he suffered for what he did. No-one ever mentioned that if the suffering stopped the demon would be free. You think we'd put something like that in on purpose."
"I don't know what to think anymore." Giles turned and headed towards his office. "You lied to me. It could have happened here."
"I didn't fucking know it could happen at all." Jenny shouted after him, leaving the others standing there and chasing him into the office. All except Faith, going wide-eyed when their teacher had sworn.
The door slammed behind her with an almighty noise.
"G's seriously pissed." Faith began. "Dunno why..."
"He thinks he was lied to." Willow answered. "I'm not even sure if he was even hearing her at the end."
"He's hearing her now." Jesse commented, having heard Jenny's raised voice again.
"I've never seen them like this." Buffy stated. "I've seen Giles annoyed before but it's normally at me or Xander... and it's hardly ever been that bad."
"I don't think it is that bad." Faith muttered, "Giles is flying off the handle over nothing."
"Not quite nothing." Cordelia replied. "You weren't there... you didn't get to see Angelus toying with us for weeks."
"Neither did Giles... or any of us." replied Willow. "And she didn't know... she doesn't even seem sure that the ones who cast the spell knew."
"So it just found it's way in there." Cordelia responded cattily. "Angel just happened to stumble across the get-out clause."
"It's probably to do with balance." Willow tried to explain. "Every action should have a possible anti-action. In order to anchor his soul to something... like his body, they allowed for the possibility that the anchor could be cut... or pulled up..." She looked sheepishly around the remains of the group. "I'm not good with nautical examples..."
"That's a big assumption Will... what exactly do any of us know about magic..?"
At Xander's comment, Cordelia looked wide-eyed in Willow's direction but didn't say anything.
"But she said that she didn't know." Willow was almost on the verge of tears, refusing to even think anything bad about her tutor.
"Shhh..." Jesse replied, dragging her into a hug. "It's okay. It'll all be okay. you'll see."
"MMhmmmm..." She commented from her place against his chest. "I don't like them fighting. It's not nice seeing adults fight."
Xander and Faith each looked away from the main group, with similar expressions on their faces.
Buffy moved to comfort Willow. "My mom and dad used to fight... that stopped, after they got seperat..." She drifted off, rubbing a hand reassuringly across her back after deciding that physical contact was probably more soothing than the stories of her parents just prior to her infamous gymnasium arson event.
A Few Minutes Previously.
Inside Giles' Office.
"What is your problem with me..?" Jenny shouted as she slammed the door shut behind her.
"My problem..?" Giles replied in equally raised tones. "I can't believe we've been together for over a year and you didn't think you could share this with me."
"Why would I have..?" Jenny tried lowering her voice.
"I ought to have been informed."
"That's pretty hypocritical of you." She shouted, temper flaring before she could reign it under control.
"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked in a sharp tone that he normally reserved for his students.
Unfortunately Jenny picked up on it. "Cos you were so forthcoming with all your secrets. You being a Watcher and all..? Buffy being the Slayer."
"That was different, that was work." He attempted to counter.
"So was this..." Jenny paused, waiting a few seconds to compose herself. "It was exactly the same..." She commented quietly. "You joined the Watchers because your family forced you into it. Well for my whole life I was told about the four demons who strode into our camp and slaughtered over a third of our people in one night. This was my family's place in this world... that's what we did."
"You could have told me." Giles repeated also calming down.
"Just like you could have told me about Ripper and Eyghon... and god knows what else." She began, hating having to play that card.
"That was different... that wasn't something I was particularly proud of..." Giles commented, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
"Still... they arrived and you tried to deal with it alone." She pressed further. "You risked all of our lives because you didn't want to admit about your past."
"I tried..." He began.
"What..? What could you have possibly tried to do..? Cos at best I figure you keep us out of it, and we're left wondering what happened to you once you've died... or worse, you just turned up possessed one day and we wouldn't have had a clue why..." She trailed off. "What would that have done to your Slayer..?"
"She would have blamed herself." Giles conceded.
"I never meant to turn this on you... I was trying to do my job just like you were trying to do yours..." Jenny finished.
"I was told that a Watcher's place was to back up their Slayer..." he began, "That we had a noble cause and we shouldn't let anything or anyone get in the way of that."
"And you're changing that... we're changing that." Jenny held his chin, forcing him to look at her as she continued. "Look at the group that await us outside... you think they're getting in the way of Buffy or Faith's calling..? We're creating something that the council could never have conceived of... and I'm glad to get the chance to be a part of that. I may have been sent here to monitor Angel's movements but I joined your crusade willingly... and I don't regret a single second of it."
"The Council wouldn't agree with just about all of that."
"Screw the council... screw any family loyalty you're trying to show... I did. From the very second I joined in and encouraged Angel to be part of the group, I was going against my family's wishes. They wanted him to mope about forever, brooding in endless guilt for his actions... I was never scared of Angel... but when Spike and Drusilla turned up... that's when my own family encouraged me to run... Here they were, two of them... half of the group that slaughtered my clan."
"Why didn't you run..?" Giles asked, his tone had become curious now.
"Where to..? For how long..?" Jenny argued. "What's the point of spending the rest of my life ensuring Angel pays when we run from the ones that we didn't curse..? You remember what I said when I'd calmed down don't you..?"
"Yes." Giles looked at her. "Good Lord. You recognised the names even then... and you still didn't tell us." He asked, unsure what she was getting at.
"And exactly what did I say..?" Jenny countered refusing to back down.
"You advised bringing Angel in for advice as he may have had run in's with vampires like that before." Giles stated, smiling back at her for the first time since entering the office. "You were trying to use your knowledge to help us back then."
"Yes." She confirmed for him. "I've never kept anything back from you in order to hurt you Rupert."
"Angel was useful too." Giles smiled again, thinking back to all the extra help the ensouled vampire starting providing, once he was being formally included on patrols and such. "Both in a fight and with research."
"Spike was a thug and a bully... but Drusilla..?" Jenny agreed. "You had to know Drusilla to have any chance of guessing what she might do next. And Angel picked up a lot of knowledge in his time as a soulless vampire... stuff we could use to our advantage."
"I never reported Angel in any of my reports..." Giles confessed. "I admitted the initial contact... but when he was helping us all the time... I never mentioned it."
"You think I told my family I was the one who insisted he should be more involved..." Jenny laughed. "I told them he was around more often... I didn't say I approved it... or was the one who suggested it." She walked over to him, giving him a gentle kiss. "The people we work for... they're stuck in the past... dealing with tradition more often than the reality of the situation. My approval of Angel's use as a member of the team, would have been met the same way as your Council would have commented when you first informed them that other students were aware of the Slayer identity... we're products of our uprbinging Giles... but those kids."
She paused looking in the direction of the main library, seemingly staring her way directly through the brick wall.
"Those kids out there... they're the next generation of demon fighters... there are two Vampire Slayers for heaven's sake... let's do our best to make them better than us."
Sighing, Giles came to an inevitable conclusion. "If we... we are to continue, we ought to be honest with each other."
She nodded.
"I think you know the worst about me... and I take it this is your big secret." He relaxed when she nodded her confirmation. "While I'm sure there are lots of little things that we haven't yet discussed, which may or may not be important. There's only one more secret of mine..." He confessed.
"You can tell me." She uttered, taking his hand in hers.
"As you knew about vampires before you came here, I take it you also knew about Slayers and the Watcher's Council."
"Yes." She quietly confirmed.
"How much..?" He asked in a solemn tone.
"About the council..? Just the basics I guess... what they did, who they looked after, that sort of thing..."
He looked deep into her eyes, ensuring he had her full attention before beginning. "My last confession is something that my role forces me to do..."
End chapter thirty one