Okay everyone or anyone considering it's been so long I wouldn't be surprised if you guys had given up on me although I really do have a good excuse this time…..my baby girl is nearly 10 weeks old, so I am a bit busy being a mummy! Anyway, here is the next chapter, disclaimers can be found in first chapter and maybe other ones (it's fairly obvious the bits that aren't mine anyway)……love feedback…….
6. Over
Giles was saying something, something about demons on earth eons ago or some such thing, I wasn't really listening. All I could see was Jesse's face and all I could think was that I hadn't been able to save him. I'd known he was going to die and I hadn't saved him. I'd known….I'd known…
"Buffy!" Giles took me out of my depressing reverie,
"Sorry Giles, what was that?" He looked at me for a second, apparently hesitant as to whether to ask me if I was ok, he was making the face.
"I was saying that before man…"
"….demons walked the earth, made it their hell, but in time they lost their hold and that's when humans came, right?" He nodded and continued, for Xander and Willow's benefit.
"Yes, what remains of these are certain magic's, certain creatures,"
"And vampires." I said as he did. Xander looked agitated while Willow looked vaguely sick.
"See this is what I have a problem with, we are talking about vampires; we are having a talk with vampires in it."
"But that's what they were right?" Willow asked, her voice quavering slightly.
"Yes they were, as much as you can try to justify or explain them away as something else, they were vampires, believe me, I had trouble with it in the beginning, trouble believing, ya know after I was done with the screaming part. I'm sorry you guys."
"I need to sit down."
"You are sat down."
"Oh," She took a deep breath.
"And vampires are demons?"
"The books tell that the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human mixed their blood. He was the human form possessed – infected – by the demons soul. He bit another and another and so they walk the earth, feeding, killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind; waiting for the animals to die out and the old ones to return."
"This is not good, how could we not know this?" Willow asked
"People no longer believe, there isn't enough evidence for them and they would rather be blind to it. But there are those who know; who fight against them; including the slayer and those sworn to protect her." He glanced at me but I felt too sick to care, sick with disgust that I hadn't saved Jesse.
"And that would be what? Buffy?" Xander asked also glancing at me, "But she's a girl…" This I did take issue with, giving Xander a withering glance, honestly, boys, men, they're all the same.
"As long as there have been vampires, there has been a slayer. One girl in all the world, the chosen one…" I had to smile slightly; this was just so typical Giles,
"He loves doing this part." I told them, smiling wickedly. Giles didn't look as amused.
"Very well, the slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is the slayer, don't tell anyone, I think that is sufficient information." He said closing his book and looking a bit annoyed.
"Except for how do we kill them?" Xander asked, obviously dying to avenge Jesse, well, dying is the wrong word, I just wished there wasn't any need for avenging his death in the first place, what should I have done differently?
"You don't, I do."
"But Jesse…"
"Jesse is gone Xander." I told him, a bit too harshly, while an errant tear escaped out of my eye. "Besides he was my responsibility."
"That's not true…"
"If you hadn't been there they'd have taken us too, killed us…" Willow said quietly, looking even paler.
"We still have a pressing problem on our hands." Giles said, speaking directly to me.
"The Harvest, crap, but isn't that tonight right?" He nodded,
"Yes it is, from what I have gathered."
"What's the harvest?" Xander asked, looking from Giles to me and back again. He seemed hesitant to tell them.
"Ya might as well Giles, I don't think they're just gonna go back to class and pretend all this didn't happen."
"Very well, we have…discovered that a ritual is to take place tonight, it is called the harvest."
"The short version is it's a ritual to free a very old and powerful vampire and to restore him to full strength."
"Yes, thank you Buffy, the long version, as you would put it began some sixty years ago…" I rolled my eyes, but kept quiet, I wasn't all knowing after all and I figured Xander and Willow deserved to know. "….when a very old and very powerful vampire came to this land, not just to feed, but because this town is a mystical convergence. The Spanish settlers called it Boca Del Inferno, roughly translated as Hellmouth, a sort of portal from this reality to the next. This vampire hoped to open it, hoped to let the demons have the earth, but it didn't work. He caused an earthquake that swallowed half the town and him with it. Odds are he got himself stuck, opening dimensional portals being a rather tricky business."
"And the Harvest is to get him out?" Xander asked, looking more horrified by the minute.
"It is; it comes once a century, on this night. The Master will draw power from one of his minions while it feeds. The minion is called the vessel and bears this symbol." Giles said, ending in his drawing a three pointed star like symbol on the board.
"I need to dust the vessel." I said, Giles nodding,
"Where do you suppose this is going to happen?" Giles asked, looking straight at me and giving me a pointed look.
"The Bronze," I answered,
"Are you sure?" Willow wondered looking between the two of us.
"I'm sure. Need to do a little planning, and I'll need to make a stop for supplies, my mom is so not gonna be cool with this." I groaned, oh well, have to make amends later, needed to stop the harvest now.
The rest of the day, was spent making plans and backup plans between a few classes, not that anyone of us was concentrating, but missing classes on the second day of school was not gonna go down too well.
My mom was uncharacteristically chilled out about my going out, she wasn't thrilled about it but I should think that not getting a phone call from the principal over missed classes went someway to explain her mood.
The harvest went down nearly exactly as I remembered. Luke was the vessel, he had the Bronze locked up, but not well enough and it was over fairly quickly without anymore unnecessary deaths. What was different then was that Jesse wasn't there, he was well and truly dead by this time and Xander at least didn't have to stake him. Not that that was the best of best things. I guessed, very depressingly, that it was one less hurt Xander was going to endure because of vampires, this town, and of course, me. Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself at all you understand. Well maybe I am.
I was sat in the library, after persuading both Xander and Willow that they needed to go home and sleep. There was no way I was gonna sleep easily; too many thoughts were going round my head, too many bad thoughts. Primarily Jesse and what it meant for the future, and I felt so, tired. I knew too much, and I knew I'd have to share it or else go crazy.
"Buffy." Giles said, sitting down himself and passing me a cup of tea. He seemed to be regarding me, my mood. "You cannot blame yourself Buffy." Well he'd hit the nail right on the head there.
"I can very easily Giles. I knew; I knew it would happen and I didn't stop it. I thought maybe after I'd killed Darla that would be enough to stop..."
"Buffy," He interrupted looking very stern and also compassionate at the same time, "You tried, you tried to save him and that has to be enough. It's terrible that he died, yes, but you cannot dwell on whether you could or could not have saved him. You tried to save him Buffy, you did your best."
"Did I?"
"I'm sorry you have to deal with this, but vampires are neither merciful nor understanding. They plough onward leaving destruction and death in their wake and it's us that have to deal with it, with the death, because they are inevitable."
"I know that, I just don't understand why I couldn't have…when I knew. What's the point of knowing what's going to happen if I, we can't change it, change the bad things." He shook his head, knowing this question had been coming and she was right in a way, what was the point?
"Buffy, the truth is that you may not be able to change some things, things happen for a reason, both good and bad, and as much as I hate to say it…perhaps Jesse was meant to die, and there was nothing you could have done." I looked up at this, it was so not what I wanted to hear but, something told me it was likely to be true, however much I didn't want it to be. How could I get past not being able to help people, people I know to be in danger? Was I just meant to get over it; get on with it like a good little cold-hearted and unfeeling slayer? I just couldn't do that.
My mind started running in circles again. Did it mean I could only change my own choices and stuff that they affected and nothing else? Or were there things that could be changed and others that couldn't and I would just have to find out which, when they became issues? I shook my head in a futile attempt to clear it a little.
"There are too many things, too many possibilities. How do I know?" It was Giles turn to shake his head,
"I don't know Buffy, all I can say is that time will tell. And maybe it would help you if you shared what you know. That way it is not just you carrying this…knowledge, and we can face whatever problems arise together, like watchers and slayers should." I smiled a little.
"Ok, oh you didn't tell the council did you?"
"No, I did not inform them as you asked, though I'm not normally in the habit of keeping things from them."
"I know, but I don't trust them and if they knew about this they might want to study me or something." He made a face that was one of disbelief but nodded none the less.
"Very well, where would you like to begin? The beginning is always a good bet." He smiled and I felt better. I still had Giles after all, and there was Xander and Willow.
"The beginning," Where in the hell was that? "Ok, I guess the beginning would be, Amy's witch mom who has switched their bodies so she can relive her glory days as a Sunnydale cheerleader." Giles looked at me for a second, oh I'd got him there, he looked way too happy and interested as I went on to tell him the rest of the story and then as we planned what we could do about it. That done, I told him; of what I could recall, of the rest of the mayhem and chaos that was living on the Hellmouth; at least in this first year, and the major big bad things from after. Giles believed that we could deal with most of what came later, later, but I had to tell him if I started to forget things, that way we'd have to go through everything.
Here it was; the fun that was living on the Hellmouth. One thing for sure, vacation was well and truly over.
Tbc……
Thanks for all your reviews…
Becca
