That Night

"I can't believe you spent all night being bait for a vamp that didn't even show up," Kennedy groans as Willow stumbles into their bedroom. She scoots aside to let the red head flop down beside her, face buried in the pillows.

"Yeah," Willow mumbles through the pillow case. "How will I ever explain that I got stood up by a homicidal maniac with no soul?"

Kennedy smiles and leans close, her lips inches from Willow's ear. "I would never, ever stand you up for a chance to bite your neck, lover."

Willow peeks up at Kennedy, her face pleasantly surprised. "You wouldn't?"

Kennedy shakes her head and nudges Willow aside so that they can lie together. Willow giggles and rolls over. "How was your night?"

"Duller than yours," Kennedy says, sighing heavily. She reaches down with one hand to hold Willow's while fixing her long brown hair with the other. "Faith drilled up 'wannabes' for hours. Like she'd totally forgotten that we've faced worse than her crop across the shoulders."

Willow sits straight up. "She hit you with a crop? Like, for horses?"

Kennedy smiles. "Yeah. Would have been great if it weren't Faith doing it."

Willow frowns pensively. "How can Faith get away with training you like you're in boot camp or something? The war's over. She and Buffy never had it that hard."

"She and Buffy had witches and werewolves and vampires with souls in their arsenals," Kennedy says. "We've got nothing but ourselves and whatever Watchers Giles can scrounge together."

"You've got more than that, Kenn," Willow says sulkily.

"I'm just the lucky one," Kennedy smiles. "Will you come to bed? I've got bruises I need you to magick away."

"What do you mean 'hard on them'? They're going to go out into the world, destroying vampires, demons, and door to door salesmen!" Faith explodes irritably to Robin Wood, the one man she hasn't managed to shake off. He folds his arms across his chest, her stern expression never fading. Faith actually squirms. "They've got to be hard."

Robin shakes his head and sits at the writing desk he's set up in the bedroom they've been sharing since moving to England. Faith had insisted that she didn't need his company but she's never actually kicked him out, either. She sits glumly on the bed, avoiding his eyes. "Why don't you tell me what's really going on?" Robin asks.

Faith doesn't speak for a moment, looking down at her feet. She sighs heavily. "The people who are volunteering to be Watchers… They're ordinary people. We're different. Stronger, faster, better and all that. They've got to protect their Watchers. Not get them killed—"

"Stop," Robin says firmly. "What happened to your Watcher was NOT your fault. At all. I want you to remember that. These people volunteered. They know the risks involved. They know that all their predecessors died in a terrible explosion caused by the minions of the embodiment of evil. Yet they're still here, having meeting after meeting with Giles."

Faith hangs her head. "These girls are going to lose Watchers. They're going to die. You beating them over the heads while doing push-ups isn't going to make any of them any better for it, got it? Lighten up. They'll make you proud," Robin gets up to sit beside Faith.

"You're such a principal," Faith counters lamely. She puts her head on his shoulder.

They live in a hotel that had been bought by one of the more wealthy Watcher prospects. Perhaps he thinks it will help his chances at making it or maybe he wants to help whether he joins the ranks or not. Regardless, the whole hotel has been turned into a building designed for offices, libraries, ritual rooms, and other useful things that those involved in the occult might need. The upper levels remain hotel suites, however, and they have been divvied up between the folks trying to keep the Slayer tradition alive, so to speak.

In the suite shared by the Summers' family, Dawn Summers is out cold in her bed. She's long since given up waiting for her sister to come home from patrolling and her days are better spent studying to qualify, according to Giles, for Watcher-hood. Having no powers or special abilities to aid in her sister's fight against evil, she has made it her goal to at least be the one to do the research officially. Xander is technically supposed to be studying with her, but he still manages to go patrolling with the original gang whenever he can.

Dawn opens her eyes when she hears Buffy enter, however. Ever since her death several years earlier, Buffy has had a terrible time trying to sleep. She often stays up watching infomercials or other mindless television until her younger sister wakes up to start her day.

"You awake, Dawnie?" Buffy asks as Dawn gets up to join her on the couch in front of the television.

"No," Dawn replies, shaking her head. "Sleep-walking. Keeps me useful."

Buffy looks at her sister, frowning heavily. "You know you're useful, Dawn…"

Dawn holds up her hands defensively. "I was kidding. Really. I know that I'm useful. And I'm getting more so every day. Just a little late night humor, you know, to bore you to sleep or something."

"Thanks, but I'm all right. You should get to bed, though. You've got work to do."

Dawn rolls her eyes. "And miss our sisterly bonding?"

"Go to bed, Dawn," Buffy sticks her tongue out at her younger sister.

"Oh, very mature. What a role model you are," Dawn grins. "Wait till I tell the other Slayers."

They both sit in silence. "Will that ever stop being weird to say?"

Giles is in bed, fast asleep, his glasses still perched on his forehead and a book across his chest. A crash of shattering glass jars him awake, however, and he bounds from his bed, stumbling sleepily and adjusting his glasses. He stubs his toe on a rock that's amidst the shards of broken glass. "Oh bloody hell!" he grumbles, staggering back and stepping on the glass.

Ignoring the pain, however, he reaches down to investigate the rock, which has a piece of paper tied to it. "Classy," he murmurs, unfolding the paper to reveal a messy note.

"Your Slayer missed me tonight," the note reads. "She wants to meet me; she's got to do it on my terms. Instructions will follow. Sincerely, Jack the Ripper," the name is signed in blood. Giles drops the paper in disgust and hurries to find Buffy.