See Part I for disclaimer and details. Thanks as always to those who have reviewed. And with regard to the question I raised in the last chapter? This story will go on! But then I thought, maybe I should make this next part somewhat more Joyce-centric for a bit of a change of pace. Plus, show what it all might have been like if the woman had known the secret right from the start. Hope you enjoy!
Part VI: Conference Time
A mausoleum in one of Sunnydale's cemeteries. January, 1997
It seemed that luck was with Buffy Anne Summers tonight, at least somewhat.
As Darla leaned down to bite, she accidentally burned herself on the cross given to the Chosen One earlier that evening. With a snarl, the female demon jerked away. Buffy, quickly seizing the opportunity, push-kicked Darla back from the coffin and hauled herself out.
For a moment, Buffy hesitated. Should she finish the fight with her opponent, or go make sure that the other four were okay? Looking at the furious vampire, the Slayer quickly figured it would be better not to leave an enemy like this at her back.
But then the situation changed.
Angelus stepped through the doorway to the mausoleum, and was instantly entranced by the sight of the two breathtaking blondes fighting. ( There's no mud pit and the clothes are all wrong, but still... ) "Well now, who have we here?"
Buffy glanced at him after Darla was kicked away, and during that instant Angelus was overcome by a wave of lust and desire, one the likes of which he had never experienced before. He didn't understand it, but it was...cosmic, so to speak. Like the poles of destiny finally coming together.
At least, it would have been if he'd still had his soul.
The male vampire shook it off, but that moment of distraction cost him dearly. Buffy saw his game face and did a leaping reverse crescent kick; one that impacted right on the soulless vampire's mouth, slamming him to the side and away from the doorway, the blood spraying as the Chosen One changed her battle plans and ran for it.
Angelus picked himself up off the floor, cursing in Gaelic. Then he said to Darla, "Who was that?"
"Who do you think, Angelus? The Slayer!" his sire cursed. "Now, where have you been? And where's your offering for the Master?" Angelus briefly explained what had happened in the alley and why he had come back empty-handed, but Darla couldn't believe it. "Some nameless human child challenged you, and lived?"
The male vamp shrugged. "He wouldn't have if Dru hadn't stopped me-"
The female demon cursed again. "That mad little witch is more trouble than she's worth, sometimes! Where is she, anyway?"
"Wandered off again somewhere, I'd expect." Angelus looked around. "So where's YOUR meal for the ugly old bastard? Don't tell me you let them get away as well?"
Goaded beyond endurance Darla unexpectedly lashed out, her fist hitting her childe in the exact same place Buffy's foot had. "One more word out of you, and not only will you regret talking to me that way, I'll tear out your tongue and shove it up your ass! Understood?"
Angelus slowly got up again, his yellow eyes reflecting an unbelievable inner fury. Still, he knew he couldn't afford to antagonize his sire at this point. If she and the Master united against him, Angelus suspected that he would end up ashes in that underground church soon enough.
However galling it felt, he adopted a subservient attitude and simply nodded once. It seemed to calm Darla down though as she said, "Come on, then, we'll get someone else for the Master to snack on. It's not worth it trying to go up against the Slayer again tonight. Tomorrow night is the Harvest, after all!"
Angelus calmed down as well, and as Darla took his arm they gracefully walked out of the mausoleum. Then he asked, "You really think he's going to anoint you as the Vessel, though?"
Darla looked at him almost disdainfully. "Well. Who else is he going to choose, now that Luke is dust? You? I don't think so, darling!"
Although Angelus was careful not to show it, the patronizing tone of voice grated on his nerves. And for the first time EVER he seriously considered what spending eternity without his sire would be like.
And to his surprise Angelus discovered that it wasn't the nightmare that he'd thought it would be...
Sunnydale General Hospital, Sunnydale. A short while later
Xander lay in the hospital bed, thinking deeply.
He had woken up in a private room, with a couple of nurses hovering over him. The boy had then learned that he'd been lucky. There was no sign of a concussion, and one of the nurses had said that he should make a complete recovery from his injuries.
At that point, Xander had touched the bite marks on his neck. The two staff members had instantly frozen up before he could ask anything else, then quickly walked out of the room.
And the more he thought about it, the more all this didn't seem to make much sense.
For one thing, why would a soulless bloodsucker want to save his life? The same female vampire who, just a few seconds before, had wanted to turn him? And something else: why had the other walking corpse even listened to her?
Okay, Angelus had said that this Drusilla character was clairvoyant, precognitive, but to trust her prediction to that degree? In Xander's experience, once a vamp felt the need to feed there was no stopping them short of turning 'em into dust.
No, something was definitely wrong with this picture. And that included the official treatment he'd gotten once he'd arrived here.
Namely, what was up with the local Sunnydale police? Xander had expected to have to spin some sort of a yarn to them, like he'd done with the LAPD when the Hemery High gym had been burned down. That he'd seen a couple of people about to harm one of his classmates at school, stepped in and gotten involved in a knife fight or whatever.
But as soon as the two uniformed cops had seen the marks on his neck, they'd just muttered something about 'damn gangs high on PCP' and left.
Unfortunately, Xander didn't have time to wonder about it any further, as Joyce came tearing through the doors of his hospital room at that precise moment. The Summers woman looked semi-crazed with worry too, if the blunt truth were to be told.
"Alexander?" she called out, hope and terror obvious in her tone.
"I'm right here, Mom-"
The middle-aged woman didn't give him a chance to say anything more, as she instantly grabbed her son into a huge, bone-crushing hug. "Oh thank God! Are you all right? Where are you hurt?"
"Geez, Mom, I'm fine," Xander said with typical adolescent annoyance at such public displays of maternal affection. "I just hit my head a little, that's all."
Unfortunately, his mother quickly spotted the bandage on his neck and instantly knew he wasn't telling her everything. So Joyce turned to the nurse who had come in with her and asked politely, "Could we have some privacy, please?"
The hospital worker nodded and left the room, closing the door on her way out. Joyce then turned her patented parental glare onto her offspring. "I want the truth, young man. What really happened?"
Xander sighed and gave her a brief summary of the night's events. He glossed over the meeting with Whistler, the events at the Bronze, and what had happened in the alley afterwards. "And then I woke up here-"
"Where's your sister?" Joyce interrupted, the fear once again back in her voice.
"I don't know," Xander was forced to admit. "But I'm sure Buffy's fine-"
"Don't try to snowball me, Alexander! You don't know that! Do you have any idea how much your father and I worry about you two? I called him in Los Angeles after the hospital contacted me, you should know. And your father's on his way here right now, even as we speak-"
"You shouldn't have, Mom! I mean, Buffy and I have got this under control," Xander tried to reason with her.
Joyce's eyes went wide. "Are you-? Alexander Henry Summers, that is the most insane thing I've ever heard! That's it, I'm putting my foot down. You and your sister are not risking your lives this way anymore!"
Xander just stared at her, and Joyce suddenly felt a chill. However, all that the boy said was, "Mom, you're overrea-"
"Overreacting? OVERRREACTING? Alexander, you haven't even seen me overreact yet! I mean, for God's sake, how do you expect me to deal with all this? With boys your age I'm supposed to be worried about you doing drugs, or sneaking out to attend all-night keggers, or-or getting your girlfriend pregnant! Not worrying if when I get a phone call like that the next time, it'll be to identify your body at the city morgue!"
Xander tried to calm the hysterical woman down. "Mom, look, I know you worry about me and Buffy. I mean, that's normal, that's what moms do! But you and Dad can't protect us on this. I can't ignore the dreams and sensations that I get, just like Buffy can't ignore the fact that there are things out there killing people every night-"
"Then you should get someone else to risk their lives that way! A grown-up who understands what's involved. You two are just children!" Joyce almost shouted.
"The Slayer thing doesn't work that way, Mom. And you know that," Xander said to her, suddenly sounding far older than his years – thanks to Merrick's influence and training. "Look...if Buffy and I just ignored reality like you want for us to do, this girl I met today at school? She'd be dead outside the Bronze right now. And it's her parents who would be the ones wondering where the hell their daughter was, or grieving over her corpse at the morgue. Is THAT what you want?"
Joyce Summers turned away, not wanting to hear this with every fibre of her being. "I just don't want for you and your sister to get hurt. Is that too much to ask?" she replied, still not looking at her son.
"Lemme answer that with a question of my own, Mom. Could you look at yourself in the mirror anymore, knowing people would die if we just hid under the bed at nights – that their blood would be on your hands?"
Joyce couldn't help it, she got angry again. Angry at her son, angry at her daughter. Angry at the whole damned world for putting her family into this sort of impossible situation in the first place. But before she could open her mouth to reply to all that, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!" Xander called out before the woman could tell him not to.
Rupert Giles stepped inside and looked surprised to see Joyce present. "Ah, hello," he said quickly.
"Hi," Mrs. Summers replied. "Uh, who are you?"
"I'm Rupert Giles. I'm, uh, I'm the high school librarian," the British man stuttered out.
Joyce looked confused. "I see...well, I'm Joyce Summers. But, er, what are you doing here?"
"I called him," Xander said quickly. "He's Buffy new Watcher."
Instantly, Joyce lost all traces of friendliness as she glared at the Council representative. "I see," she said frostily, as her eyes narrowed angrily. "Well, you're certainly a bit different than the last one!"
Giles sighed; he'd been expecting Joyce's hostility. Indeed, her attitude was the reason for the Council's policy on removing the Potentials from their homes and families as quickly as possible, once they'd been identified. Although in this case, it was lucky they'd failed to do so, as his new charge most likely would have had a very short lifespan once she'd been called. "Mrs. Sum-"
"Let's get something straight right now, Mr. Giles. I know you have a job to do, to assist my kids in staying alive. But that doesn't mean I have to like it! Or your organization. Or whoever it is that's responsible for cursing my children this way!" She looked to Xander, "I'll be outside. Call me as soon as you two are done, okay, sweetheart?"
Xander nodded, as Joyce gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and then departed the room. Giles stared after her, "Well. Uh, that could have gone better."
"I kinda doubt it, Giles. You shoulda seen what she was like with Merrick all those months ago. Believe me, you got off easy. REAL easy!"
"I see," Rupert ruminated briefly. "Well, I take it you're basically all right. So what happened, after you and Buffy split up and left?"
Xander gave him a quick summary, only this time including all the details he'd left out when talking to Joyce. "So what do ya think?"
Giles started to polish his glasses. "Um, this is, uh, phenomenally bad, I'm afraid. Angelus is, is...when exactly did you have that Slayer dream again, the one regarding Nikki Wood?"
"Who?" Xander was confused.
"The New York Slayer who was killed by Angelus during 1978," Giles clarified. "Her Watcher was Bernard Crowley, a friend of mine based on the East Coast back then. He always wondered which vampire had killed his charge, you see."
"Oh. Uh, I had that particular dream the night before we left LA," Xander replied. "Why?"
"Well, it's just that it's...rather odd, historically speaking," Giles remarked. "That particular vampire had vanished around the turn of the century, and for decades no one had heard anything about him. Then about twenty years ago, he surfaced again – worse than ever."
"And that nutsoid female vamp he had with him?" Xander asked, deciding not to share details about the whole 'cuckoo in the nest' thing Dru had ranted about – not right now, at least.
"I don't know. I'll have to look up this Drusilla character in the Watcher diaries. I'm sure she'll be mentioned there somewhere."
"And what about this whole Harvest deal? What do we know there?" Xander wanted to know.
The Watcher suddenly checked his watch. "It's very late, I can fill you and your sister in on that tomo – uh, wait, you will be attending school, won't you?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. They're just keeping me here for observation anyway," the boy snorted. "By the way, I almost forgot. The cops in this town? I think there's something kinda hinky about them..."
The two men talked for a while longer, before Giles left and Xander started pestering his mom about being released to go home and sleep in his own bed.
The underground prison of the Master, Sunnydale. The same time
Angelus and Darla dragged their gagged captive along while a daydreaming Drusilla tagged along behind. "Move!" the male vamp hissed at the human woman. "And stop struggling! It won't do you any good!"
They soon threw her down at the Master's feet, who looked unsympathetically at the undead couple. "Is this for me?"
"Best we could do in the time we had," Angelus growled back.
"I remember distinctly asking for something young," Heinrich Nest said in a freezing tone of voice.
"You're lucky we managed to get you anything at all! Because Dru was right, there's definitely a Slayer here on the Hellmouth!"
The Master looked annoyed at his grandchilde as he quickly sated himself on his victim's blood, before tossing the drained corpse to the floor. Then he turned to Darla, "She tasted old and stringy. Not to mention her blood reeked of fish!"
"Master, forgive me! We had more offerings, but there was trouble. The Slayer, she fought me-"
"And she still lives?" the Master hissed dangerously, after guessing the truth from the look on Darla's face. "You're making excuses now? Is that what you're trying to say?"
"No, we're just giving credit where it's due. That Slayer fought well enough to get away from me as well!" Angelus replied, stretching the truth just a little for convenience.
"She mustn't interfere with the Harvest!" the Master shouted.
"Don't worry. Slayer or not, she's just a girl. And if she somehow manages to show her face tomorrow night, we'll be ready for her!" Darla said with more certainty than she actually felt. Then she turned to Dru, "Don't you think so, Drusilla?"
The demented vampiress just stared back at her, a faraway look in her eyes. "You have burning baby crocodiles floatin' all around you, Grandmother."
Angelus snickered, and even the Master looked amused for a moment. Darla just scowled, "Serves me right for even asking...and will you stop calling me that!"
TBC...