See Part I for disclaimer and details. And thanks again, as always, to all those who have reviewed. Well, we're officially moving onto my version of "The Harvest" now, and I hope you'll like it!
Part VII: Revelations
Sunnydale High Library, Sunnydale. The next day
This morning Buffy and Xander had arrived just in time for school assembly, wondering what their second day on campus would bring after all the hijinks of the first one. Unfortunately, Hank had had to return to LA, which hadn't left Joyce a very happy woman as she'd driven her kids to the high school.
Right at this moment though, Giles was on the mezzanine level of the library, making his way down to where Buffy, Willow and Jesse were seated at the study table. Whereupon he started to lecture the gathered students.
"This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons, demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their...their Hell. But in time, they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the Old Ones are vestiges, certain magicks, certain creatures-"
Buffy interrupted, "And vampires."
Jesse looked like he was trapped in a bad dream, one that he wanted to wake up from as soon as possible. "Okay, we're actually talking about vampires here, right? We're having a serious conversation, with vampires in it. So, so, is anyone else besides me thinking that this is completely insane?"
"Jesse-" the Chosen One started to say.
"I mean, vampires? As in fangs and 'I vaant to suuck your bloood'?" the teenager finished up with a pointed look.
Willow looked lost. "Isn't that what we saw last night?"
Buffy shrugged. "No. No, th-those weren't vampires, those were just people in thundering need of a facial. Or maybe they had rabies. It could have been rabies. A-and that guy exploding into dust? Just a trick of the light."
Off Jesse's stare the Slayer went on, "Anyway, that's what I said the first time I saw a vampire. Well, after I was done with the screaming part, I did."
Ms. Rosenberg slowly shook her head. "Oh, I, I need to sit down."
Buffy pointed out the obvious, "You are sitting down."
"Oh. Good for me," said the redhead absently.
Jesse turned to the librarian. "All right, assuming all this is on the level – I mean, vampires are...what exactly?"
Giles began to lecture again. "The books say the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human and mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's essence. He bit another, and another, and so the vampires now 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."
The teenage boy stared at the Watcher. "So how do ya kill 'em?"
"You don't. The Slayer kills them," was the Englishman's reply.
"The what?" McNally demanded.
"For as long as there have been vampires, there's also been the Slayer. One girl in all the world with the strength and skill to fight them, a Chosen One-"
Buffy interjected wryly, "He loves doing this part."
Giles looked annoyed at Buffy's flippancy. "All right. The Slayer hunts vampires, Buffy is a Slayer. Don't tell anyone. And I think that's all the vampire information you two need to know!"
"So, uh, does, does your family know about all this?" Willow asked her new friend, still looking somewhat dazed.
"Yeah, and hey, me and Xander are a team. He senses the vamps, and then I go kill 'em!" Buffy replied matter-of-factly.
"How's that again?" Jesse demanded. Then he thought, ( Oh man, wait, that might explain why he went after my Cordy! He's got the whole Clark Kent secret identity thing going? )
Buffy looked to Giles to properly explain it. So the Watcher said, "Buffy is, um, rather unique in that her, uh, twin ended up with part of the Slayer essence when she was called to her duty. There's more to being the Chosen One than just fighting skills and very fast healing, you see. Th-there's the whole mystical 'sensing the supernatural' aspect, which for some reason or another seems to have attached itself to Mr. Summers."
"So if you're twenty times stronger than normal, he's like three times as strong?" Willow asked.
"No. I mean, Xand works out as much as he can to try to keep up with me, so he's pretty much in okay shape. But he's totally normal! Just like you guys," Buffy explained.
There was almost nothing worse you could say to a teenage boy to shatter his ego in quite that way. "Right," Jesse said simply, his dreams of becoming a superhero like his new female friend suddenly going down in flames.
Giles then looked to his charge. "So, er, your confrontation with the vampires last night – you said there were two other students with you at the time?"
"Yeah, Jonathan Levinson and Amber Grove," Willow piped up. "We had to take Jonathan to the hospital, 'cause y'know, he's anemic and all. But when I spoke with Amber this morning after I went looking for her, it was like she didn't even remember what happened last night!"
"Well, the human mind does tend to repress these sorts of incidents in order to protect its sanity," Giles told her didactically. "What about Mr. Levinson?"
"He wasn't at school today, I checked," Jesse told him. "But odds are he'll repress too, right?"
"I suppose-"
Just at that moment though, Xander came into the library. "Yo, G-man? Buffy?"
"I told you before, don't call me that!" Giles said crossly as Buffy giggled.
Xander stopped at the sight of Jesse and Willow. He could easily perceive McNally's scowl and the Rosenberg girl's look of consternation, and so the guy said, "Uh, Buff? I need to talk to you...about last night..."
"Everyone here knows, Xander. Jesse and Willow were with me last night and they saw everything, so no need to speak in code," his sister said with a shrug.
"Really?" the young man gazed at the blonde's new buds. "Huh. You know, I just can't help feeling that the more people who know the big secret, the more it cheapens it for the rest of us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Buffy wanted to know.
"Well, it's about Cordelia-"
"What about her?" Jesse asked at once
"She wanted to talk to me today. Apparently, she's the one who found me outside the Bronze last night and called for an ambulance. And call me a pessimist, but I don't think she's repressed seeing those two vamps last night either," Xander said with a sigh.
"What? You put Cordelia's life in danger that way?" Jesse demanded angrily.
The reactions to this were many and varied. Willow gazed at him in equal parts despair and hopeless love. Buffy looked at her classmate in annoyance and irritation. Giles simply glanced at Jesse for barely a moment, concentrating on other matters.
But Xander's stare was just pure curiosity before he replied, "Actually, I saved her life from a vamp that she'd willingly left the Bronze with, on account of she didn't know what he was."
"Oh. Right," Jesse said in sudden embarrassment, sinking down into his chair. "Sorry, dude."
"So, what do we do? I mean, we have to tell somebody about all this, right? Like, like the police?" Willow asked timidly.
Giles snorted, "And they'd believe us, of course?"
Xander added, "Besides, I got me a real funny feeling from the two cops I met last night. They seemed...kinda weird."
"Well, I, I was just wanting to help," Willow replied, looking embarrassed.
"Well, then help me. I've been researching this Harvest affair-" Giles started to say.
"What?" Jesse and Willow asked at the same time.
"It seems to be some sort of preordained massacre. Rivers of blood, Hell on Earth, all quite charmless really. I'm a bit fuzzy, however, on the details. If any of you are able to assist-" Rupert started to say with a questioning tone.
Just then, the bell outside the library could be heard to start ringing, and the four teenagers got up and headed outside. They split up to head for class, and Jesse said to his red-haired best friend as they walked along, "This really is for real, isn't it?"
"Yup," Willow nodded, still coming to grips with the enormity of it all.
"Man. Yesterday, it's like my life was all 'damn it, pop quiz?' Now it's 'watch out for the vampires at night, 'cause they'll kill you'. Is that seriously out there, Will, or what?"
Willow had no answer for him as they headed towards Miss Frank's English class for the next period.
Sunnydale High, Sunnydale. Later that day
Xander was fighting off a bad case of the jitters as he walked down the school corridor.
So far he'd had Biology class with Dr. Gregory, History with Mr. Baird, and Phys. Ed with Mr. Herrold. But he'd been unable to focus, as his mind had constantly kept coming around to the events of last night.
And to Xander's relief, he now finally had a minute to stop by the library, and try to learn what was new. Xander walked in to find Giles and Buffy looking over some books. "Hey. What's the up, guys?" he asked.
The Watcher stared at him briefly, sorted through the pile on the table and then lifted up a daguerreotype of Darla, Angelus and Drusilla. "Either of you recognize any of them?"
"Him and her," Xander said, pointing to Angelus and Dru.
"Her, definitely," Buffy added, pointing to Darla. "Can't be sure about the guy 'cause all I saw was the vamp face, but the hair color matches, so I'd go with my first guess and say that's our vampire."
Giles adjusted his glasses. "Meet Darla, Angelus and Drusilla. They belong to the Order of Aurelius. They're, um, a sect of vampires who consider themselves the, the select, the elite if you will. The worst of the worst, as far as we're concerned."
"How old are these bloodsuckers?" Xander wanted to know.
"Not one of them is under a century in age, I'm afraid. Angelus is at least 200 years old according to my sources. And he sired Drusilla back around 1860, apparently. As for Darla...well, no one's quite sure how old she is, but the first reliable sighting of her was reported back in the early part of the 17th century."
"So where do you think we could find 'em?" Buffy asked.
"Underground somewhere, no doubt. But according to the information Willow wrested from that dread machine earlier, there are an endless series of caves and tunnels that run underneath this entire town in all directions. The odds of finding their lair would be analogous to finding a needle in a haystack the size of Sunnydale itself," Giles estimated pessimistically.
"Giles?" Xander suddenly spoke up, looking very troubled. "I gotta ask. Why would that Drusilla chick really be so interested in me? Not to mention decide to save my life? Some of the stuff she said last night...I haven't been able to get it out of my head."
"What do you mean?" the Slayer asked at once.
The boy hesitated before saying, "Does the phrase 'cuckoo in the nest' mean anything to you guys?"
Giles looked surprised. "The cuckoo is a member of the Cuculidae family, that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds which then raise the baby cuckoos – often at the expense of their own young. But what's that got to do anything?"
Buffy just stared at her new trainer. "You're like an encyclopaedia with arms, aren't you? Is there anything you don't know everything about?"
Rupert shrugged. "Synchronized swimming. Complete mystery to me, I'm afraid." Then he turned back to address Xander, "And I wouldn't pay too much attention to whatever crazed ramblings Drusilla may have uttered. Whatever it is that's troubling you, it's almost certainly the product of a deranged mind. The books are quite clear on the fact that Angelus drove the poor woman completely insane, and also hint that he visited all sorts of tortures upon her before he finally turned Drusilla into one of the undead."
"Sounds like a real prince," Buffy said in distaste. "Even if that guy does look like quite the hottie!"
"Well, they didn't call him 'the one with the angelic face' for nothing, I'm afraid. And, and back in the day he used all of his...assets to earn himself the title of 'The Scourge of Europe'," Giles remarked, closing the book.
Xander suddenly had the strangest feeling of...something. He looked at his sister, feeling like he had to...warn her about this so-called Scourge, for some reason. And yet looking at her face, it was clear that Buffy had already dismissed Angelus as just another vampire who was soon going to get acquainted with Mr. Pointy.
The boy didn't and couldn't understand it. But suddenly he KNEW that dealing with Angelus and his two female consorts simply wasn't going to be that easy.
Sunnydale High Library, Sunnydale. Later that lunchtime
Giles and Xander were alone at the table, leafing through books, when Cordelia Chase blasted through the doors to their sanctum. "God, Xander, finally! There you are!" she exclaimed upon seeing the boy she'd been looking for all day.
Rupert looked at the new arrival and frowned. "Uh, can I help you?"
"No! I'm just here to talk to him," Cordelia only barely acknowledged the British man's presence.
"I'm sorry, but have we met? I...I don't recall ever seeing you in here before."
"Well, duh! Because I have a life! And the name's Cordelia Chase. Look, could we possibly have some privacy?" Oddly, the girl somehow made it sound more like an order than a question.
Xander and Giles shared a brief look, before the Watcher nodded and went into his private office. As soon as the door was closed Cordelia turned to Xander and said imperiously, "I demand an explanation!"
"For what?"
Queen C instantly looked very annoyed. "For what happened last night, of course!"
Xander shrugged. "You have a thing for older men?"
Cordelia nearly flew into an uncontrolled rage. ( Is my pain just a joke to this guy? ) "So very funny. Any minute now, I am sure to laugh!"
The young man sighed. "Yeah, well, sorry. Oh, before I forget, thanks for calling that ambulance last night. I mean, most people wouldn't even have gone back outside!"
"You're welcome," the Chase girl replied, caught a bit off-guard. "Uh, you're all right, aren't you?"
"Yeah, peachy with a side of keen," Xander narrowed his eyes, suddenly sensing a crack in the bitchy exterior he had seen yesterday. And he was rather surprised to find a person with feelings under there. "So anything else can I do for you, Cor?"
"Oh for God's sake, mister, don't call me that! I mean, what's with that stupid nickname anyway?" the girl suddenly sounded annoyed again. "Because my name is Cordelia, pal! Can you say, 'Cor-de-lia'?" she enunciated slowly, as if talking to a special needs child.
"Sure I can. Can you say, 'bite me'?" Xander shot back, getting up from the table at last and scowling angrily at her.
Cordy honestly couldn't believe her ears. How dare this...this PEON talk to her like that? Where was the respect and near-worship that was her inalienable right as the wealthiest girl in Sunnydale? "Let me guess. Your parents adopted you from inside a big box containing baby howler monkeys, and never told you 'cause it would've hurt your delicate little male feelings?"
A shadow seemed to cross her opponent's face for a moment, as if a nasty thought had just occurred to him. Cordelia noticed it, of course. She was built to notice these things. "What? What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, I'm fine," Xander replied quickly, getting ahold of himself. "Cordelia, was there any real point to this little social call, or was it just so that we could start hurling abuse at one another?"
The young woman instantly collected herself and said, "Yeah. Now answer my original question, what happened last night in that alley?"
He thought about it for a few seconds. "Well, my opinion...you honestly don't want to know the truth, okay? Someone like you...simply couldn't handle it. Just chalk it all up to a learning experience about how dating people your own age is the only way to go, okay?" Xander replied a bit too smugly.
Well, Cordelia wasn't about to let that one just bounce off her, of course. "Right, and that means you just happen to think that YOU still have a chance with me? Ha, but I've got news for you Summers. You're beneath me!"
"Really? I'm beneath you? Well, I've got news for you too, Miss Chase. YOU'RE beneath ME!" Xander ranted almost directly into her face.
"Oh, that's it. You are obviously a complete and utter MORON!"
"And even though we just met yesterday, it's pretty obvious that you're the school BITCH!"
"OHHH! I HATE YOU!" Cordelia instantly screamed, losing all self-control.
"And I HATE YOU!" Xander yelled right back at her.
"Two-bit loser!"
"Stuck-up shrew!"
The boy and girl looked at each other for another second, their emotions boiling over – before grabbing each other and engaging in a mad, passionate kiss. It went on for several seconds, before the two crazy kids suddenly released themselves from one another's grasp.
Stunned, Cordy and Xander simply looked at each other in silent shock over what had just happened.
Jesse McNally, unseen on the upper level, stormed off into the stacks as Willow – who along with Jesse and Buffy had witnessed the entire screaming match and makeout session – began to go after him.
"No. I'll handle it," the Slayer whispered to her female friend as they also lost themselves amongst the bookshelves.
"But Buffy, I'm his best friend!" Willow protested.
"His best friend who couldn't BE more obviously in love with him, and somewhere deep inside is jumping up and down in glee over what's just happened," Buffy replied wryly.
The redhead somehow looked guilty, apprehensive and in agreement all at the same time. ( Oh, I knew it. I just knew something like this was gonna happen, almost the moment Cordy started asking me about Xander in the corridor yesterday! )
Thus the Summers girl left Ms. Rosenberg behind and caught up with Jesse, who she found repeatedly kicking a row of books very angrily. "Hey. Uh, if I know Watcher types? Giles sees you doing that...he'll probably have a heart attack. Or try to carve out your heart with a spoon. Maybe even both," the Slayer remarked.
Jesse stopped kicking the books. "I'd like to be alone right now." The teenager certainly sounded pissed.
"Yeah, I get that. Probably don't want to talk to the sister of the guy who's just moved in on the girl you love, huh? Perfectly understandable. But what happened just now...well, it was basically only hormones. I know Xander better than anyone – and you've still got a shot with Cordelia, if you really want it-"
"How can you say that?" Jesse demanded moodily. "It's perfectly obvious she'd rather be with someone she hates than be with me!"
Buffy sighed. "Jesse, there was once a time when I was the Cordelia Chase of Hemery High. I went through boyfriends like...uh, well, there was this guy called Jeff, I was attracted to him for all the wrong reasons. And looking back, it's no wonder why Xander and I despised each other back then! But my point is, people can change. And if there's something meant to be between you and her...it'll happen, in its own good time."
"I just don't understand why," her companion said desperately. "I mean, they don't even like each other! What the hell does your brother have that I don't?"
Buffy turned away slightly. "The same thing I do."
"What's that?"
"A lousy life expectancy, thanks to the whole vampire thing," Buffy explained simply.
McNally had the decency to look apologetic. "Hey, I'm sorry, Buffy! I, I didn't mean to..."
"It's okay," the Slayer said. "It is what it is, and me and my family just gotta deal with it. And anyway, despite the built-in expiration date, I still plan to live my life to the fullest. As in shop, sun-bathe and constantly pig out on full-caf cappuccinos!"
Jesse just stared at her, not sure if she was serious about that. And not sure if he wanted to find out, either.
TBC...