Chapter Twenty-Three: Secrets From the Scoobies

"Dawn, I don't need your sister to train me!" Joy exclaimed for probably the tenth time that day. "Trust me, my fighting skills are just fine!" She slammed her locker shut and headed towards the girls' locker room to change for cheer practice.

"Joy, you said you were accepting the whole slayer thing!" Dawn persisted, following close behind her friend.

"I am accepting it, but that doesn't mean that your sister has to teach me to fight!" She grinned. "Besides I bet that I could kick her ass good!" Joy bragged.

"Joy, you can't even reach her ass!" Dawn grinned mockingly. If there was anything Joy was sensitive about it was her height. She was pretty and had a figure that even her fellow cheerleaders envied, but it was no secret that she was a bit short for her age. She held to the belief that she stopped growing in seventh grade when she reached 5'3". However, she did love taking advantage of being able to wear the tallest stilletos she can find and still be shorter than most of the guys in her school.

"I know I haven't been the 'slayer' as long as your sister, but I've been been fighting since pre-school." She reached the locker room and Dawn followed her inside. "Trust me, I could take her."

"No offense sweetie, but you're delusional. Nobdy can take her! She's an incredible fighter!"

"What are you? Buffy's spokeswoman?" Joy retrieved her sweatpants from her locker and started changing for practice. "Alright, here's the deal," Joy pulled on her sports bra. "I'll come over tomorrow morning, or early afternoon depending on whenever I wake up, and then Buffy and I can have a contest and we'll see who the better fighter is. If she wins then I'll let her train me some of her techniques. But, if I when, the subject is dropped and I get to go patrolling with her tomorrow night!"

"Where'd you learn about patrolling?" Dawn asked.

Joy hesitated. Does Angel want Dawn to know about him? I mean, he seems to know Buffy, but he had been pretty sneaky about training me, and he's never mentioned me telling Buffy about him. I don't want to spoil it if she doesn't know..."You've mentioned it before." Joy quickly lied.

"Oh right," She shrugged. "Well, anyway, I can't really make a bet with you because I'm not sure if my sister would go for it, but..."

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind." Joy decided. "Besides, she'll have to take me with her eventually. How did she plan on training me if she doesn't take me with her?" She argued.

"Well, it's not exactly just physical training." Dawn explained. "See, Buffy's watcher, Giles, you met him at the house, he has his own style of training slayers. It's sort of a watcher's job. They train slayers in fighting technique as well as mental and emotional preparations..." Dawn's explanation slowed. "Okay, so I'm not exactly sure how a slayer is trained, but Giles really wants to talk to you."

Joy sighed. Angel's been training me fine! I doubt he thinks I need to talk to a 'watcher'. "Fine, he can talk to me, but I'm not guaranteeing how cooperative I'll be!"

The girls parted with Joy's promise to be at the Summers' house by noon the next day. Joy completed cheer practice, showered and changed, and then met with Blake outside of the guys' locker room. As she approached the locker room she found Blake standing out front surrounded by a group of his lackees, or fellow basketball players. Joy strode over to the group and waited for a minute before deciding to interrupt their conversation.

"Hey Blake," She greeted and waited for him to take notice of her. He had been so annoying lately. Spending all his time with the team and practically completely ignoring her. The only few times they had gone out was when they doubled with another basketball/cheerleader couple and then Blake would treat her like a trophy! He would walk around with her on his arm, bragging to all the guys how great their relationship was, and then three seconds later he'd be flirting with the waitress. Joy was so bored with him. She had been debating lately whether or not she should break up with him. It was a very tempting consideration.

Blake said goodbye to his friends and greeted Joy with a quick kiss. "How was practice?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "Do you want to go out tonight?" Again he didn't wait for her to answer. "I was thinking we could go to the mall. I know I usually hate going shopping with you but I need to buy a few things so..." He secured his arm around her waist. "Come on, it'll be fun."

Joy pushed aside her negative thoughts with a smile. "Fine, let's go shopping."

Unfortunately, as fun as the night had sounded, Joy had never enjoyed herself less. The entire shopping experience consisted of Blake ordering her around to the different stores he wanted to go to and Joy obediently following, hoping that he would soon be done and she could shop for herself or just go home and possibly meet up with Angel later for some patrolling. That seemed funner than shopping with Blake. Eventually, Blake did seem to get bored with buying himself new clothes and shoes and such (Joy was debating the fact that he actually owned more clothes than she did) he agreed to follow Joy around for a while and let her shop. His patience didn't last long though and within an hour he begged her to be done. Of course she didn't want to shop with him nagging her to finish so after buying only one pair of shoes before leaving the mall. After their shopping adventure Blake insisted that they go out to his favorite restaurant, which was actually just a pizza parlor where the basketball guys loved to hang out. While they were eating, their meal was interrupted about five times by Blake's basketball buddies and their girlfriends. Of course Joy knew most of the girlfriends but if she had her way she wouldn't exactly choose to hang out with them. She'd rather be with Dawn, or even Dawn's crazy sister! After dinner Blake suggested going to a party one of his friends was throwing but Joy refused, claiming that she wasn't feeling well and needed to go home. Blake didn't argue but told her that he was going to go without her anyway and she didn't try to stop him. She didn't care what he did, even if he was her boyfriend.

When she returned home, Joy was forced to suffer through thirty minutes of punishment from her uncle for coming home so late, even though she had made it a point to call them and let them know that she had a date. Her aunt and uncle didn't seem to feel it was important for a high school student to have a boyfriend or to go on dates or to have any after school activities for that matter. By the time her uncle was finished with his physical discipline, Joy was in no mood to go out patrolling and so she went to bed, tired and sore.

Dragging herself out of bed early the next morning, Joy got ready to go to the Summers' house as she had promised Dawn. Her shower was excruciating. Joy hadn't realized how hard her uncle had beat on her the previous night, but it seemed worse than usual and as she took her shower she discovered at least a dozen black and blue bruises. As she stood in front of her mirror to apply her makeup, Joy found a dark ring forming around her eye. She did her best to cover it with makeup but her eye still looked swollen and slightly tinted.

She left her house a little late but drove quickly and managed to make it to Dawn's only a few minutes past noon. Bringing herself to ring the doorbell was unusually difficult for Joy. She stood on the doorstep, zipping and unzipping her white hoodie for almost a full minute before deciding that she shouldn't be any later. As she raised her hand to the doorbell though, the door swung open and Dawn stood in the entryway grinning.

"You're late!" Dawn declared, taking Joy's hand and pulling her inside. "Everyone's waiting for you." She led the way into the front room. Buffy was sitting on the couch, Giles was across from her on the opposite couch, Willow was perched on the armrest of the couch next to Buffy, and Buffy's boyfriend, Riley, was leaning against the wall.

"Sorry I'm late," Joy apologized meekly. "There was a crisis with the...and then I..." She sighed and shrugged. "Nope, there's no excuse, I'm just late. I've never been too good with the whole schedule thing."

Dawn nodded, "I don't think she's ever been on time to a class before."

Giles cleared his throat, "I see, we must work on that."

Joy rolled her eyes, "Well, I'm here now so let's get to it." She slumped onto the couch at the opposite end from Buffy.

Buffy eyed the new slayer curiously. "Umm, so, Joy, how've you been?"

Joy cleared her throat. "Okay, so I know I agreed to come here and everything but I have a few rules before we start this...meeting or whatever it officially is." She glanced around the group, achieving eye contact with everyone before continuing. "First of all, no lame explanations of what evil is. And definitely no group bonding or any of that shit. I don't need any of that from you guys, I've bonded with enough people in my life."

Giles cut her off before she had a chance to ramble any longer. "Alright Joy, I want to ask you a few questions. Are you going to oblige me and answer each of them, or are you going to become angry and storm out of here again?"

Joy squirmed in her seat. She hated it when older people talked down to her and she especially hated it when she was given orders. "Yes, Rupert, you can ask me whatever you want and I'll answer without any arguing. I came here by choice and I knew that you guys would probably interrogate me. So, go ahead, interrogate me."

Giles removed his glasses as he pondered his first question. "I do not want to bore you, but I do wish to know as much about you as possible, so please just have patience with me." He cleaned his glasses with his hankerchief and returned them to their place. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen." Joy stated automatically. "I'll be seventeen in September. September eighth, if you want to be exact."

Giles nodded, he didn't really seem interested in Joy's age as much as making conversation. "When did you meet your first vampire?"

Joy took a deep breath as she remembered her first vampire confrontation. "Last Halloween."

"Really? That's strange." Giles frowned. Joy shrugged. She was trying to act nonchalant as she remembered the morning after Halloween when she had first met the vampire Henri. It was a time that she had tried to forget without success. "Usually vampires and demons are fairly innactive on Halloween. Did you encounter many vampires that night?"

Joy shook her head. "Just one."

"Really? And you slayed it I assume?"

Joy shook her head again. "No, I didn't." She noticed Giles's confused frown. "I ran away from him." She took another deep breath.

"He didn't chase you?" Buffy asked quickly. "The vampires I've met usually don't let me run away from them."

Joy didn't know how to respond without telling them the truth, the whole truth. "Umm, yea, I outran him."

"Really? Maybe you should try out for your school's track team! Vampires can run pretty damn fast, you know?" Buffy obviously didn't believe Joy's story.

"Look, he let me go, okay? I answered your question so can we please just move on?" Joy didn't want to explain her relationship with Henri right now. She didn't know them well enough yet.

Buffy didn't drop it that easily. "He let you go?"

"Buffy," Giles's voice dropped to a demanding tone. "Let it be." She silenced obediently but Joy could see Buffy's eyes twitching anxiously. "Joy, what happened to your parents?"

She clenched her teeth. Why does he have to bring up all this shit? Angel knows to leave my past alone. If I wanted to talk about something I would. Rupert doesn't know when to stop. She answered anyway. She didn't think she had much of a choice since she had agreed to answer all of his questions. "My parents died."

"How?"

"A car crash." She lied without any thought.

"Really?"

Why doesn't anyone ever believe me? "Yes really."

"And when was that?" Giles asked.

"November eleventh." The date flew off her tongue easily. That was a date she would never forget.

"And now you live with..."

"My Aunt and Uncle."

"I see," Giles was silent for a while. Joy glanced around the group and realized that everyone's eyes were fixed on her. "And how many encounters have you had with vampires since your first?" Giles asked.

Joy counted inside her head for a moment before answering. "There's been a few different times, maybe around ten." She shrugged. "I'm not really sure." She knew that with Angel she had fought vampires a few times, and then there were the few times that she had fought them on her own.

"And have you ever met any demons other than vampires?"

Joy shook her head. "Not that I know of."

"Well, in order to prepare you for any meetings you will eventually have with all sorts of demonic beings, you will need to agree to being trained. I will train you just as I have trained Buffy. She will help you as well." Giles explained.

Joy sighed, "Well, thanks for the offer, but I don't think I really need your training..."

"Actually Joy, you do." Giles cut her off. "All slayers need the training of a watcher. A watcher teaches their slayer more than just the correct fighting technique or how to defend themselves against demons. I will teach you how to accept every aspect of who you are and to utilize your gifts to your full potential of being the Slayer."

Joy didn't answer. She started contemplating the benefit of receiving double training, from Angel and from Giles. Within weeks she could probably take Buffy in a fight. Joy imagined that she could take Buffy now, but she didn't want to try as long as she had the possibility of being humiliating. Humiliation was something that Joy did not handle very well. Joy stood suddenly. "Okay. When do we start?"