Chapter 4: Experiencing the Hellmouth

Rory was more than terrified as she kept up with the slayer's brisk pace. She decided to distract herself by starting a conversation with Buffy. "So what's it like being a slayer? Is it awful or cool to be so strong?" she asked.

"Yes, it's cool to be strong and intimidate the bullies," Buffy said. "But my life mostly sucks beyond the telling of it."

"Really?" Rory asked, glancing at her mother.

"It's hard taking on so much responsibility when you're sixteen," Lorelai said.

"You had her at that age, right?" Buffy asked.

Lorelai nodded. "Yes," she said.

"I can't imagine being a mother even now at nearly twenty, but I was fifteen when I was called. A master vampire killed my first watcher and attacked my high school dance back when I lived in Los Angeles," Buffy shared. "I was expelled and blamed for knowing the gang that attacked even though I saved them all. My parents had me committed, and the strain of it all led to their divorce. Then they moved to Sunnydale a month after my sophomore year. I was sixteen when I was killed by the second master vampire, but Xander resuscitated me. My junior year, my boyfriend Angel, who I fell for before even knowing he was a vampire with a soul, lost his soul after I gifted him with my virginity."

"Seriously?" Rory asked, horrified. Her grandfather had only given them the highlights.

Buffy nodded. She glanced at her sister, who was looking down, not liking to think about the dark time with Angel, who she had crushed hard on before he turned. "We didn't know he had been cursed—one moment of true happiness and his soul was gone. Angelus tormented all of us for months and killed Giles' girlfriend, and he led me away from the school while his vampire friends killed Kendra, the slayer who was called when I died for a minute. Willow was hospitalized and Xander hurt. Giles was kidnapped and tortured. Then Angelus started a ritual to open the hellmouth, and I had to kill him right after Willow restored his soul."

"You had to kill the man you loved?" Lorelai asked, stunned. If this tale didn't put Rory off from sex, nothing would.

Buffy nodded. "I did, and it was the hardest thing I had to do," she said. They reached a cemetery at this point in her tale.

Tara whispered to Willow, "I know you told me this stuff, but I've never heard Buffy talk about it."

"I know," Willow said, squeezing her hand. They were behind Dawn, keeping a magical eye out.

"Luckily, the Powers That Be sent him back, and he's in Los Angeles fighting the good fight," Buffy said.

"Wow," Rory said. "That's good."

"Yes," Buffy said with a small smile. "After graduation, he left because it was too hard to be together without you know—being together."

"I can imagine," Rory said. "I'm afraid to ask about senior year."

Willow spoke. "Oh, that year was almost fun in comparison to junior year," she said. "We found out our mayor was this really old warlock, and he had plans to ascend into a pure blood demon. The slayer called after Kendra, Faith, turned to the dark side and fought with the mayor until Buffy put her in a coma after she poisoned Angel."

"That can happen? I mean, a slayer can go bad?" Rory said, shocked.

"Not normally," Buffy said. "She's doing better now. Turned herself in for the bad deeds she did. Angel helped her even though she nearly killed him. He's more forgiving than I am."

"My grandmother told me they didn't know there could be two slayers at a time," Rory said.

"It was the first time—at least recorded," Buffy said.

"The odds of it never happening in the centuries there have been slayers seems unlikely," Willow said. "But you know men—they think they know everything."

The women laughed as a vampire came out from behind a crypt. Rory worked hard to not scream by biting her lip, but her mother pushed her back and gripped her axe, ready to defend her daughter.

Of course, it wasn't necessary as Buffy casually staked the vampire without much of a fight, and it turned to dust.

Willow and Tara exchanged smiles, totally loving this mom. Not only was Lorelai beautiful, but she was determined to experience everything with her daughter. It was admirable and unusual.

"That really happened. A vampire appeared, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer stabbed it with a wooden stick, making it turn to dust," Lorelai said, stunned but not at a loss for words.

Rory just stood there with her mouth open.

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked the girl.

"I-I guess," Rory said. "My grandparents are not delusional or liars after all."

"Nope," Buffy said, flashing her a smile. "Vampires are real, and this is the hellmouth. Odds are there will be a few more as that one was totally lame."

The girls continued walking, and this time it was Lorelai who asked, "What happened to your warlock mayor?" She wanted to hear their version of things even if her dad had shared some of it already.

"Oh, he turned into a forty-foot snake at our graduation and ate our principal," Willow said. "We had to arm our senior class and convince our parents to not attend our graduation."

"Then I lured the snake into the school that we had filled with C4 and blew it up to kill him," Buffy said.

"Dad told us you blew up your high school, but I wasn't sure I believed him," Lorelai said.

"It's all true," Willow added from behind them.

"I go to a very snooty private school. I can't imagine arming them to fight a monster!" Rory said with a grin.

"How come this wasn't on the news?" Lorelai wondered.

"There were snake bits everywhere, but they said it was a gas leak," Buffy said with an eye roll.

"People believed that?" Rory asked.

Buffy shrugged. "It wasn't picked up by the national news, so I guess so," she said.

"I think I will hate to find out about the last two years," Lorelai said.

"Last year was super lame," Willow said. "We had these military guys come into town and put a secret base under a frat house. Our TA ended up dating Buffy without knowing she was the slayer. She didn't know he was a military guy bagging vampires and demons for our insane psychology professor to study and use for parts. They even put a chip in Spike, so he can't hurt anyone."

"What does that mean?" Lorelai asked. "Parts for what? Chips?"

"This Frankenstein monster she created," Buffy said sourly. "It was part robot, demon, and human. She called it Adam. It got loose and killed Professor Walsh. Then a small child. After that, it let loose all the monsters they'd kept locked up. A lot of people died before we could defeat Adam. He was stronger than a slayer."

"How did you do it?" Rory asked.

"We did this really nifty spell," Willow said excitedly. "We combined our essence, Giles, Xander, and I with Buffy's."

"I was like super slayer," Buffy said with a grin.

"The chip with Spike was a computer chip that electrocutes him if he tries to harm a human," Willow said. "He can hurt demons, though, so sometimes he helps us."

"You have a pet vampire. That's both cool and disturbing," Lorelai said.

Buffy snickered, picturing Spike's face if he heard him referred to as her pet.

Then they heard a whistle. "Oh, my God, what the hell is that hideous thing?" Lorelai asked as a really ugly thing with all this skin walked toward.

"Is it smiling?" Rory asked in disbelief.

"Oh, that's Clem," Dawn said waving. "Hey, Clem. What's up?"

"Hey, Dawnie, ladies," Clem said, smiling at all of them. "I was about to go see if Spike was up for a game of poker at Willie's."

"Tell Spike to come by the Magic Box tomorrow evening," Buffy said. "Rory and Lorelai are visiting and would probably enjoy seeing he and I sparring."

"Sure thing," Clem said. He went into the nearby crypt.

"Okay, you know the demon's name?" Rory said. The things she was learning was freaking her out on so many levels that she didn't know what to focus on first. Buffy's revelation of how horrible her life was had shaken her as much as seeing a vampire for the first time. She so didn't want to live Buffy's life.

"Not all demons are evil," Buffy said. "Some, like Clem, just want to live their life and don't hurt humans."

"Seriously?" Lorelai said.

"It's true," Willow said. "Clem is only harmful to kittens."

"Huh?" Rory asked, confused.

"They use kittens instead of money in their poker games," Dawn said. "Isn't that gross?"

"So gross," Lorelai agreed.

"We could call PETA," Rory said, making the girls laugh.

Buffy found the Gilmores a pleasant surprise. They were excellent at the witty banner, and Buffy could not help but comment. "Learning to slay with a good quip is essential to not let the slaying get you down. I think you'd make an excellent slayer Rory."

"Let's hope you live a long time," Rory said.

"Oh, the slayer line doesn't run through Buffy anymore," Willow said. "It runs through Faith. She is in prison, so it's possible that she could get shanked or something."

"No regular human woman could ever take Faith," Buffy said. "I'd be more concerned that the Council would send in a team to do her in."

"They do that kind of thing?" Lorelai asked.

"Yes," Buffy said grimly.

"I can't see my great-grandmother approving of that," Rory said.

"I totally could," Lorelai said. "She's very pragmatic."

They walked some more in silence, and Rory couldn't help but think how hard Buffy's life was.

She hoped very much that she was never called to be a slayer.

*****A Few Days Later*****

Rory and Lorelai still couldn't wrap their minds around their experience in Sunnydale with Buffy and her friends. The two women were very shaken by their hellmouth experience, but it brought them even closer. No one else could really understand what they had seen and heard but the other—although they did tell their two secret bearers about their trip to Sunnydale.

"Buffy was so amazing, Lane. I just couldn't believe the life she had lived and the things she had survived," Rory said after she'd shared their first night patrolling. She had come over to give Lane the crystal necklace they bought from Anya. The crystal was supposed to grant good fortune. After she gave her the necklace, she told her their trip.

Lane was deeply scared for Rory—now it was real. The Gilmores had seen firsthand that the things that go bump in the night were not just a scary story her grandparents made up. "I almost hate to know what her current year is like," Lane said.

"Her boyfriend left her after she caught him letting vamps suck on him—Dawn told me when Buffy wasn't around," Rory shared.

"No way!" Lane said in dismay. "Why would anyone let a vampire suck on them?"

"I guess like how some people enjoyed being tied up or slapped—it's a rush," Rory said with a distasteful grimace. Both girls shuddered.

"Dawn said Spike told her, and he told Dawn. He's got a thing for Buffy," Rory said.

"Spike is the vampire with the chip that keeps him from killing people, right?" Lane said, trying to keep the characters straight since she'd not met them.

"Right," Rory said. "He's a demon without a soul, so I'm not sure how he's able to care about anyone. Dawn seemed attached to him. The new big bad this year is much stronger than Buffy, and Buffy says Spike is the only one with a chance to protect Dawn if she's not around."

"Why does Dawn need protection?" Lane said.

"The hell god is after Dawn," Rory said. "Dawn said she'd email me sometime and tell me why. It was too upsetting to talk about. Her mom has been sick with a brain tumor."

"The girl doesn't have enough to deal with?" Lane said.

"Yea, I know," Rory said. "I couldn't imagine being her or surviving her life. She has to be the most incredible person I've ever met."

"Was she all depressed?" Lane said. "I'd be in my room for days if my boyfriend left me after I caught him doing that."

"No, not at all. She said if she spent time being depressed and not patrolling people died," Rory said.

"Gee," Lane said, not knowing what else to say.

They were silent a long moment, and then Rory said, "What if I get called? I don't want that to be my life."

"You won't. Buffy's tough," Lane said.

"They did tell me that the slayer line didn't rest on Buffy but the other slayer, Faith, who's in prison," Rory said. "She's pretty safe there."

"That's good news!" Lane said, happy for her friend.

Both girls, though, were affected in different ways by the trip to the hellmouth. Rory realized that even though the chances were slim, she had to be ready in case she was one day called.

Lane, however, took a much different approach. She stopped rebelling. It wasn't that she stopped loving music, but she stopped wasting energy on buying music. It wasn't that she believed that her mother's religion was the truest of the Christian denominations—in fact, she didn't. Yet she could not dismiss the religious implications of Rory's new experiences. If demons were real, then maybe angels were. If hell was real, then heaven probably was, too. Lane didn't want to be a musician anymore. Instead, she wondered how she could one day help Rory if her best friend was called.

The secret bearer could not live her life as if she was ignorant of what Rory was going through and the things that Rory had told her. Rory's new reality began to alter Lane's own way of looking at the world.

For Lane Kim, life was going to be very different. If Buffy survived only because of her friends, how could she let Rory go this route alone? Sure, she had her mother, but every girl needed a best friend.

Lane was determined to help Rory any way that she could.

*****Chapter End*****