Life # 35: That time Harry and Tom were vampire slayers, part 1
Sunnydale, California, 1997.
Harry woke up with Xander hovering over her after she'd just drowned in a puddle. Well, after the Master had her for a midnight snack, that was.
For a few long moments, Harry stared up at nothing, horribly disoriented and filled with grief. In their previous life, number 34, Harry, male and Tom, female, had been openly opposing the cultural revolution in 1970s China where they'd been born, trying to get others to see that Mao's goal of purging all traditional and capitalist elements from Chinese society was harmful and not in China's best interest. They'd paid for that with their lives after a brief stint in prison as traitors to the communist nation. The grief Harry felt came from their two small children she'd now lost. But she knew her parents would look after them, so that was a small comfort. A very small comfort.
"Buffy?" Xander asked, and it snapped Harry back to the here and now.
Right. She was a vampire slayer and there was a vampire that needed slaying.
Work first, existential crisis later.
As Harry got to her feet, Angel had the audacity to call her weak.
"No," Harry said, ignoring the lightness in her head. "No, I feel strong." And she did. She had 34 lifetimes worth of memories now, plus she was a slayer. Not to mention the magic she could feel all around her. This world had lots and lots of magic and Harry was determined to learn to control it. "I feel different," Harry added, just to signal that there might be something different about her, so her friends wouldn't freak out when inevitably she'd act in new and exciting ways around them now that she remembered all her previous lives. "Let's go."
Kill vampire first, then worry about what happened to Tom.
Ugh. Harry hated having her memories back before she met her soulmate. This was now the second time that had happened. The first time being life # 21, when a sudden soy allergy had sent Harry into full-blown anaphylactic shock and cardiac arrest and when she woke up in the hospital days later she had all her memories but no soulmate, and she'd freaked out about it for the years it took to finally run into Tom. A few lives after that, Tom had gotten his memories back early after he'd accidentally electrocuted himself as a young teen while helping his dad remodel the garage, causing his heart to stop until his panicked father had gotten it going again with CPR. It had taken Tom five years until he finally met Harry that time, so Harry knew she might be in for a bit of a wait.
But at least now she was quite sure that this was just a normal part of their endless reincarnation deal. When one of them died prematurely and was resuscitated, it always led to getting their memories back before their soulmate did, plain and simple.
Harry took care of the Master, pulling up Occlumency shields to protect herself against the Master's mental powers of persuasion, and dumping him down from the roof into the library onto a convenient piece of wood.
Afterwards, as they all headed to the Bronze to celebrate their victory, Angel sidled up to her and Harry had to repress a few shivers.
What the fuck even?
What the fuck was a two-hundred year old guy doing pretty much stalking a sixteen-year-old girl?
Harry's inner adult (not to mention her inner parent and her inner police officer, because what the fuck?) found Angel's behaviour more than a little disturbing and she ignored him as best she could while staying close to Willow and Xander, privately lamenting what a naïve little girl she'd been before she got her memories back. The guy had spent months lying to her for a start, and Harry knew from bitter, personal experience that starting relationships with people who thought it perfectly fine to lie about huge issues like 'oh, yeah, I'm a fucking vampire' never did end well.
Man, she was getting too old for this shit. Having lived for thirty-four lifetimes meant she was around 2000 years old, after all.
That night, as she crawled into bed, exhausted, she shed a few tears for her children and her family she'd left behind in her previous life. And also for Tom, because she missed him so fucking much. They knew when they started opposing the Chinese regime they were risking their lives, but it still hurt to have those lives cut short the way they'd been.
Maybe it was time to stop being an idealistic rebel in the lives they were forced to live in countries and regimes that they didn't agree with. It never ended well, after all. Tom, as an activist trying to save the rainforest in Brazil ended up murdered before she was thirty. When Tom tried to help Harry and family escape Stalin's Russia, they were caught and executed on the spot. And only a few lives after that they'd been members of the Masai tribe in Kenia in the 1800s, where they'd opposed Britain's colonial rule through the East Africa Protectorate, which had gotten them hanged on some bogus charges.
Yeah, maybe it was time to just accept whatever regime they happened to be reincarnated in, or at the very least keep any revolutionary actions on the downlow from then on.
Harry feared she might be too much of a Gryffindor to ever stop opposing injustice completely, but she could perhaps at least be a bit smarter about it. As for the Gryffindor part, yeah, that she was, down to her soul, apparently. Case in point, that day she's walked to her certain death because there was a prophecy looming over her about a bad guy hurting her friends that needed to be stopped once and for all.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, been there, done that. Harry inwardly snorted and shifted around in bed until she was comfortable, closing her eyes determinedly, yet sleep was still a long time to come.
The next morning, Harry took a long shower, got dressed in a cute little pink dress, just because she enjoyed being a woman again and could spruce herself up a little without anyone batting an eye. She did her hair in a few fanciful braids, took her time applying make-up and then went downstairs to have breakfast with her mom.
Joyce was a nice woman, who tried hard to be a good mom, and while she was far from perfect, Harry was still happy enough to have her for her immediate family.
"Your father called," Joyce said after she finished her toast. "He's picking you up Monday next week, first thing in the morning."
Ah. Yeah. She was spending the summer in Los Angeles with her father. While Harry loved her father, the man was a little wishy washy when it came to childcare ever since her parents' divorce. But spending a few months in LA did give her the opportunity to start making some money. She knew Joyce worked hard, but living in California was expensive and they didn't have a lot of money to spend.
It never occurred to Harry to tell Joyce even one little thing about her new and improved memories. After all, that one time last year when she'd told her parents about her being a vampire slayer, they'd sent her to a mental institution. So yeah, Joyce would remain blissfully ignorant.
Then there were Harry's friends, Willow and Xander. Who were kids. Who shouldn't have been involved in this vampire slaying mess in the first place but it was too late now to change that. The least Harry could do was not inflict her own mental anguish about being reincarnated time and again onto them.
Of course, there was also Giles, her Watcher. While Harry had a few choice words to say to anyone of the Council, should she ever meet them, about basically forcing teenage girls to systematically kill themselves while fighting demons, Giles was a good man at heart.
Harry loved him like a mentor, a friend, and even perhaps like a father figure.
And Harry was sure Giles would listen to her, accept her new self, 34 previous lives and all. So yeah, Giles had potential, but Harry also realized she wasn't in a hurry. She could enjoy a summer in Los Angeles before making any decisions.
The next week, Buffy went to school and spent time with her friends, who were getting increasingly excited as the last day of classes neared.
"You seem quiet," Willow said during lunch on their very last school day.
Harry shrugged and offered Willow a small smile. "I guess I really need a vacation."
"Don't we all," Xander said with a dramatic spread of his arms. "This time last year vampires didn't even exist. Or, you know, we didn't know they did, and now look at us."
"Yeah," Willow sighed and then ducked her head. "We'll miss you, though, Buffy."
"I'll miss you, too. Both of you," Harry said honestly. She really loved Willow and Xander. They were great friends, and for some reason, reminded her of Hermione and Ron, or what she remembered of them, anyway.
And then there was Angel, who was still stalking her and finally crawled up to her bedroom window the evening before Harry would leave for LA.
"You've been avoiding me," Angel said, heavy brow furrowed.
"Look, Angel," Harry said with a sigh. She always hated breaking up with people, but there was no way she was continuing this sham of a relationship or whatever it was. Even if she didn't have a reunion with Tom to look forward to sometime in the future, she still wouldn't continue it. There was just something about it that rubbed her entirely the wrong way. "This is not going to work."
"What?" Angel seemed genuinely taken aback.
"I'm happy to be your friend, I really am, but I don't want to be in a relationship with you," Harry said, not mincing any words. "So, whatever there was between us, it now ends."
"Buffy," Angel said, looking like he was about to argue, or perhaps mansplain their relationship or something.
"No means no, Angel." Harry crossed her arms, putting on her resolve face. "Don't make me stake you."
"All right." Angel held up his hands in surrender. "We'll talk when you get back from LA." And with that, he jumped off the roof and disappeared into the night.
"Ugh. That is not what I said. We're over," Harry called after him, keeping her voice soft but knowing he would hear her what with his super senses. "Learn to take a clue."
Once Harry's father came to pick her up, Harry had something of a plan to make some money on the side and hopefully make her and Joyce's lives a little easier.
"Daddy," Harry said once they were on their way to LA. "I've been taking driving lessons." Which was a big fat lie, but Harry was an experienced driver now that she had her memories back.
"You want a car?" Harry's dad asked with a knowing smile.
"Well, first I want to take my driving test and get my license, but I'm ready for that, promise," Harry rattled on, giving her father a hopeful look. "But after that, yeah, a small, cute little car. It doesn't have to be new. I can learn to look after it myself and everything. I've gotten really good at doing chores and stuff now that it's just Mom and me living in a house by ourselves." And cue the slightly manipulative tactic of making her father feel guilty about running out on his wife and daughter.
It worked like a charm, though.
"Sure, pumpkin," her Dad said, eyes a little misty. "We'll get you a cute little car."
"Awesome," Harry said, glad part one of her plan was off to a good start. "Oh, and could I also get a laptop computer?"
As it turned out, Harry was really good at making her father feel guilty enough to give her all she wanted, and within the week Harry had her driver's license and a cute little canary yellow Volkswagen Beetle convertible. It was a few years old and a little beat up, but Harry, as promised, spent time fixing it up inside and out, making it seem to her father that she'd taken some special automotive classes at school.
And she also got a laptop, which she desperately needed for her plans to work.
See, since it was 1997, eBay had already been invented, and as it turned out, Harry at that point was an experienced reseller, having spent a few lives already reselling things on eBay as a part-time income. It was fun, kind of like a treasure hunt, to find items to sell, and it could earn you a nice little side income.
Especially since it was still early days for eBay commerce, and not everyone and their grandmother and their dog were pillaging and plundering every thrift store they could find to sell every little worthless piece of crap on the internet for a dollar's worth of profit like they would be in a few short years, ruining the market.
No, these were the golden days, still, for buying used clothing, shoes and other items at thrift stores and selling them online for really nice profits.
And that was how Harry spent her two months on LA. Her father had a few days off, and they went to Disneyland (always fun), did some window shopping in Beverly Hills, and spent a day at the beach. The rest of the time, when her father had to work, Harry drove around in her yellow Beetle, visiting Goodwill after Goodwill, stocking up on dollar items which she could easily resell for twenty or thirty dollars or more. She had a good eye for name brand items, but also for obscure porcelain dinner ware or what kind of books would make money, seeing as she'd all learned that already in different lives.
It kind of felt like cheating, but Harry didn't care. By the end of her vacation she had a nice little business going, which she could easily continue in Sunnydale, especially since she wouldn't have to spent much time on homework from now on.
She'd been through high school, or its equivalent in other countries, so often by now that she knew all those subjects by heart, and was fluent in languages like French, German and Spanish, so she could ace those classes without any effort. She even spoke fluent Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, and she was sure to pick those elective classes as well so she could earn some As.
Anyway, school was in the bag, so any time Harry wasn't staking vampires, she could explore the local thrift stores for resalable goods, and maybe do a little bit of dumpster diving for things to sell. She did spend a lot of time in dark alleyways full of dumpsters, after all.
While in LA, Harry hadn't done any active hunting for the undead, but whenever she came across a vampire or a demon running amok, usually while she was shopping thrift stores after dark, she took care of them without any problems, so she did keep herself sharp and in shape.
Harry drove herself home in her Beetle, roof down, wind whipping through her hair, trunk and backseat filled with bags and boxes of stuff she had listed on eBay.
"Buffy." Her mom's mouth dropped open as Harry showed off her little Beetle she'd parked on the street in front of their house. "A car is expensive."
"Ah." Harry quickly held up her hand to stave her mother off. "You are looking at CEO Buffy, Mom. I've started an eBay company and I'm earning my own money from now on. I'm paying for my car and everything else I need, promise."
"That's…" Joyce placed a hand on her throat, rubbing her own chest slowly. "I'm proud of you, Buffy, but school is important."
"I promise, if my grades suffer, I'll quit. But they won't." Harry gave her mom a bright smile, already sure her grades would be going up that year instead of down.
After a welcome home dinner of takeout Chinese with her mom, Harry took her car to pick up Willow and to then drive to Xander's home.
"This is so cool," Willow said, bouncing in the passenger's seat. "And it's so cute. I never thought a car could be cute, but this one is."
"My God, Buffy," Xander said, staring at her car in awe. "You've got yourself a Slayer Mobile."
Harry cracked up, she couldn't help it. "Yeah, that shall now be the name of my Beetle. The Slayer Mobile."
"To the Slayer Mobile!" Xander yelled as he hopped into the backseat.
"To the ice cream!" Harry yelled in reply, since she hadn't had dessert yet and was craving something sweet. So a trip to their favourite ice cream parlour it was.
That night Harry woke up with a start and looked around her bedroom in alarm.
"Can I come in?" Angel asked, standing inside her bedroom in front of her open window.
"What the fuck?" Harry jumped out of bed and socked Angel in the nose. "You do not enter a girl's bedroom uninvited. You're almost two and a half centuries old and I'm only sixteen and this makes you look like a giant cradle robber."
Angel stood rubbing his face. "Sorry. I just thought – "
"I broke up with you, Angel." Harry crossed her arms. "I'd like for us to be friends, if you can keep your distance and respect my boundaries. But if you don't, I will punch you again."
"I don't understand your sudden change of mind," Angel muttered, giving Harry a confused look.
Sighing, Harry sat down on the edge of her bed. "I don't know what else to tell you other than that I'm just not interested in you anymore. Since I died, I got a new perspective on life and my priorities have changed, I guess. I want to put my time and energy into things that will be useful now and in the future instead of a relationship that's doomed from the start."
"Well," Angel said, looking slightly taken aback. "That's…honest, I guess. Is that why you're suddenly surrounded by boxes?"
Harry chuckled. "Yeah, that's the merchandise. I've started reselling things on eBay to earn some extra cash."
"Ah." Angel nodded, turning to climb back out of the window. "You really have changed," he whispered and then he was gone.
"You've got no idea, pall." Shaking her head, Harry got up to close the window. She really needed to learn how to uninvite vampires from your home, because this was ridiculous, a guy showing up in her bedroom in the middle of the night like that.
Then there was the Anointed One, who tried to resurrect the Master, because of course that was a thing, and Harry got to work off a little steam smashing the Master's bones to dust, before she swiped them all up, bagged them, drove her Slayer Mobile to the nearest beach and dumped the bone dust into the ocean.
Then there was a dude and his BFF who Frankensteined the dude's brother, and Harry got to ride to Cordelia's rescue in her Slayer Mobile.
After that Harry decided to come clean to Giles, because she'd noticed him eyeing her suspiciously more than once since her return from LA. Harry did her best to act not too differently than before, but just the fact that she was now driving her own car and running her own little side business while simultaneously improving her grades was apparently reason for concern.
Since this required privacy, Harry went to visit Giles in his apartment on a Sunday afternoon.
"Buffy?" Giles looked genuinely surprised to find Harry standing on his doorstep. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes, but there's something I have to tell you," Harry said, accepting Giles' inviting gesture of his hand and stepping over the threshold. "It's quite the story. Maybe make some tea to keep me hydrated?"
"Certainly." Giles seemed to take Harry's strange requests in stride and got the kettle going while placing teabags in two mugs.
"Before I explain anything, I need one favour," Harry said as she watched Giles work. "You can't share any of what I'm about to tell you with anyone, including the Watcher's Council. Especially not them."
"Does this have anything to do with Angel?" Giles asked while he poured boiling water in the mugs. "Because I haven't mentioned your relationship with him in my reports to the Council, I assure you."
Harry waved that comment away. "I broke up with Angel before I left for LA, Giles. Do keep up."
"Oh. Uh. Well, in that case, I suppose I can keep this conversation confidential." Giles carried both mugs to the living room where they sat down on the couch.
"This is going to sound strange, or even unbelievable, but I ask that you just listen." Harry picked up her mug and cradled it between her hands. Holding a steaming mug of tea was a comforting thing, and Harry needed that little bit of comfort right then because sharing the truth about her unique situation was kinda nerve wracking.
Giles' expression was downright concerned at that point. "What is it you want to say?"
"When I died, when Xander performed CPR and brought me back, I regained my memories of my previous 34 lives." Harry paused for a moment to let that sink in, but all Giles did in response was slightly raise both eyebrows. "It's like this…life number one my soulmate and myself got involved in some unknown magic that made it so we're stuck in this endless cycle of reincarnation. Every time we die, we wake up in a new life and a new body the moment we meet each other, and look in the others' eyes. The only exception to that is if one of us dies and gets resuscitated, we get our memories back early if that happens."
"Your soulmate?" Giles asked, removing his glasses and rubbing a hand across his eyes.
"Tom. My soulmate's name is Tom." Harry grinned at Giles. "And my name is Harry, just so you know, but I also answer to Buffy, obviously."
"Harry? Are you a man?"
"In my first life, yes, but souls are genderless as it turns out." Harry shrugged. She'd been reborn as both men and women so often by now that it wasn't something out of the ordinary for her anymore. "So while I used to be a man, right now I am very much a young woman and happy about that."
"All right." Giles sipped his tea and slid his glasses back on. "This is quite extraordinary. Have you been a slayer before?"
"Nope. First time with the demon hunting, though Tom and I were monster hunters in Victorian London during life number 14. But we didn't have powers then, we were just concerned citizens. And the vampires in that world were different than the ones in this world."
"Victorian London? How does that even work?" For the first time since Harry started her story, Giles sounded like he had trouble believing her.
"I don't know, Giles. Tom and I have speculated on our rebirths for years and years and we've never reached any solid conclusion." Harry briefly bit her lip, suddenly tired to the bone at the idea of all the lives they'd lived and all the lives they'd undoubtedly be living in the future. "I don't know how it works, but we are reincarnated again and again across time and the multiverse. Some worlds have no supernatural elements or magic at all, and other worlds, like this one, are brimming with it."
"Fascinating, though simultaneously quite hard to believe." Giles looked at Harry with a rather apologetic smile.
"I get that, Giles, I really do. Now tell me how I suddenly know how to fluently speak Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Swedish, Hindi, Swahili, Norwegian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, and the list goes on." Harry stared at Giles with no small amount of defiance. "I'm also suddenly able to drive a car without any problems without taking a single driving lesson and I know my way around the internet and am able to code in my sleep while before I kicked the bucket I barely knew how to turn on a computer."
"Yes, I have of course noticed changes in your behaviour," Giles said while he looked down at the mug of tea in his hand. "I had thought perhaps facing your own mortality had motivated you to try harder at certain aspects of your life."
"That doesn't explain why I'm suddenly a hundred degrees more mature than my friends," Harry calmly pointed out. "I know it's hard to believe, but Giles, please believe me."
"And what about this soulmate that you mentioned," Giles asked, seeming to accept what Harry had told him, at least for now.
"I'll meet Tom sooner or later, but there's no telling when that's going to happen. And he, or she, could be anyone." Harry swallowed, missing Tom more than anything at that moment. "A new student at school, some random person I run into at the supermarket. Really, the possibilities are endless."
"Am I to assume that you have lived full lives with this soulmate?" Giles asked rather delicately, and Harry realized Giles seemed a bit flustered with where the conversation was going.
Grinning, Harry leaned back in the couch and sipped her tea, drawing the moment out a bit because seeing Giles like that was hilarious. "Yes, Giles, I've been married to my soulmate, and a few other people. We've had many children together, and none of those were ever delivered by a stork. We made them the old-fashioned way."
"Yes, thank you." Giles pulled his glasses off again, cheeks definitely a little rosier than before. "I confess it is strange to think of you as an adult who has lived complete lives when I've only known you as a teenage girl still developing in many ways."
"Yeah, I get that. But I'm around 2000 years old, when it comes down to it, Giles. I've seen it all at this point." Harry finished her tea while Giles seemed to mull that over.
"I cannot begin to imagine what that must be like, to live that long." Giles placed his empty mug on the coffee table and turned a little to look at Harry. "If you want I can research this phenomenon, see if there perhaps are records of others in a situation similar to yours."
"I would definitely appreciate that." Suddenly, Harry remembered something. "Oh, and if you could fix me up with a magical way to uninvite vampires from your home, I'd appreciate that very much."
"Is Angel giving you trouble?" Giles asked with a concerned frown.
"Nah, I can handle him. He just has a tendency to visit me inside my bedroom when I'm asleep and I'm not having any of that." Harry shuddered. "My teenage self thought the whole thing mysterious and romantic. But older than dirt me just finds the idea of a 200-year-old guy lusting after a 16-year-old girl creepy as hell. Adult men who are attracted to teenagers are usually very immature, so people their own age aren't attractive to them, but teenagers, who are still immature because they're young and inexperienced, are."
Giles blinked. "I hadn't thought about it like that before."
"It took me a few lifetimes as well to figure that out, but we've had teenaged kids who got involved with older people and saw how that dynamic worked first-hand. And it never lasts, because inevitably the teenagers grow up and mature and realize there's something wrong in the relationship." Harry had even dated an older guy herself in one life, before meeting Tom and getting her memories back. She knew first-hand how special she'd felt at first, to be chosen by an adult while she was barely sixteen. And then she'd gotten older and realized that man was an immature, controlling douchebag who was never going to grow up, and she'd broken up with him post-haste. But she wasn't comfortable to share such details about her lives, at least not yet.
"You truly have changed," Giles said with a smile. "I'll get you that ritual and research your situation."
"Thanks, Giles. I really appreciate it."
And that was the start of a beautiful friendship, which seemed kind of silly, since Giles was her Watcher and had been for a year already, but from that moment on, especially when they were alone together, Giles started treating her much more like an equal instead of like a student. And as much as Harry enjoyed spending time with Willow and Xander, it was also really nice to have an adult friend to talk to, someone who knew who she really was.
As time went by, they turned their Sunday afternoon meetings into a weekly thing, always with tea and occasionally with some pastries or pie if Harry had been baking that week. Harry had convinced her mom she'd spent a lot of time in LA watching the Food Network and that's why she could suddenly cook and bake like there was no tomorrow. And Joyce, who was no great cook herself and worked long hours at the gallery, eventually appreciated Harry's efforts in the kitchen since their diets improved by leaps and bounds, as Harry preferred cooking delicious meals with fresh ingredients.
Things happened. Spike and Drusilla came to town, Xander dated a mummy girl, Willow met a quiet fellow named Oz, Harry met another slayer named Kendra, Joyce dated a robot and much, much more. All the while, Harry continued her eBay business, which earned her up to a thousand dollars a month, the majority of which she put in a savings account, and her grades improved by leaps and bounds because she knew most of the material inside and out.
And during their weekly meetings Harry felt more and more comfortable to share details about her past lives with Giles, who eventually returned the favour after Ethan Rayne came to town and some of Giles' more adventurous past was revealed.
And then Jenny decided to cast a spell to anker Angel's soul in his body, for reasons that weren't clear to Harry, but she messed up and Angel lost his soul.
And Harry was suddenly extremely happy she'd performed the ritual to uninvite a vampire, because Angelus did not take rejection as well as Angel did, as it turned out.