Spoiler Alert: The flashbacks in this chapter take place in what is probably the first five minutes of Season 7 Episode12: Potential. It doesn't really show anything from the episode though, just takes place during it.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable. Any Buffy quotes and plots are owned by Joss and Co. neither do I own Harry Potter, obviously.
Trigger Warning: mentions of child abuse, nothing graphic. Also a bit of a panic attack, and mentions of a past physical assault, again nothing too graphic.
—-
Chapter 8:
Hawkins Indiana, September 10th, 1983
"Two guards posted at the main gate. Armed, handguns. One walks the perimeter every hour on the hour. Ten minutes, max."
Veronica shuffled around a few pages she'd laid out across the bed. "Where is it? Where is it?" She mumbled to herself as she searched through her chicken scratch notes.
"Six hours." She circled the note in red pen. "Guard shift after six hours. One comes in replaces the first guard. Three hours later a replacement comes for the second."
"Guard switch every three hours, every shift lasts six hours." Keeps the guards fresh, security sharp.
She unfolded a larger sheet she'd tucked into a notebook and scanned the areas marked in blue. "Cameras on the fences, at the guard station, and on every corner of the building."
There was no clear way in. Not without being seen by either a guard or a camera. She'd been careful to never get too close to Hawkins Lab, keeping to visiting in the night and observing from afar with the use of her binoculars.
She was one person. They were a Government run facility, one with a whole security team armed with guns. She was a thirteen year old girl with a knife.
She had powers, yes. She had strength, yes. But was she willing to use them? She wasn't sure yet.
She didn't know these people. Didn't know what went on in that lab, nor the extent of their participation. She could never really know for sure.
Did they know about the girl in the sub levels of the facility? Did they know that she even existed? Did they know that she spent every night awake and scared? That she often spent the early mornings in a panic before she just suddenly felt nothing? Asleep? Drugged? Passed out?
Veronica had been keeping tabs on the girl. Reading her aura, her energy, and trying to come up with an explanation for what was going on in there. She could practically taste the emotions rolling off her core. The girl's powers were so tightly linked to her emotions, Veronica was able to read them at the slightest try.
She hadn't dare tried to push further. Afraid of what might happen if she tried again.
She'd barely been able to pull herself out of the girl's mind. It had taken all of her strength, both physical and magical, to separate their minds. She wasn't sure how she had even done it. She wasn't even sure she could do it again.
She was scared to try again. Scared that she'd lose herself in the process if she did.
So she avoided it by planning a way to break into the lab, undetected.
She'd rushed into unknown territory exactly twice and she wasn't willing to do it again. Lives were lost, lives that could have been saved had they taken the time to prepare just a tad bit longer, or used the weapons they had to their advantage.
She was the first to admit that most of the time she was the "act first, ask questions later" type of person. But that was with a team at her back and a senior Slayer at her side.
She'd learned to be a bit more pragmatic since she'd been on her own. Think things through. Listen to her instincts, the ones that shouted "Danger! Beware!"
So she spent her Saturday morning planning.
Sneaking into the lab seemed like a bust for the moment.
She could try storming in, metaphorical guns blazing but she had to consider the consequences.
What were the consequences of storming the castle full force?
She could go up to the gates. Rip the fences from the ground with little more than a wave of her hands. The guards would raise their guns to her. They would shoot and though she could move objects with her magic she wouldn't be able to stop a bullet in its tracks. Not at the speed they went, nor the force they exuded. She would die.
Or she could twist their necks from where she stood. Disintegrate their bodies with the full force of the burning sun. She could probably do a million other things that would stop them from even raising their guns. But all would end in their death.
She didn't know how involved these people were and even then she'd never killed a human before. She wasn't sure she had it in her to start now.
But if she did, then what? More security would pour out of the lab, armed and ready. She could probably take them down too, maybe not all of them but some. And what would she do if she got into the building?
Find the first elevator down and just kill or dispose of anyone that got in her way?
Suppose she did get the girl and run. Then what? Be on the run from the U.S. government for the rest of her life? Escape the country? What good would that do?
"I need to go in undetected. By the guards and the cameras. But how?"
She tossed herself back onto the pillows by the end of the bed. "How do I do that?"
She wished she could just Jedi mind trick the guards. "'These aren't the droids you're looking for.' God damnit! I sound like Andrew." She threw her arms over her face.
Her watch smacked her in the nose.
"Ow!" She wasn't used to wearing the thing on her wrist yet. She found herself constantly adjusting its position and fit. It irritated the skin there.
She rubbed at her nose and checked the time. The thing had moved. The face rested on the inside of her wrist. It was almost noon.
Her eyes trailed from the timepiece to the ink just below it.
009
She still didn't know what it was. Or how it got there. She really needed to work out that localized glamour. Maybe she should see if she could anchor it to the watch. It was always going to be resting against her wrist. It could work.
Now she just needed to design a rune array.
There were so many different runes and combinations she could use. She wasn't sure which ones to carve.
"Thurisaz. Protection and defense. Gifu. Combine forces. Perthro. Change, secrets and hidden things. Uruz? Change and manifestation. Or Eihwaz? Removal of obstacles."
She groaned in frustration.
She'd never had to rely on runes, much. She remembered all of the meanings for the upright positionings, but didn't remember a lot of the merkstave stuff. Plus she'd never had to create a runescript on her own.
"Fuck it. Let's do them all." Faith's knife made the carvings, blood from the base of her thumb stained the tip of the blade and powered the runes.
The runescript worked, but it was barely stable. They accepted each other but didn't exactly want to play nice. She wished there had been an Ancient Runes class at the Slayer academy like there was at Hogwar-
"Harry Potter!" She hopped off the bed, knife still in hand, flinging her notes and maps all over the floor. Some of the blood splattered on the pages but she didn't care at that moment. "Harry fucking Potter!"
She knew how she was going to make it past the lab's security.
—
Sunnydale California, January, 2003
Sparing with the other Potentials was easy, for the most part. Most of the girls had hardly seen any type of physical training, Kennedy was the one exception. They didn't have super strength. They had a fraction of the advanced reflexes and agility a Slayer would have, but they didn't know how to use it yet. They also had a hard time seeing Veronica as a possible threat.
So she was never met with much challenge from them.
This, however?
This was a challenge.
Running through a cemetery in the middle of the night, chasing after a Vampire, that was new. And though she was loathe to admit it, it was hard.
Veronica weaved between the headstones, her sight set on the head of blonde she'd been chasing for the past few minutes.
She could tell that he was just playing with her.
He'd dart around the tombstones, weaving back and forth in a bid to trip her up. It worked. She sort of stumbled a few times and smacked her elbow into a corner of a statue in the midst of the chase.
And yet despite her trip ups he was always in sight, always just in her line of vision so she didn't lose sight completely.
She didn't know how long she'd been chasing him for, but she knew she was tired of it already.
"Fuck this." She huffed out, as she leapt over a stone bench.
He was just going to keep playing with her until she tired out or she really attacked.
The other Potentials had gone first. Rona and Violet, then Kennedy and Molly. Veronica was alone because of the odd numbers. Chloe had gone with Giles to pick up another Potential somewhere in China.
Veronica had wanted to be the one to go, but she was shot down. Which was really stupid of Giles considering Veronica was the only one in the group who knew Mandarin.
Not that she was bitter about it or anything. Not at all.
It just left Veronica partnerless. It also gave Buffy the idea of making the youngest Potential chase Spike instead of being chased by him.
The Slayer was sure to lay down some rules first though. Buffy had said no sunlight, but she didn't veto out magic completely.
Veronica pushed herself to run faster. She cut a straight path towards him, refusing to follow his erratic lead any longer. He was heading toward a part of the cemetery they'd started at, she'd literally been chasing him in a big circle. She decided to use the familiar layout to her advantage.
Spike darted passed the area where Buffy and the other Potentials watched. Tossing a playful "Ladies" over his shoulder with a wave.
The Potentials let out half hearted chuckles, Buffy rolled her eyes and Veronica let her own eyes go gold.
She ran passed the girls and summoned the stakes from their hands.
Spike went to move left, Veronica forced two stakes to fly just beyond his form. One hit a tree and stuck, the other hit a mausoleum and shattered. The Vampire quickly switched directions and went right instead.
Veronica followed. She saw two mausoleums side by side. She knew he'd run between them, probably hide behind one and attack her as she ran after him.
She left the stakes following her fall, including the one in her own hand. She needed both hands for what she was about to do.
She ran after him and chanted under her labored breath, hands extended out. The movements were odd. She felt like she'd tip forward with the position.
A barrier came up, extending from one mausoleum to the other. Spike smacked into an invisible wall and came down hard. When she caught up to him he was up again and his brow furrowed in the way only a Vampire's could.
"Clever." Her eyes were focused on his mouth, watching in a morbid curiosity as his teeth somehow never caught on his lips while speaking. "I thought Buffy said no magic?"
He moved towards her as he spoke. Veronica made sure to move opposite him, maintaining the distance and keeping her body facing his. She didn't want him at her back. The skin at her throat felt itchy at the thought, like her scars wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment.
"She said no sunlight." But even as Veronica stated the words she felt the slightest warmth gather in her palms.
"You're right." He lunged, his voice taking on a lionesque growl toward the end of his words.
She leapt forward as well, and rolled underneath his airborne frame. There was an advantage to being small, especially when facing those who weren't used to fighting smaller opponents.
She came up from the roll with her back to her own force field. Spike was already lunging for her again.
She caught a glance of platinum blonde hair before he was on her. One hand gripped her shoulder, right over her scars, the other gripped the elbow she'd hurt earlier that night. She hadn't dropped the shield yet. So Spike had forced them both into the invisible barrier.
Veronica's eyes stared into the Vampire's yellow eyes as her head cracked against the barrier.
The pain was blinding. It was her head, and her arm and the skin of her neck.
Her vision went black. She couldn't see the Vampire but she could still feel him.
He was on her. Tearing into her flesh, ripping at her hair, crushing the bones in her arm into dust.
She screamed. A raw and feral cry. It ripped right out of her lungs and drowned out everything else.
He was killing her. He was killing her! She needed to get away. She punched and kicked and clawed at him in a blind fury.
She screamed as she fought. Not for help. Blake hadn't helped her earlier, he wouldn't help her now.
She felt hands on her. Hands from every direction. They were all there. The entire nest of Vampires.
Off. Off. Off.
She couldn't breathe.
She needed them all off her.
Heat pooled in her chest, burning. It felt like her skin was on fire, like it would incinerate and leave her as nothing more than dust. She fought off the fire within, not wanting to let it consume her.
But she still needed those hands gone.
Off!
Something inside of her snapped. Like an elastic pulled impossibly taught until it just broke.
Magic burst out of her in a wave. All the hands were gone. All the heat was gone. All the screaming, her screaming, was gone.
She could hear groans coming from all around her. And it wasn't the growling animal like sounds she'd expected.
She opened her eyes to see Buffy, Kennedy, Rona and Spike strewn about the cemetery grounds. Pieces of stone from the mausoleum littered the grass. Violet and Molly clutched stakes to their chests in the distance.
She was in Sunnydale. Not Cardross.
She'd been chasing Spike. Not the nameless Vampires from before.
She hadn't been in any real danger. But she'd put everyone else in danger. A lot of it.
Buffy, the closest one to Veronica, sat herself up and looked at the young Witch. "Veronica…"
Buffy trailed off not knowing what to say, how to react. The youngest Potential picked herself up, leaning her back against the still active barrier.
It was just a simple exercise. Chase and be chased. It was a game. To teach the Potentials outside the house for once, to get them out in the natural settings of a Slayer.
And Veronica nearly killed everyone there. The Potentials, the Slayer, a souled Vampire. Everyone who fate was counting on to stop the Apocalypse.
She lost control of her magic. Of herself. She hadn't been able to separate the past from the present. She hadn't been able to stop her magic from letting loose and reacting to the panic and fear she'd felt.
She was lucky that she'd been able to pull back even just a little. She was lucky that she'd been more focused on the feel of their hands than the memories of her attack.
She could have killed them all. If she'd allowed that heat to continue to build, if she'd let it pour from her core, she would have incinerated them all.
Like she incinerated the Vampires in Scotland.
She shook the memory from her mind, or tried to at least.
Sunnydale. Sunnydale. Not Cardross.
Spike. Not the killers that had torn at her flesh and killed across the Scottish town.
She couldn't shake the memory.
She'd fucked up.
"I'm sorry."
She let the barrier at her back finally fall, and then she turned and ran.
"Veronica! Wait!"
—
Hawkins Indiana, September 12th, 1983
The bell rang signaling the end of school.
Will tucked his things into his backpack and waited for the other students to rush from the room before leaving his seat. He'd been jostled around enough to know that one must always avoid the wave of kids eager to exit the school as fast as possible.
He and his friends were always some of the last to leave the room, and they frequently stayed after school to meet up with Mr. Clarke for official AV Club meetings.
Today was one of those days.
"Today's the day!" Dustin threw his arms out dramatically as they crossed the threshold of their last class. He almost smacked a sixth grader in the face as he did so. "Whoa, sorry!"
Lucas rolled his eyes at the display, shoving the boy out of the way and making way for the rest of the group to pass by as well. "Can you not block the doorway? I'd like to get to my locker already so we can head over to Clarke's."
"You can't tell me you're not excited." Dustin pulled at the straps of his backpack, fiddling with the buckles there.
"There's not much to be excited about, it's just a catalog." Lucas led the group down the hallway and toward the wing of the school that held their lockers.
"It's a catalog that holds the next great adventure for us as an AV club." Mike spoke up from his spot next to Will.
Will looked up slightly to catch his friend's eyes. Mike was enjoying the back and forth between their two friends, and he always liked to egg them on. Will raised a brow at his friend and received a laugh in response.
"See? A reason for excitement. We get one new piece of equipment a year. Think of the things we can do! We could buy night vision goggles! Or infrared sensors! Or, or a robot. We could build a robot with the stuff we buy!"
"No. No robots." Mike had been all about fueling Dustin's excitement until the mention of robots. Talk like that was what convinced them to buy their last piece of AV equipment.
"Yeah, we kind of wasted last year's sponsorship on the engineering kits." Will voiced his opinion as they all reached their lockers. "The kits were cool, but you can't really do too much unless you get the professional ones."
The previous year, their first year in AV, the club founder paid for the kits they'd all chosen from a catalog Mr. Clarke gave them. The kits came with soldering irons and motors and wires and what not. It was cool at first, but it didn't quite live up to the visions of robot building they'd had in their heads.
"We should have went with the radar gun, or even the metal detector." Lucas slammed his locker shut as he waited for the others. "We could have searched near the quarry, maybe we could have found something worth some money."
Mike shook his head at the notion. "Doubt it." He too had finished swapping out his books. "The quarry is for limestone, wouldn't show up on a metal detector. Besides if there was anything there worth digging up besides the minerals then the Sattler Company would have found it by now."
"And don't mock the kits." Dustin came up behind Will as the boy finished gathering the books he needed for homework. "They come in handy." He clapped the smaller boy on the back as he moved down the hall.
"Sure." Will mumbled under his breath as he shut his locker too. "Maybe if the vacuum breaks, again."
Laughter sounded behind him and Will was suddenly being steered down the hall with Lucas's arm thrown over his shoulders. "Yeah, his mom really needs to clean that thing out more often. All that cat hair stuck in the gears and twisted around wires. It was gross."
Will could feel the shudder that wracked through his friend at the memory.
"The soldering iron did come in handy though when she pulled out the wires trying to clean it out." Mike came up on Will's other side. They all laughed as they watched their toothless friend dart down the hallway.
"First one to Clarke's gets two votes!" Dustin yelled as he turned the corner.
Since the group was even in numbers their votes often came up as ties. It lead to a lot of odd compromises, but sometimes they allowed someone an extra vote. It was usually only for special occasions, like the birthday boy got two votes on what they did or what they ate.
"What?! That's not fair. No! You don't!" Lucas ripped his arm off Will's shoulders and chased after Dustin, his arm smacked across the back of Will's head as he did.
"Ow." Will rubbed the crown of his head as Mike laughed.
"You okay?" Mike smirked at the smaller boy.
"I'm fine, jerk." Will jabbed his elbow into Mike's side as his friend continued to laugh at him. It didn't hurt him at all. He still laughed at him.
"Come on, let's go catch up to them before Lucas strangles Dustin."
When they caught up to their friends, the two were surprisingly not fighting. Lucas would usually have Dustin in a headlock by now, but instead of the usual scene they found the two peering around the corner by Clarke's classroom.
"What's going on?" Will stepped around his friends to see what they were looking at.
From where he stood in the hallway he could see straight into Clarke's room. The door was open giving them a perfect view of Mr. Clarke's desk. The teacher sat at his desk, talking to a student.
Chunky black boots, dark curly hair and a black bomber jacket. It was Veronica.
"Shh!" Both Dustin and Lucas took a handful of his jacket and yanked Will back behind the lockers they were hiding behind. They could hear the voices from the classroom.
"It's just a hypothetical question. I'm reading this book and it's been mentioned a few times but I was wondering about the reality of it. How would the science behind it work?" Will watched as Veronica shifted all her weight onto one foot and crossed her arms in front of her body. It was a stance he'd seen her take before, one she used when she seemed to be deep in thought.
"Well, as you know from your textbook, when light bounces off an object and hits your eyes your brain interprets color, brightness and other variables to represent what we think of as sight." Mr. Clarke stood from his seat and turned to the chalkboard behind him.
Will couldn't see what the man was drawing but he did so with excitement. His hands moved in long strokes and wide sweeping arcs as he drew on the board.
"Let's say this apple. The reflection of light is what allows us to interpret the size, the redness, the visible texture. But what if there was no reflection? What if the process was disrupted?" Clarke picked up an eraser and whipped some if off the board before redrawing.
"So you're saying that invisibility can be achieved by the absorption of light?" Veronica had leaned in to get a better look at the drawing, her hands lay flat in Clarke's desk as she stood staring at the board.
"Why are they talking about invisibility?" Will asked himself aloud, not expecting an answer but getting one anyway.
"I don't know, but they were already talking about it when we got here." Lucas was the one who'd answered him "It's why we stopped to listen. Recon." The words were whispered as the conversation in the room was still happening.
"Not necessarily. The color black absorbs all light and reflects none but you can't make something invisible by painting it black. No absorption won't work. Avoidance is key. If you can direct light around an object," the man went back to the chalk board and drew. "Channel it around the object and then spit it back out opposite the direction the light came from originally then the object in the middle would then disappear to the observer."
"Invisibility." The girl drummed her fingers against the desk for a moment, eyes focused on the board across from her.
"Indeed. But there are other ways too. Something can just mimic the image behind it, the way that a chameleon would." Clarke dropped the chalk and eraser back onto the little ledge at the bottom of the board and dusted his hands a bit. The man looked back at the girl with a smile.
"I actually think that the first explanation fits what happens in the book. Thanks, Mr. Clarke. I appreciate you explaining that to me." She pushed off from the desk and waved goodbye as she headed for the door.
"No worries. It's my job, literally. You're always welcome to ask me anything you need to, my door is always open. I'll see you tomorrow, Veronica." Will watched as the man began to wipe away the images he'd drawn on the blackboard.
"See you tomorrow, Mr. Clarke." The girl paused as she reached the doorway. "Actually, Mr. Clarke?" She turned her back to Will and the other boys.
Will didn't think she'd seen them. He'd been scared for a moment when she'd been standing in the doorway. Like she stopped because she noticed them spying.
"Yes?" Veronica was blocking the door so Will couldn't see Clarke's frame though he heard his voice.
"Do you know if there's a film or photography club on campus?" Will watched as she pulled on the single strap of her bag that hung on her right shoulder, he had never seen her use the second strap. She seemed to be playing with the buckle there, the way Dustin did sometimes.
"Oh? I'm not too sure. I know there's a club at the high school, they even have a black room. But I don't think we have one. Are you interested in photography?"
"I'm not that interested in it, I was just wondering if the school had access to any video cameras they'd be willing to lend a student."
Will looked to his friends knowing they were all thinking the same thing. They had access to a camcorder.
"The AV Club has one in its inventory, it was donated by a former student about two years ago." Will heard Mr. Clarke echo his thoughts.
"And I can use it?" He heard the girl ask, her back still to the boys. She'd stepped back into the room and stood near Clarke and his desk again.
Lucas shrugged. Dustin nodded his head enthusiastically. Will turned his head to Mike and gave a single nod. Their unofficial Party leader swept his gaze around the group gathered in the hall.
"Okay, if she's in that means full member. She needs to be involved in club activities and Party activities, she can't just use our stuff and ditch us outside of school." The Dungeon Master had spoken. Will and the others followed behind Mike as he led them into the classroom.
Clarke had started speaking as they walked in, he sounded hesitant. "Well, the alumnus was very adamant that the AV Club members are the only ones allowed to use the donated equipment." He looked to them as they entered the room.
Veronica hadn't noticed them walk in behind her. Will watched as she straightened her spine in response to the teachers words. Will wondered if she'd give him a piece of her mind the way she did with the students. "Oh? Well that's bul-"
"You can use it!" Dustin shouted in a bid to stop the words that were coming out of her mouth. They'd all noticed that she had a bit of a foul mouth. She cursed a lot. And she'd been good about avoiding saying anything in front of teachers before but Dustin, like Will, had sensed that she'd been about to break that lucky streak.
She spun around on the balls of her feet, turning to the gathered group with a raised brow. Will noticed she didn't seem surprised to see them there, maybe she had seen them out in the hall? Or heard them enter behind her?
"You guys are in the AV Club?" Her voice seemed genuinely curious. Her eyes flicked between the group of boys and the teacher.
"We are the AV Club." Lucas walked over to a desk as he spoke. He dumped his backpack on the seat and then made his way to Mr. Clarke who held out a magazine for the boy.
"But if you want to use the camera you have to join too." Mike and Dustin followed Lucas's lead and grabbed a catalog from Mr. Clarke.
Will watched as Veronica watched his friends. He noticed her glance at Clarke who just smiled and shrugged in response to whatever questioning look she'd given him. Then she turned and fixed himself with her dark stare.
"What exactly does joining entail? I have commitments I have to keep after school, I can't always be available for meetings." She was looking at him as she said it.
Will looked at his friends who were all huddled up around a couple of desks they'd pushed together. They were all flipping through the catalog, excitedly shoving pages in each others faces and avidly avoiding looking at Will.
They'd all already made their decisions in the hallway. In fact they'd already made the decision on the very first day they met her.
Veronica was an outcast. She was always alone. All the other students talked about her. She always had a semi-scowl on her face, but they could tell that she seemed worried and sad sometimes. They'd talked about that a few times in the safety of Mike's basement.
It must be hard to move to a new town and a new school and not know anyone. It was even worse for her as she'd pissed off one of the most influential kids in the school on her first day here.
Because of Will.
Because she protected him.
Will had felt guilty about that first day since he'd noticed the way the other students treated her. They ignored her in class, taunted her in the halls. He'd heard a few racist slurs thrown her way.
And that was his fault.
He just wanted to make it up to her.
He didn't know a thing about her, but he could tell that she was a good person.
Will walked up to Mr. Clarke and accepted the catalog he'd offered him. He also swiped up another one from the desk. Mr. Clarke grinned at him as he did so.
"It just means you have to be our friend. Hang out, talk and whatever else you feel like doing." Will extend his arm out, offering her a magazine too.
She stared at him for a long moment. "That's all?"
"That's all." He met her brown eyes without wavering.
Will watched as a smirk settled across her lips. She suddenly snatched the catalog from his hand and started examining the cover. "Man you guys are too nice. I would have charged cash. You want equipment you have to pay. Cash. Upfront."
She flipped the cover over and started skimming through the pages. "Now what exactly are we looking for?"
"I feel like we should go back to her suggestion. I think she should pay. You know, like, club dues." Lucas smacked Dustin's cap off with his own rolled up magazine even as the boy still spoke.
"Man, stop being dumb." Lucas unrolled his catalog and turned to a page he'd dog eared. "We're looking for equipment to buy as this year's AV project. But look no further, because we know exactly what we want." Will watched as his friend showed the rest of the group and Mr. Clarke the advert. Will watched as Mike and Dustin nodded along in agreement.
"Wicked." Veronica seemed to like it too.
They were definitely ordering that.
—
Sunnydale California, January, 2003
Dawn had been in the living room when she'd gotten home. "Hey! You guys are back early. I'd have thought you'd be gone for another hour. Xander! Willow! They're back!" She'd swept her eyes toward the door Veronica had slammed behind her on her way in. "Where's everyone else?"
Veronica hadn't answered. She'd just chucked off her jacket and tossed it onto the dining room table. She'd ran the whole way back from the cemetery. She'd been boiling underneath the jacket. Taking it off didn't help. She knew the heat was coming from her magic, not her body.
Dawn tried again. "Did something happen?"
Willow came down the stairs, Xander and Andrew came in from the kitchen. "So? How'd it go-what's wrong?" Xander sent a questioning look to Dawn who'd been looking out the window, no doubt searching for the others.
Veronica darted past them all and made her way down the hallway.
"The others aren't here. Veronica won't tell me why." Veronica had already turned the corner with every intention of just storming down the basement stairs.
She'd just wrapped her fingers around the door knob when a hand reached out for her shoulder. She felt her body tense and flinched away from the touch before she'd even realized anyone had been reaching for her.
"Don't touch me." She slid her gaze to the side, eyes settling upon Willow whose hand was still extended toward her.
Veronica could see the hurt in the older woman's eyes. Willow had been very open with the young witch, happy to have someone around who was also magically inclined. She'd been kind and gentle, it reminded Veronica a bit too much of Watcher Price for her to reciprocate any friendly feelings. Like the airiness of her voice and her babbling was hiding something, a guilt or darkness, as it had in her previous magic tutor.
She kind of liked Willow. She didn't know if she could trust her, but seeing the hurt on her face made her feel bad.
Veronica looked toward the door, wanting nothing more than to be on the other side of it. She touched her forehead to the wood, eyes closed as she tried to calm herself. "Nothing is wrong. They're still at the cemetery. I had an incident with my magic, I just need to be alone." She pulled the door open a few inches before it was unceremoniously shut again.
"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Hold up there." Xander's voice came from above her head. He'd stopped the door with his hand. "You have to tell us a little more than that. What was the incident?"
Veronica tugged in the door again, but it didn't budge under his hand. She opened her eyes but didn't remove her head from the door. "I lost control, okay? I was hurt and my magic reacted to the danger. I sort of tossed them back a few feet. They're fine. Okay? They're fine."
They were alive. They didn't know just how close they'd come to being incinerated but they were fine. A few bumps and bruises was better than being a pile of ash.
"Wait, did you walk all the way here from the cemetery?" Dawn had joined the interrogation again.
Yay.
"I didn't even think about that. Did you run into any Bringers?" Willow's voice was worried, it was also closer than it had been before.
"Did you run into any Bringers? Did they kill you? Are you The First? Is that why you won't let anyone touch you?" Andrew spoke a second before he jabbed his finger into her back, right between her shoulder blades, and touching bare skin.
Veronica jumped at the contact, flinging herself flat against the door and away from his touch. Xander flung himself away from the door at her sudden movement. Willow too had taken a few steps back.
"Ouch! What the hell? You burned me." So the heat wasn't just in her head then.
"I just need to be alone, okay. Let me cool off. Literally." With that she swung the door open and slammed it shut behind her. She could hear their protests but ignored them, she locked the door. She tossed up a barrier while she was at it, to make sure they stayed out.
She just walked down the stairs and sat on the bare floor. She stared at the target against the far wall for a bit before she let herself fall to her side.
Veronica lay curled up on the basement floor. The skin of her shoulders and arms rested against the floor, her cheek too, she let her hair fan out behind her in a mess of curls. She let the cold from the concrete seep into her skin, let it chase away the heat that lingered in her from the cemetery.
She'd been laying there in the dark for about an hour.
She'd heard the others return and she could hear bits and pieces of their discussion about her but she ignored it, or tried to. It was a bit hard to tune them out when they were directly above her and her Potential hearing allowed her to hear through the thin layer that separated them.
They were arguing about who to send to check on her. Buffy thought she should be the one to do it, Dawn mentioned that Willow should probably go as it was a witchy problem she was dealing with.
She curled up on herself further. Letting her knees brush across her chin. She let her hands settle across her ears and tried to ignore the words from above her. She pressed palms against her ears harder as the echoes of the fight in Cardross kept repeating in her head as well.
Veronica felt a tingling sensation creep down the nape of her neck and continue along her spine. The gentle probe of magic made her shiver. It wasn't physically touching her, it was actually feeling out the barrier she'd left by the door, she just felt the foreign power roll across her barrier as if it had been her core.
Willow was going to take down the barrier. Veronica let her. She figured she had cooled down enough that she was ready to talk to the Witch about her magical outburst.
She wasn't surprised when she felt the barrier drop, nor when she heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs behind her. And the Potential could feel the vibrations through the floor as the Witch made her way to where Veronica was curled up.
She opened her eyes only to meet a pair of thick black biker boots. She was a little more than surprised to realize that it wasn't Willow they'd sent down to talk, not Buffy either, but Spike.
"I'm not here to talk to you, don't worry. This is just my resting spot for the day. Sun's gonna come up in a bit. I would have gone to the usual place but there's no time at the moment. Something came up and cut our time short."
She watched as he shoved aside a few boxes and made room for the folded cot to fit against the far wall.
"Not here to talk, my arse." She watched as he threw a few sheets on the cot and grabbed a pillow from the corner table. She played the words back in her mind. "Ass." The British term had slipped in there on accident, probably due to Spike's own accent.
"You know I've heard the accent a few times when you speak, it's very subtle but sometimes you slip up and say something a certain way or say a certain phrase. Why is that?"
He was trying to make her feel comfortable by avoiding the topic he knew he should be addressing. He was lulling her into a false sense of security.
"I had a Watcher like all the others, you know that. I was Council raised, you know that too. Stop playing mind games, it's not going to work." She'd dealt with the fucking master of mind games all her life, she was beyond tired of them.
"Actually, I didn't know that. The others haven't been too up front with all the information they'd gathered since I'd been gone."
Veronica watched him as he made his bed. His back had stiffened at her words just slightly, like it was a surprise. She couldn't tell if he'd been faking the reaction though. She did notice the tension between him and the others, especially Giles.
She didn't know what to believe. She just hummed in response. Maybe she'd go along with it for a while.
"They just said that you were both a Witch and Potential, which I didn't think was possible." No one had, it was the reason why the Council insisted on having her raised within their ranks, and raised by such an experienced Watcher. They wanted their future super powered Slayer to be taught by the best possible Watcher, the one who had mentored several of the longest lasting Slayers in recent history.
"He was English, from Eton, he spoke the Queen's English. There were a couple of American Watchers, nannies really, in the beginning. They did the stuff he deemed too beneath him. Changed my diapers, fed me, potty trained me, and taught me how to speak. They were gone by the time I was five. The accent started to bleed in when it was just Blake and I."
"And he was killed by the Bringers, then? Sorry for your loss." He sat on the cot with his back to the wall. He balanced his hands on his propped up knees a cigarette in hand.
"He was killed in the bombing of Council Headquarters." Spike exhaled a cloud of smoke, the smell of it brought back memories of the bombing. She cleared her head of those thoughts.
She didn't need anymore traumatic memories floating around in her head.
"And he was an asshole. He's better off dead."
The Vampire stared at her long and hard as he took another drag of his cigarette. She met his stare with a blank face.
He exhaled again blowing a cloud of smoke in her direction. She didn't even bat it away.
"So what's your deal? You obviously aren't afraid of me. You're in a room alone with a Vampire, your pulse is even and there's no tension in your frame." He waved the hand with the cigarette in her direction. "I'm no Warlock, but I just blew a cloud of smoke in your face and brought up your dead abusive Watcher and I haven't seen even a flicker in your eyes, that speaks of your control."
"How do you know about that?" She never told anyone about the abuse. She'd never even explicitly said anything to Margaret Price.
"The abuse? Not hard to gather. Seen scars across your arms and back."
"Scars? That's the big indicator? Scars? Buffy has scars, and as far as I know she wasn't abused."
"Yes, Buffy has scars but she's been slaying a long time, those scars show her experience. The Slayer healing doesn't get rid of everything. But it's not just that. It's the way you tense around Giles and Xander, though it's less pronounced around the young one. You trust him more. You're oddly formal, you don't really look them in the eyes either. You take pain well, saw how you slammed into a tombstone tonight and you haven't once mentioned the pain."
Veronica looked down at her elbow to see that it was already bruised, a deep purple, almost black. To be honest with herself she'd genuinely forgot about it, the pain didn't even register anymore. "Do the others know?"
"Nope." He popped the 'p' particularly loud, he spoke through the smoke escaping his lips.
"Why not?"
"It's not really something that needs to be shared with others, even the Slayer. It's not her business." He took another drag. "Unless I make it her business."
She gritted her teeth. "What do you want?" She already knew what he wanted. He wanted to know what went on earlier that night.
"I want to know why you were so hot." Veronica raised a brow at the Vampire before her. That was an unexpected question.
His face pulled into a grimace, his nose wrinkled as his words sunk in.
"Bullocks, that didn't come out right. I'm not a pedo. I want to know why," he waved his hand around while he searched for a word. "Why heat, literally, rolled off your skin. Your eyes glow, you shoot sunlight from you damn hands. I've lived a long time, I've known my fair share of Witches. They don't do that. I want to know why, why you? How?"
"I don't know." It was the truth she didn't know why.
"Don't play games. Just answer my questions and I don't go and tell Buffy about you Watcher."
"I mean it, I don't know why or how. I just do."
He scoffed at her words.
"Don't scoff at me! Don't be stupid. Do you really think the Council included me in all of their little discussions? Do you think I did anything besides what they told me to do? No. They didn't and I couldn't." She pushed herself up from the floor, so she sat facing him.
"I don't know why I'm both a Witch and a Slayer. I just studied magic and trained when they told me to. My other Watcher, Price, just showed up one day and insisted I learn the sun spell and then she explained how spells can be altered by altering your will and intent. So we tweaked the spell until I could do it without incantations and shoot beams out of my hands and change the heat levels and wavelengths. I thought it was just normal Witchcraft I didn't know that shit like that was impossible until the bombings happened and I'd spent time with the coven in Devon."
She actually had a feeling that the Devon Coven knew more than they were letting on.
"And now that I know that what I was doing was impossible, I can feel it inside me. The sun spell, the heat, it's just beneath my skin. All the time. I don't know why or how but it's there. I can feel it. And when I'm scared or angry or hurt it just lashes out, and I can't always control it. But I'm trying, I swear. I'm trying. I controlled it tonight. I controlled it tonight." Her vision blurred and she realized that she'd been crying. Teardrops dripped from her chin to her chest.
"What would have happened if you had lost control?" Spike had stubbed out the cigarette sometime during her rant. He'd pushed himself off the wall and sat on the edge of the cot leaning in toward her.
She didn't answer the question, she just wiped at the tears on her cheeks.
"Veronica. Look at me." He snapped his fingers to get her attention. "What would have happened if you had lost control?"
"It would have escaped. I don't know if it would have been just sunlight or if it would have been the heat. But I could have killed you, and burned everyone and everything around me into nothing but dust." She would have killed them all.
"Has this happened before?"
"Once. While I was being attacked by a group of Vampires in Scotland. They burned to dust, the stake by my feet had burned to ashes and my knife had melted down. There were scorch marks on the ground. I incinerated them all at once. I don't know how my clothes made it out okay." She'd never actually questioned that before.
"Magic is fickle that way. Usually protects the user unconsciously. You wouldn't have liked being out in the open, full monty, your magic reflected that."
She hummed in response, still mulling over that thought.
"Did you think I was one of them?" His voice was quieter than it had been, a little less commanding and less sure than he had been just a moment before.
"I thought you all were. You were touching my neck, where they'd attacked me. Someone was holding my head, they'd pulled my hair. Someone was holding down my legs. It was just too many hands and I was in pain. From hitting my head on the barrier."
They both sat in the silence that followed.
"Are you going to tell them?"
"I have to. It's too much of a risk not to tell them. I won't mention your Watcher but they need to know about the sun thing."
"Okay."
"Okay."
—
Hawkins Indiana, September 12th, 1983
Veronica sat in her bedroom, camcorder on her lap and aimed at her hand.
She couldn't use a glamour to make herself invisible. They didn't work that way and she didn't have the same power behind them since she'd gone off world. She'd been able to do a full fledged glamour when she'd first landed in 1980. She remembered hiding her scars and the doctors and nurses hadn't felt them either, full glamour. But after that first day her power had dimmed, whatever latent magic she'd siphoned from her own world had dissipated with use. Now she was working off her own magical core. She could only really change colors and textures, small stuff.
Runes wouldn't have worked either. She barely managed to put together a runescript that would hide the tattoo underneath a small glamour that projected the unmarked skin that sat beneath her watch. With her limited knowledge of rune work it would be a long process. And if somehow she did manage to make a script that did create invisibility she didn't know if she wanted to carve into herself. And her clothes.
And unfortunately she wasn't Harry Potter, so she didn't have an invisibility cloak.
She had to achieve what she wanted with what she had.
She let her eyes go gold and willed her hand to glow.
Veronica knew that for whatever reason she was able to produce light from her body. Perhaps she could learn to control the light around her. Bend it to her will, make it avoid herself completely.
She pointed a bendable lamp at her hand and stared hard at the beams meeting her skin. She willed her magic to bend the light, absorb the light, something, anything.
"Come on. Come on."
The lightbulb popped and the glass hit her skin and bed.
"Fuck!"
It was going to be a long process.
—
Author's Note: Yay! Chapter up! Sorry that it took so long for those who have been waiting. I've just really been contemplating how the story should go. I feel like I've spent too much time building things up. I'm 50,000 words and season 1 hasn't even started yet. I'm deciding whether or not I should speed things up a bit or let her settle into the group and the town a bit more before the season starts.
P.S. Also it might seem like I'm adding in random conversation and focusing on odd everyday things but it will definitely tie in to the plot later.
P.P.S. Will definitely have the next chapter up by the end of January. Promise.