Chapter 9 Review
A/N. (Yep. That's right. I'm actually on time and on schedule this week. does the snoopy dance. Pretty incredible, huh?
Well anyway, not much to say here really except that I'm definitely getting back into this fic again, which is good news for frequent updates:). Thanks very much to Kim for reviewing! I've added in the scene breaks again, although they were actually there previously, it's just that the document formats here at don't seem to like me using asterisks, so I've reverted back to the trusty old 8 8 8. I hope that helps your eyes and your understanding!
And now, without further ado, onto the chapter. I hope you all enjoy. : ). And as always, any constructive criticism is mucho appreciated.
8 8 8
Giles rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right forefinger and thumb as he leaned against the counter of the Magic Box. The primary table in the centre of the store was currently occupied by seven Watchers, most of them sipping tea and peering over thick rims at the multitude of books on display.
Really, there was no need for such a number, he thought sourly. But then, he couldn't really expect Quentin Travers to travel without an entourage of sorts. His unfocused gaze swept across the gathered group with a degree of annoyance, tempered by apprehension. He recognised Quentin of course. There were four others he thought he recognised as well; Nigel the old weapons instructor, Colbert and Cameron the senior Watchers, and the blonde Linda who had once sought his resources for her thesis on William the Bloody… his mouth quirked in a slight grin at that memory. Spike would be flattered, he was sure. As recent events clouded his mind, however, he frowned. Despite her fresh-faced naiveté, perhaps she had been onto something. With the recent revelations as well as his changes of late, Giles was certain that the bleached blonde vampire was indeed a worthy cause for study. Or at least, in his case, for first-hand observation.
His musings on Spike, which had grown both understandably and disturbingly since the vampire's defection to their side against Adam, were cut short at his more insistent curiosity about the identities of the last two. He had only been out of the Council loop for two years, surely no one new could have risen so far in the ranks for them to be eligible to accompany the Head Watcher so soon. But yet, he was certain he had never seen them before.
The group of Watchers did not stir as Giles finally settled his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose and directed his surreptitious glances towards these fresh new faces. One was a dour young man, clad in the stiff tweed suit of a man twice his age. His thick blonde-brown hair lay clustered around his temples and the sides of his head, and the turn of his mouth suggested that his face bore a sneer of contempt more often than not. Giles disliked him instantly. The other, however, bore a startling contrast. She was probably about the same age as the young man, but her sharp, modern black jacket and skirt ensemble was livened by a crisp light blue shirt and a cascade of black hair framing piercing eyes.
Giles' eyes suddenly darted towards the oblivious Head Watcher sipping his tea. There was the greyish hair clinging to his temples, black eyelashes decorating piercing eyes. There was a slight depression on Travers' cheeks indicating an old habit of the sneer, but the most prominent lines around his mouth were now smooth curves upwards depicting a smile. Giles quickly switched his gaze back to the woman, just in time to catch a quirky grin as she glimpsed something in his shop that amused her.
It couldn't be.
Swiftly, Giles cast his mind back to when they had first arrived, walking into his shop like they had owned both it and him. He frowned again at the memory. They had given him his orders to contact the rest of them, refusing to state their intent or their reason for coming here. They had then made their tea using his supplies from the back room, sat down, and engaged in some small talk with him for a while. At least they hadn't come in during the daytime and disturbed his customers, he thought briefly, but then got back to the task at hand. Vaguely, he remembered Quentin introducing the two passingly, but he couldn't quite recall…
"Rupert Giles?"
Her voice was warm, and he started out of his thoughts as the woman approached him, her hand outstretched. Dumbfounded, he took it, wondering where on Earth this was leading to.
"Yes?"
Perhaps his voice had been a bit peremptory. He winced, and then stiffened. Really, could they blame him after surprising him like this? He'd known the Council had meant to visit since their last call, but they had neither set a date nor contacted him again before literally showing up on the doorstep of the Magic Box. Quite rude, really.
"I just wanted to say that I like what you've done with this place. I've heard reports that this establishment used to be rather… dangerous, to say the least. It looks like you've cleaned it up quite nicely."
"Why, thank you," Giles stuttered, even more confused now. "I've tried to make this place befit its location. We monitor what we sell, as well as who we sell it to, and generally we just try to make Sunnydale a safer place for both those who practice the magic arts as well as those who are still oblivious and looking only for a few arthouse pieces… as well as running a conscientious business of course."
"So this is how you make your money now you've betrayed us?" Giles flicked his startled gaze to the young man, now standing and examining the contents of the shelves with a critical eye. "How fitting."
Before Giles could open his mouth and deliver a cutting retort, the woman's cheeks flushed red and her lips tightened. "Pay no attention to my cousin," she said tightly. "He has no appreciation for the good that you've done here, seeing as he has never bothered to properly read the reports we've been sent."
Giles opened his mouth to reply again, perhaps to offer some comforting statement for a woman like her having to put up with such an obvious prick, before he was interrupted again. Her eyes sparkled suddenly with a sudden mischief, and she leaned in closer, speaking in an exaggerated stage whisper so that everyone present could hear.
"Between you and me, Mr. Giles, I actually question whether he has the capacity to even read."
There was a silence, and then a few snickers that Giles couldn't help but echo. The look on the young ponce's face was priceless. "That's it, Elspeth! You've been needling me this entire trip, completely unprovoked! Uncle, I demand you do something for once!"
"Father, Fredrick was clearly disobeying your orders not to bring the past up until you spoke to Mr. Giles and the Slayer privately," Elspeth arched her brow. "You can't blame me for putting him in his place. And he left himself so open."
Before Giles' amazed eyes, the Head Watcher cast his gaze to the heavens and demonstrated an eye-roll worthy of Buffy at her best. "Both of you, just desist. Surely after being at it the entire plane trip you can find it within yourselves to have some self-control until the Slayer and the others arrive?"
Giles read the unspoken words in the other man's gaze with amusement. Just to give us a bit of peace?
"But Uncle! Why must we wait? We've been here for at least fifteen minutes, and the Slayer still hasn't arrived! She should be here when we call! What if this were an urgent apocalypse? Is this how the Slayer works? As an undisciplined, tardy child"
A bell tinkled.
"Someone call my name?" Buffy asked dryly.
8 8 8
It was dizzying. They had trooped out the door one by one, leaving her behind, Cassandra and Daniel looking guilty, Spike expressionless, Buffy stepping outside last to impart few last words of warning; to take care of herself and lock the door behind them and only to answer it if she was sure it was one of the Scoobies… words she had heard a million times before.
Or had she?
"You saw all your memories of a sister, all your memories of your past placed in question…"
Dawn shook her head, looked once more at their backs as they faded away into the distance and the night, and then turned abruptly away. Slowly, she walked into the living room as if it were a dream, turning off the main room light and leaving the house bathed in the semi-darkness granted by the dim glow from the kitchen. Then, she collapsed onto the sofa once more, closing her eyes and pressing herself against its comforting solidity.
"You saw your sister fading in and out before you, and everything you knew about her along with it."
What was happening? What did everything mean? She tried to take a deep breath to calm herself, to stop the echoes of Cassandra's inhuman voice from reverberating in her ears. But all that sucked into her lungs was a quick, hyperventilated gasp that only seemed to heighten her turmoil.
"You're not my sister."
Buffy's voice now. Hard and brutal and damaging. Merging in with all the other memories. Or were they fake as well? Fading in and out… that must have been what they meant. Memories of the past placed in question. Buffy's voice echoed along with Cassandra's, and Dawn squeezed herself tighter together, curling into the foetal position so she could feel her knees clasped against her chest and her breath radiating in and out and all the signs, the irrefutable, irrefutable signs that she was there.
"I don't think you're good enough! Hah! We don't even know whether you're real!"
Daniel now too. Had it been fear in his voice, in his oh-so-familiar voice that she could dimly recall through her confusion also laughing and joking and talking about school… and just being a normal friend? Or was it just the bitterness and anger that had been boiling between them?
But then, he had known what he was talking about. Lucidity shot through Dawn like a painful bolt of lightning and she sat up, still curled, her eyes suddenly open. In the semi-darkness of the living room, the light from the kitchen cast a glow onto her irises. Daniel had said 'we'. He'd said 'we', so he must have meant him and Cassandra together. And with Cass, loveable little, timid little Cass going all seer-y and trance-y lately… that had to mean something.
Dawn curled tighter into herself and felt her own heartbeat throb through her ribs and her body. She was real. She was real, she had to be. She could feel it all; flesh, bone, blood. And if she had that, then it didn't matter what everyone else said. Her sister and friends could have been wrong. All wrong…
"All three of you are alive and real. Solid enough to bite. Doesn't matter what a crazy guy or the Slayer says. I can hear your heartbeats just as solidly as anyone's."
Spike's calming, rough, gravely tones. They counterbalanced the others and she felt herself uncurling slightly. She was real, she was. If Spike could feel her, then she had to be real. Or at least something.
But then, was it really a question of whether she was real or not? Her breath turned shallow again.
"For there was green emptiness where there should have been flesh and blood of your own."
Her skin was clammy. She curled tighter again and tried to ignore the voices even as part of her desperately listened, trying to sift through each memory and find the common thread, to sort out what on the Hellmouth was going on.
Something wasn't right. That in itself was obvious enough. But something wasn't right with her, and that scared her. What had Buffy said?
What are you?
Well it was pretty obvious, right? A head, check. Two arms and a torso, check. Two legs, check. Humanoid appearance, check. So she was a human, normal, like the rest of them. There was nothing physically about her to suggest otherwise…
"Giles told me… a trance state where I could see traces of magic, of energy…"
Dawn's eyes squeezed shut.
"Any idea what this evil looks like?"
Her eyes snapped open.
8 8 8
Buffy cast her gaze across the Watchers assembled in front of her slowly and deliberately as the rest of her friends filed in behind her, Cassandra and Daniel sneaking in at the back.
"Well, I guess some things just haven't changed, have they?" she said, folding her arms across her chest.
"Hello Buffy," Quentin raised his teacup to her. "It's good to see you again."
"Oh, yeah?" Buffy retorted, caught off guard at his mildness. "Well it sure isn't good to see you again. What's up this time?"
"An exhaustive examination of your procedures and abilities," Fredrick declared from the back, his face slightly less purple now as he observed the tiny Slayer with disdain. "We have information about Glory. Pass the review and we give it to you without reservation. Fail the review, either through incompetence or by resisting our recommendations…"
"Resisting your recommendations?" Giles moved towards him angrily. "She fails if we don't do whatever you say! How much under your thumb do you think we are?"
"Fredrick, Giles…"
They both ignored the Head Watcher. "I think your absence from our circles has weakened your memory, Mr. Giles," Fredrick sneered, bitingly. "The Council fights evil. The Slayer is the instrument by which we fight. The Council remains, the Slayers change. It's been that way from the beginning."
"Well, that's a very comforting, bloodless way of looking at it, isn't it?" Giles asked scornfully.
"It is merely the truth," the man drew himself up pompously. "We must review her skills, strategies, and battle plans before we can give her this sensitive information about Glory. We need to know if she can handle it…"
"You have no idea how close I am to proving how much I can handle things, Mr. Council-Man," Buffy hissed. "But for the moment, I'm going to forgive you and ask you one thing. Who the hell is Glory?"
Another silence.
Fredrick lifted his hands up in triumph. "And thus I am proved right!" he crowed. "Do you hear that, Elspeth? The Slayer you always praise hasn't even encountered the abomination that has been lurking on the Hellmouth for the last few days!"
"Fredrick!" Travers' voice lashed out like a whip. "Enough!"
One of the old Watchers stirred. "You shame us all with your unseemly behaviour."
"Unseemly?! I speak the truth!"
"Or your warped version of the truth!"
"Elspeth!"
"Father, how long will this have to go on? He's embarrassing us every time he speaks!"
"You're the embarrassing one, silver-tongued wench! Whispering ideas into your father's head, pulling strings…"
"FREDRICK!"
As the Watchers descended into chaos before their eyes, a spark leapt into Spike's head. "Wait, the abomination?" he looked sharply at Buffy. "Pet, if I'm not mistaken, that's what the monk called the bitch we were facin' off against before."
"So that's her name. Glory." Buffy thinned her lips and a look passed between the Slayer and the vampire. Dawn. "Well. Information about her is good. Very good. And by the way," she said loudly as she threw a disgusted look at the young Watcher in front of her, breaking the argument in front of them, "The Slayer has encountered this abomination-y thing. Tonight, actually."
"Buffy?" Giles asked in dismay. "You didn't tell me…"
Quentin Travers' weary gaze flitted from his red-faced entourage, to Buffy, to Giles, to Spike, to the Scoobies, and then back again to Buffy. "I see we have a lot to discuss."
"Damn straight," Spike's lips curled. "Just why do you ponces need to put the Slayer through this 'exhaustive review' of yours before we get this information? I'd say that's damn short-sighted of you if this Glory bint is as much trouble as you seem to make out."
"The review was the old plan," Travers shot a black look at Fredrick before continuing. "We had discussed already, although it seems as if one wasn't listening, for a new plan. At the moment, we merely seek to have a display of Buffy's powers before we continue. No conditions, no blackmailing, no hidden agendas."
"Surely her actions of averting five apocalypses so far speak for her abilities louder than any demonstration?" Elspeth demanded before anyone else could cut in. Her eyes were stormy with anger, channelled directly towards her pasty-faced cousin, and Giles couldn't help but feel a little sympathy for her. As well as marvel. It was clear that since he had been gone, there had been some major changes in the way that the Council worked.
Quentin surveyed everyone mildly. "I don't doubt Buffy's prowess, but I am interested to see how your abilities have grown since the last time we properly monitored you. It will help us to plan for what is ahead. Nigel, if you please?"
Buffy looked up at the Council weapons-master, all six foot five of him that towered above her head, packed with muscle, hard-honed discipline, and skill. And she laughed.
"Oh, please. Save yourselves a hospital bill. If you want to see how much I kick ass, my perfect sparring partner's already here."
The look she shot across the space between her and Spike was unmistakeable. The people from the Council watched in surprise. The Scoobies looked on in interested resignation. Cassandra and Daniel smiled at each other.
"Perfect?" Spike's grin lighted up his face. "I'm flattered, Slayer."
The look she tossed across her shoulder was intoxicating. "Well, your ass is perfect to kick all across the training room, you big pussy-cat."
"Oooh," the vampire purred, smirking. "I want to hear you say that in the ring, Slayer."
"Oh I will," Buffy grinned back. "Come and catch me."
The seven Watchers watched, dumbfounded, as the blonde pair suddenly streaked across the room in a manner of seconds, leaving a trail of papers fluttering free in their passage. The Scoobies smiled at each other hesitantly. Cassandra and Daniel raised their eyebrows.
"Well, shall we adjourn to the training room?" Giles asked lightly.