At P3 Buffy and Jack, another bartender, were cleaning glasses while listening to Piper on the phone. Phoebe walks in and Buffy goes to pick up a tray of dishes. She was heading back over when she heard Phoebe whisper to Piper that the new bartender is checking her out. Buffy looks at Jack and notices that he is checking her out. Buffy is next to them when Phoebe starts discussing Jason coming back in town and she is wondering how he feels about her.
Buffy leans over, "I agree with Piper, you should just ask." Phoebe turns to Buffy and nods her head. Then she remembers that she should be trying to get a feeling off of her. While she is doing that Buffy leans towards Piper, "Plus, she is right, Jack is definitely checking you out." Piper smirks at her before telling her to get back to work. Buffy smiles and laughs before walking away.
Piper looks to Phoebe and sees that she looks slightly sad. When questioned about it Phoebe says they will talk later, but now they were going to lunch. They were heading to the door when Chris orbs in. "No!" Chris looks confused, "We're not demon hunting, we're going to lunch."
Chris shrugs, "Hey, I am not unreasonable, we can hunt demons after lunch. By the way, anyone seen Leo?" They shake their heads. Chris mentions that Leo has a lead on who got him to Valhalla. They were about to leave when Buffy walked by, she noticed Chris, "Oh, hey Chris." Chris looked around, "Hey, Buffy." Looks her up and down, "Glad to see you don't have a knife on you this time." The sisters look confused and surprised. Buffy laughs, "Well, that's because I know who you are now." She waves to them before going back to work.
Piper and Phoebe look to Chris who is smirking. They give him a questioning look, "What knife?" Piper asks. Chris shakes his head, "When I called you about Buffy she had a knife on her in case I was a thief." They all smiled at that before leaving and talking about Paige's temp jobs and who finds happiness with temp jobs.
The next day, Buffy is at work and sees that the band is packing up, "What is going on here?"
One of the guys, Ray, answers, "Oh the owner lady fired them." Buffy looks on confused at that because she doesn't know Piper all that well, but that doesn't seem like something she would do. She looks around for Piper and finds a brunette arguing with Ray saying that she is the boss and she didn't fire the band. Buffy uses her senses and can sense that the brunette is a good person. The backroom door opens and fauxPiper comes out with Jack. Buffy is shocked at that.
She has superiority over Jack so she goes over to him and smacks him on the back of the head. Mabel is shocked, "Hey, what do you think you are doing…" Mabel forgot her name. Buffy raises an eyebrow, "Well it looks like since I am the superior worker here I am telling Jack to get back to work." Mabel scoffs, "Yeah, but I'm the boss." Buffy shrugs, she uses her senses and can tell that this person is sort of evil. Buffy just walks away giving Mabel a look that both she and Piper catch.
Paige, Phoebe, and Piper are orbed into a room after their fight with the blonde sisters. Phoebe is treating Piper while they are talking about the Stillman sisters. Paige thinks that even though they are trashy blondes they did a great job at stealing their identities. Piper thinks back, "Yeah, but Buffy was definitely suspicious of the blonde me." Paige and Phoebe looked stunned at that bit of news, "But how did she know anything was up?" Piper just shrugged.
Piper, Paige, and Phoebe were locked in the Conservatory with the blonde sisters when Chris orbed in. They try to convince Chris that they are the real Charmed Ones and that the blondes are imposters. Piper mentions the book which starts Chris' suspicions, "Also Buffy, is suspicious of her even with no reason to be." Chris raises an eyebrow at that. When Mabel misses the sisters Chris realizes something is really up. When Mabel takes the bait, Chris realizes that the sisters are telling the truth.
After everything was done, the sisters were sitting in the living room and wondering about Buffy. "What do you think Buffy knew about today?"
"Probably not much, but she still new something was up."
Piper looked to Phoebe, "You read her today, what did you feel."
Phoebe pauses, "I felt loss and sadness, I think she recently lost a loved one and that she used to be depressed." They feel sad for Buffy, if she did lose a loved one. "I also felt some happiness when she interacted with Chris yesterday." Piper raised her eyebrows, "That probably won't end well."
Paige sighs, "Guess it is my turn to ask for help on who she is."
The next day Paige meets up with some of the magical creatures that she has helped before. "Hi, I was just wondering if you guys could do some digging on a new bartender at P3 named Buffy Summers. If you find anything let me know." She nods at them and then leaves for her temp job.
While Paige, Piper, and Phoebe were dealing with the family feud problems, Buffy got the day off. She went to the store for groceries and when she got to her condo she decided to send a letter to Angel and the gang to let them know that she is doing well and is safe.
Buffy was getting ready to go out on her nightly jog, when one of her neighbors, Stan, stopped her. "Hey, Buffy." Buffy smiled at him. "I was wondering…" Buffy waited, Stan laughed a little, "I was wondering if you would like to go on a date with me tonight." Buffy paused stunned. "Uh, sure, just let me do my jog and you can pick me up at seven?" Stan nodded and walked away.
She got changed into her running clothes and went for a jog. She was jogging in the park when she was tackled by something. She got back up and saw that it was a demonic vampire, she groaned, "Really, I can't even have a month or two without running into you guys again." The vampire got confused, but ignored her, "I'm going to kill you slowly." He growled, she rolled her eyes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on already." She got into fighting position. This vampire didn't stand a chance. She didn't have a stake so she would either have to find a weapon or try to make a fireball again.
She tried to summon her strength, but kept having to block the vampire's attack. She grew annoyed, "Would you stop, I am trying to do something here." The vampire laughed. She huffed before giving up and throwing the vampire into a tree branch and watched as he turned to dust. She dusted herself off and went to finish her jog.
The magical creatures were watching and when they talked to each other, they thought she could be the protector woman.
Buffy got ready for her date. She wasn't sure this was the right thing given that Spike had only just died and it didn't seem right to go on a date that soon. Before she could change her mind, there was a knock on her door. She took a deep breath before opening the door. "Hi." Stan said.
"Hi." Buffy said back.
They got into Stan's car and drove. They arrived at the restaurant and sat down. Buffy looked around and noticed Piper at the next table with a guy. She raised her eyebrows. Stan saw that, "What?"
"Huh, oh, it's nothing. It's just that is my boss over there." She nods to Piper. Stan turns and also nods at that. They order and start with small chat to even things out. Buffy is listening to Stan when she sees Chris orb in and covered in mud. She gets a confused look on her face before Stan asks her a question. "So, why did you look so nervous when you opened the door tonight?"
Chris is looking around for Piper when he notices Buffy there with a guy. He gets a feeling in his stomach that he can't describe, so he ignores it. He finds Piper at the next table over and starts to head over there. He overhears the question that Stan had asked and he slows down to hear the answer.
"Oh, well, I recently lost someone I cared about, could have even loved, and you are the first guy since him."
They continue to talk for a few more minutes before they get their food and Chris has already gotten to Piper's table.
After the sisters solved the problem they were having Paige went to talk to the magical creatures. They tell her that Buffy is something of a protector. This makes Paige baffled, but she thanks them.
Paige tells Piper and Phoebe what the creatures said. "Protector? Protector of what?"
"I don't know, but I mean, the protector part sounds like she is a good guy, right?" Phoebe asks.
Piper and Paige shrugged, still not sure. "We'll see."
A few days later, Buffy was in the storage room when Chris came in. "Hey, Buffy."
Buffy smiles, "Hey Chris." Pleasantries out of the way, Chris heads to the backroom for some sleep and strategy on how to get the sisters motivated. The sisters come in, Piper with Wyatt, to talk to Chris and see that Buffy is setting things up. Piper motions to Buffy with Wyatt, Phoebe and Paige nod before going over to Chris. They watch as Piper heads to Buffy with Wyatt.
"Hey Buffy. I have a random favor to ask from you."
Buffy looks at Piper and sees Wyatt. "Sure." She says slowly.
"How would you feel about extra work of babysitting?"
Buffy smirks, "I'm okay with it, but I have never done it before."
"Great, how about now." Piper sets Wyatt down on the floor, "I have to go talk to Chris about something and I need someone to watch Wyatt for me."
Buffy shrugged, "Sure, I mean you'll be in the next room, so this is a baby step."
Piper smiles before heading towards the backroom. They all get inside the room and close the door slightly. They can still see Buffy. Chris wonders what is going on. They tell him about their findings. Chris nods, "Yeah, I overheard that she lost someone, so that would explain the feeling." They look out the door at Buffy who looks at Wyatt before squatting down. "Hey, Wyatt, I have never done this before, so bear with me." She picks him up and carries him around while finishing her work. Piper, Phoebe, Paige, and Chris watched and saw that Wyatt seemed to trust her.
"Alright that proves it, she is probably a good guy." Phoebe claims.
They look at each other in tentative agreement on that. They look back at Buffy and Wyatt and notice two demons shimmering in. "Oh, great!" They say as they rush out of the room. Buffy turns and notices the demons. She looks at the sisters, "What do I do with Wyatt?" First the sisters were surprised that Buffy was acting so calm. "Uh, just be careful, he can protect himself." This caused Buffy to be surprised as well.
One of the demons went after the sisters and the other went after Wyatt and Buffy. They threw an energy ball, but Wyatt put up the force field. Buffy was stunned at that. The demon kept throwing the energy balls at them, one after another, soon Buffy grew angry that they were trying to attack a somewhat defenseless kid. Piper had managed to blow up the second demon and when they turned to the other, they saw it catch on fire and explode. They gave each other surprised looks before looking at Buffy, who was holding a hand to her head as if to stave off a headache.
They all came together and Buffy handed Wyatt back to Piper. They looked at each other for a few moments in silence before Buffy started, "Guess I have some explaining to do." The sisters and Chris nodded.
AN: I am sort of following the Charmed episodes, but I have a hard time figuring where to put Buffy into the storyline, so bear with me. Let me know what you think.