Denver, Colorado – Late February 1976

"Giles, we need to talk," Buffy announced as she barged into his apartment. She continued speaking loudly as she made her way through the apartment, searching for her favorite Watcher. "I'll be eighteen soon, and you know Joe's gonna do the crystal needle thing on me. I'm really not looking forward to facing off against a starved, insane vamp with nothing but what I happen to have in my pockets at the time. Of course, I'm just really beginning to break him in, so I don't want Joe to get fired, either. Any sugg- Um… Hi! I was… uh… trying to get Giles' advice on what I should do about a situation with my RPG group. Dungeons and Dragons, man!" She grinned winningly at the bald man sitting in Giles' kitchen, then looked over to Giles and widened her eyes, silently asking what the man was doing there.

"Ah, Buffy, this is Lieutenant Colonel George Hammond. He just moved in down the hall. George, this is one of my girls, Elizabeth – Buffy – Bradley. I've known her for nine years now."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Bradley," Hammond greeted. He stuck his hand out and she grasped it in a firm handshake.

"You too, uh… Lieutenant Colonel."

"Please call me George. I've been listening to Robert's stories about you and your friends all afternoon, and I must say I'm impressed."

"Impressed?"

"You've all taken the initiative to keep yourselves healthy and in shape so young in your lives. When I was a young teenager all I wanted to do was sleep. But you and your friends… Jogging, pushups, sit-ups, swimming… Making a habit of good fitness now will come in handy when you get older."

"Ah… yeah… we try…"

"Well, I had better get back to unpacking and let you and Robert talk. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Bradley."

"You too. And, call me Buffy."

"Alright Buffy. Robert, I'll see you around."

"Yes, we'll have to do lunch some time."

As soon as George was out the door Buffy whirled on her watcher, eyes wide. "We need a signal," she announced. "Something that will let us know that you've got company over so we don't just barge in yammering about slayage."

"Hmmm… Yes that would be useful," Giles agreed.

"Giles? Are you thinking about sharing the big secret with him?"

"I had considered it, but I wanted your opinion first. I do believe he could handle it."

"What makes you say that?" Buffy asked. She grabbed a plate from the cupboard and helped herself to the breakfast Giles had cooked. The watcher smiled indulgently at her actions; he had purposely made extra just in case someone showed up.

"I think he has some experience with time travel."

Buffy snorted her soda out through her nose. "You want to tell him everything?!"

"Only if you, Willow, Xander, and Dawn are agreeable. As I said before, I believe he can handle it. Not to mention it could help us in the future to have a high-ranking military officer on our side. And he may be able to use his connections to find Andrew."

"Okay… I guess we can talk it over at our next Scooby meeting. In the meantime, what should we plan to do about this Cruciamentum issue?"

"I suppose you could not concentrate on the crystal, and then pretend to be hypnotized, but then Saied would still be able to inject you. Mmm… You say you don't want him fired?"

"Nah. He's finally beginning to come around. I may even be willing to share some more truths with him soon."

"Alright… I suppose you could tell him you already know about it, and possibly request that he not drug you. He could tell the council that the serum does not work on you."

"And when the council reps show up and drug me themselves? 'Cause you know they totally would; just to be sure."

"Ah, yes I had forgotten about that. What about starting to take the drug now, willingly, and then training your body to fight at a normal person's strength? Then you would be at least better prepared than when I… when I betrayed you."

"Giles, we went over this many, many years ago. We worked through it, and I'm over it. It's okay. I'd just rather not go through it again."

"Right. I'm afraid I'm out of suggestions."

"That's alright. I think I like that last one."

-=-

Saied Jhossep was just sitting down to dinner when he heard a knock at his door. He pushed his chair back with a sigh and walked over to the door. He opened it to reveal Buffy Bradley and Xander Monroe. Both teens smiled and waved, then stepped around him and into the house. Saied closed the door slowly, taking a calming breath to steady his nerves.

"What can I do for the two of you this evening?" he inquired politely. He had always been of the mindset that politeness would throw off an opponent better than any insult. The teens merely smiled at him and took a seat on his couch, gesturing for him to sit in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table from them. He sat, and the three stared at each other for a long moment.

"Jo- Mr. Jhossep," Buffy began, "I think we need to talk."

"I'm listening," he responded. He was listening, too. Her use of his proper name and title for the first time had left him curious about whatever could be so serious for her and her friend.

"Willow, Xander, Giles, Dawn, and I have decided that we need to give you a little more information, and we have a proposition for you."

"Again, I'm listening."

"I know that in another few weeks you're going to start administering the Cruciamentum. I also know that failure to follow your instructions to the letter will result in you being fired from the council. Believe it or not, neither of us wants that to happen. Let me finish before you say anything, please," Buffy requested when Saied opened his mouth to speak. He nodded and sat back in his seat.

"Yes, Giles is the one who told me, but not in the way you're thinking. You see, we're a lot older than you. I was born in Los Angeles to Hank and Joyce Summers in 1981. When I was fifteen I was Called. I burned down my high school gym to get rid of a bunch of vampires not long after my first watcher was killed. My parents divorced and my mom and I moved to a little town called Sunnydale. While there I met my new watcher, Rupert Giles, and my friends Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg. Seven years after moving to the Hellmouth, yeah, there was a hellmouth under the high school library, we blew up the town. Sunnydale became a giant crater. My friends, my sister, and I started rebuilding the council after it was attacked. Oh, we also activated every slayer. Anyway, we fought, we lived; we took weekend vacations in various countries. Then when we were in our seventies, the First banded together with the Senior Partners and the Circle of the Black Thorn, and unleashed all of their armies on the humans.

"It was a war on a scale you could never even dream of. That wonderful ability people have of denying what they can't explain? That was gone. And then, so were the people. I don't know how, but after nearly a year of constant fighting, the only humans left on Earth were me, Dawn, Giles, Willow, Xander, and Andrew Wells. We used a spell to come here, but the spell was too hard to control. We lost our memories of each other and got split up. When we found each other our memories returned; but we still haven't found Andrew.

"Now, I left out most of the details, but that should explain how our attitudes shift so easily, and how we let Giles into our 'club'. Giles told me about the test the first time around after the vamp I was supposed to fight escaped. He was fired. I don't want that to happen to you, so I thought we should fill you in a little."

"That was a little?" Saied asked in a daze. He thought briefly about rejecting what they said out of hand, but the age in both sets of eyes convinced him that the people in front of him were speaking the complete truth.

"She managed to compress roughly sixty years of life into two minutes," Xander reminded him. "The detailed version would probably take at least a month."

"Alright… so what was your proposal?" Saied asked, still trying to wrap his mind around all he had learned.

"We think you should start giving Buffy the serum as soon as possible, so we can retrain her body to fight as a normal girl. Then she fights the vamp according to plan, wins, and we try to let you into our circle more."

"I… I think we can do that."

-=-

Bradley Residence – 23 March 1976

"That was unnaturally easy, all things considered," Buffy commented between sips of punch. She and the Scoobies, plus Saied, were gathered in Buffy and Dawn's living room, celebrating Buffy's birthday and her successful completion of the Cruciamentum test. In the end she had poisoned the vampire with holy water, after getting herself battered and bruised. The black eye and other scratches and bruises were explained away to her parents as the result of an unsuccessful mugging.

"You know, Buff, when you say things like that we can almost expect things to get complicated," Xander mentioned.

"Giles wants to tell his neighbor the Air Force man about what we do. We're in for complicated no matter what."

-=-

A/N: Thanks for being so patient with me. I did not forget about this!