Joyce had no words to convey how relieved she was that Buffy returned home safe, with nothing more serious than some scrapes and a few bruises. Not that the idea of her daughter having bruises was good, but bruises were far better than broken bones, and scrapes were much better than cuts or punctures requiring stitches. Buffy was muttering about the demise of her shirt, gesturing at the slashes that told Joyce something with three sharp edges had tried to open up Buffy's stomach. Something else had left green stains splashed over the right sleeve.
As much as she agreed that those green stains wouldn't come out and the slashes would ruin the shirt anyhow, Joyce felt oddly relieved. The stains were green, not red. Not Buffy's blood. There were reddish brown stains that had splashed onto the clothing of Jem and Ash, but none of it was near cuts or holes, giving the impression that it was someone else's blood. Or perhaps something else.
"The armor under the shirt was beneficial?" Emma's calm voice made her words less of a question and more of a statement.
"Yeah. Still not fun to have those claws coming at me, but the armor's great," Buffy smiled.
"Wonderful. You should get some rest, I believe that you have a test tomorrow for History, and a pop quiz in biology," Emma had a little smirk as she sent Buffy to her room.
"Do the other students know about the pop quiz?" Joyce asked. Part of her wondered if Emma was playing favorites just a little, and another part wondered if perhaps it was an attempt to help make up for the damage that fighting demons would cause to Buffy's study schedule. Then again, thinking back on Buffy's study habits over the last six years, maybe demon hunting was just a really good excuse instead of the various bad ones that had been offered before?
"No. However, if I learn of any other students hunting demons and vampires to kill them before they eat random citizens, I'll give them notice about upcoming tests and quizzes as well. There are some things that are more important than a paper test," Emma admitted.
"I suppose that works," Joyce conceded.
Joyce had bad dreams that night, of various ways things could have become a disaster for Buffy. Scenes out of horror movies where the monster attacks the lone girl out for a walk – and why were those girls so often little blondes, like Buffy? Fights with someone pulling a gun and shooting Buffy at point blank range. Just how effective was that armor that Emma had provided? What about all the dreadful things that could happen just from being in the wrong place at the wrong time – drive-by shootings, out-of-control cars, falling signs… Joyce knew that she was worrying about absurd things, but that didn't make the images go away.
Joyce almost hated going to work in the morning. She hadn't slept well, due to assorted bad dreams and irrational fears. They still needed to determine if they'd approach the probable Watcher Phillip Mooreland. Only the fact that a Watcher would have information on the demons – information that could help keep Buffy safer – left her thinking that this could be a good idea. There was also the fact that Maria Stepford was still trying to intimidate Dawn into being a follower to the Stepford girls. While the girls seemed nice enough, and Dawn liked them, she had no intentions of permitting her daughter to become anyone's minion.
Thankfully, work was quiet and uneventful. It helped Joyce to work through her worries for Buffy's safety in a drawn out, logical fashion. Yes, her daughter was in danger when she went on patrol. So were police officers. As long as Buffy had the training, equipment, and information that's he needed, she should be as safe as possible. Emma would make sure that Buffy had medical help – while some arrogant council might be content to accept 'one dies, another is chosen', Joyce wasn't about to just accept her daughter dying of anything other than old age without a fight. She also concluded that they'd have to explain at least a little of the Slayer mess to Dawn, preferably before she started to ask why Buffy was getting the rules bent for her classes.
Joyce didn't think that getting advance warning about tests and quizzes made up for having to fight monsters.
Buffy's return from school came with a thump of the book bag falling and a dismissive hand wave, "School bites."
"Could you give me a bit more detail, Buffy?" she asked her daughter.
"Stupid history test. I'm pretty sure I mixed up some of those figures, and I may have written that one of them got turned into a vampire and later slain…" Buffy shook her head, and muttered, "…and the football team found a couple dead bodies in their locker room. I didn't get a look, but I doubt it was natural causes."
"In a school locker room? What would they have been doing…" Joyce let that go, her mind supplying all too many options of what people could have been doing in a locker room, including the simple 'changing clothing with the wrong people watching'. No matter what the answer was, it would probably put Emma in a bad mood. If it was related to monsters… "Never mind what they were doing. Will you need to find out the details of this? As the Slayer?"
"If it was monsters, I'll need to know. If it was dumb jocks, drugs, or ordinary human maniacs, the police get the job. Right now I have no idea what did what in there," Buffy sighed.
"I suppose that is a good reason to be unhappy about school today."
"Pretty much. I can't see how things could get messier," Buffy collapsed into a chair.
"Then you can help me figure out what we tell Dawn about you and this destiny. She's going to notice eventually," Joyce tried to smile at Buffy.
Buffy's eyes popped open, and her jaw dropped. "Mom! How can… We can't… but..!"
"Dawn's going to notice. Especially if you keep getting heads up notices about quizzes," Joyce repeated.
"I was wrong, the day can get worse," Buffy mumbled.
End part 30.
When Dawn arrived, she was mumbling about horrible fates, evil, and chocolate. Occasionally the phrase 'that's not right' would appear, and once or twice there was 'sorry'. It was enough to leave Joyce worried and thinking thorugh all sorts of alarming possibilities.
"Dawn? What has you so worked up?"
"Mindee said something about her mom. It's just not right, and now I feel sorry for Mrs. Stepford," Dawn offered, before mumbling again about things not being right.
"I thought it was impossible to feel sorry for that woman," Buffy countered.
"It's horrible," Dawn insisted. "She's allergic to chocolate!"
"Oh," Buffy blinked. "I guess I can feel sorry for her. What about Mindee?"
"They aren't allergic to anything. Not chocolate like their mom or strawberries like their dad," Dawn replied.
"As horrible of a fate as a chocolate allergy might sound, there are worse things," Joyce told her younger daughter. Perhaps Buffy would take the rather large hint and volunteer something about her own horrible fate. A fate that she and Emma were determined to improve.
"I've got a bunch of weird British stalkers telling me I need to go fight monsters," Buffy offered. "It's really bad for my shoes."
"Monsters? Does this make you like the real life version of… no, that's silly…" Dawn paused, "and I thought there was no such thing as monsters?"
"There are, but not normally hiding under the bed," Buffy replied.
"There is more to life than shoes," Joyce told Buffy, a half smile on her face. Dawn was making parallels between Buffy's claims of fighting monsters and that cartoon that Dawn enjoyed, a Japanese animation with a group of girls in terrible outfits with silly battles that involved a lot of posing, shouting, flashing lights, and nobody ever getting seriously hurt. It did give a far less serious impression than 'I have to fight monsters until I die', the way Buffy had explained it to her.
"Does this destiny come with an outfit that's supposed to be cool and a short skirt? What about a cute sidekick? Or the mysterious cute guy with not that helpful advice and dramatic music?" Dawn asked.
"No, it doesn't have a wardrobe department, that's why it's so bad for my shoes. It would be a good deal nicer if it did come with the handsome and mysterious guy with advice," Buffy sighed. "Ms. Frost found me a couple sidekicks, and I guess you could maybe call Jem cute. She kind of fits the animated girl hero image a lot better."
"So my sister's a magical girl with a destiny to protect, only without the bright lights and the not quite nude costume change scenes? That's sort of cool," Dawn looked thoughtful. "So that's why you get a heads up about quizzes? Can I sign up to be a magical girl?"
"NO!" Buffy shouted.
Joyce took a slightly quieter approach, "Honey, I don't think it works like that. You're also too young to stay up that late fighting evil."
"Too young… you're always telling me that," Dawn huffed.
"Only when you ask about things that you're still too young to do," Joyce countered.
Dawn just rolled her eyes.
"Now, what about homework?" Joyce watched as both of her daughters dragged their books to the table, grumbling about reports and homework and awful teachers.
Several hours later, the girls had finished their homework and retreated to their rooms. Buffy had promised to neaten up her closet, organizing the shoes and making certain that everything was either hung up or in the hamper. Dawn had claimed that she was going to read, and maybe listen to some music. Joyce suspected that they might both end up listening to music, with little cleaning being accomplished. Or perhaps they'd wind up arguing about music…
When Emma walked in, it didn't take a telepath to see that she was unhappy. Anyone that knew her would be able to read the tension in her shoulders, the way her arms were held stiffly at her sides, the fingers straight and pressed together in a position frequently seen on mannequins, the way the tall heels of her white boots stabbed into the carpet. Seeing her lips pressed together and her brows dipping in the middle suggested that either she was extremely worked up, or she was feeling less need to guard her expressions.
"That man was an utter idiot," Emma snarled.
"Someone who came to the scene? Buffy mentioned something about bodies found by the football team," Joyce offered.
"Something killed one of the linebackers and a cheerleader. It looked as if they had slipped inside for a tryst and something came in and ripped them apart."
"So we will need to tell Buffy about it. She said if it was some sort of monster, then she'd have to deal with whatever killed them," Joyce sighed. "I think I'd prefer if it was some sort of argument out of hand, or drugs… Something that wouldn't have Buffy chasing the killer."
"As much as I don't want gunfights and drug problems at my school, I can see your point," Emma admitted before hissing "The inspector tried to blame it on some wandering feral mutant, and then he decided to try wild dogs as an explanation."
"Wild dogs, in a locker room? A locker room in the middle of a school campus in a large city?" Joyce shook her head, trying to figure out how anyone could believe that. "While I can maybe understand dogs outside, sniffing at the foundations, how would they get inside the building? Dogs can't use doorknobs."
"While technically it could have been a feral mutant – they do have thumbs – I'm inclined to think vampires or some other sort of monster. From the thoughts of the people on the scene, it was definitely some sort of biting and slashing injuries. But wild animals would have eaten part of the bodies, wouldn't they? From the sheer quantity of pieces, it didn't look like anything was missing, just… no longer properly attached," Emma paused, looking a bit pale.
"Not that I'm arguing, but why are you ruling out a feral mutant?" Joyce asked. "We do need to consider various possibilities."
"Any mutant feral enough to do that to someone without extreme provocation wouldn't be hiding in a locker room, they'd seek somewhere else, a basement, a cave, the back corner of a garage, maybe one of the maintenance sheds. Any mutant capable of enough planning and self control to go into the locker room, wait for people to be that distracted, and leave without being seen isn't a feral running on instinct. A true feral would have left more signs of being there, property damage, towels ripped into bedding, gouges in the walls. I suppose it could be a clawed mutant who is also a homicidal voyeur, but a monster… a demon sounds more likely," Emma explained.
"Occam's Razor," Joyce nodded.
"We'll talk to Buffy in the morning, and I can show her the scene. They took the… pieces away. Then in the afternoon, I suggest trying to contact Mr. Mooreland. If we can work with him, then we need someone who knows how to identify and kill demons," Emma's words were not quite a suggestion and not quite an order.
"The learning curve would be too dangerous," Joyce agreed.
End part 31.