For personal enjoyment not for profit, if you recognize it, I don't own it, just bending and folding it.

Chapter 10

Shortly after school started, they were at the Bronze with Willow and Jesse when Xander recognized the blond dancing with Chad, he leaned in to Faith and whispered, "The RT we've been waiting for is dancing with Chad."

"Keep an eye on him while I check for any others," Faith whispered back.

Xander nodded as Faith moved away quickly to see if Darla had any minions with her,

"Willow," he whispered as he leaned in close to Willow's ear, "Faith thinks the gal dancing with Chad is a vamp. She's checking for others. If she's right, we need to get him away from her."

Faith came back down the stairs and shook her head right as the song ended and they saw Darla lead Chad towards the door. Faith followed right behind to see which way they went.

Xander slipped his stake into his right hand and settled a pair of brass knuckles onto the left still in his pocket. He watched Jesse slip on a pair of gloves and empty a small bottle of holy water into his palms.

Willow was holding a crystal and muttering under her breath.

As they exited Faith looked at them and then headed towards the parking lot without a word. They approached Chad's jeep and saw the blond with their friend.

"Hey Chad, Are you taking off, you were supposed to give Jesse and me a ride home?" Faith asked.

"Sorry Honey," Darla said her voice dripping sugar, "Chad has other plans."

Chad just looked numbly on.

"Chad –", Xander said moving next to their teammate and drawing Darla's attention

"Why don't you run along –" Darla started. At the same time Faith hit her in the side of the face with holy water causing her to flinch back crying out in pain as she was revealed. Unlike the vamps Faith had recently encountered this didn't stop Darla from swinging at Faith knocking her into the car parked next to them. Xander didn't hear what Willow said, but the crystal she held emitted light that made Darla scream. Xander didn't stop to think, he lunged forward and hit her with the brass knuckles to turn her so he could follow through with his stake and dust her. The last thing he saw before she dusted was her yellow eyes go wide.

Xander looked around and not seeing any more vampires, slipped the brass knuckles off while holding the stake as inconspicuously as possible. The light that willow conjured went out.

"What are you kids doing out here, who screamed?" the bouncer yelled at them from the end of the lot by the door.

"Sorry Sir," Jesse replied. "We were just horsing around."

"Are you girls okay?" he said shining his flashlight at Faith and Willow.

"Yes Sir," they both said.

"Okay, if you kids aren't going to be in the club, you need to leave." He said going back to the door.

"Chad, are you okay?" Faith asked.

"What happened to Darla?" Chad asked, seeming to come out of his daze.

Willow and Jesse just looked at each other.

"I think she had to take off," Xander supplied.

"Okay, I'll see you guys at practice tomorrow." He said patting his jeans to find his keys.

"You want me to drive you home?" Faith asked. "You don't look so hot."

"Yeah, that would be nice, I don't know what's up, but I'm fuzzy feeling." Chad said handing Faith his keys.

After dropping Chad and his car off, the four of them were in the van driving back to the Harris household.

"Willow," Faith asked, "What was that with the light?"

"A spell I found that I thought would be helpful, it catches the first rays of morning sunlight."

"That was cool," Jesse praised her.

"Well, it's actually designed to be a light source for longer at lower brightness, but you can will how quickly you want the sunlight to come out," Willow explained. "But now I have to get up before dawn on a clear Sunday to charge another crystal."

"Thanks Willow," Faith said. "I was hoping that the four of us showing up, would cause the vampire to leave."

Willow got a stern look on her face, "Don't lie, I know you and Xander have been going after them from the number of times I call your house and have to buzz one of your pagers, I know you are out hunting."

Faith and Xander were quiet as they pulled into the drive way of the Harris house causing the two motion sensor flood lights to illuminate the area between the car and the door.

The group filed in to the house. They were all standing in the kitchen, Willow had a stern look on her face.

Faith took her hand, "Willow, I've had nightmares about-about friends dying ever since Mr. Post told me about the Slayer, he seems to feel that the standard policy of just sitting back and observing is good enough. But what if one of those leeches went after you guys or Aunt Jessica? I can't just sit back and watch even if I'm not the Slayer."

"I get that, but why not include us?" Jesse asked.

"Well we really only started after Xander got his license, and, well, we didn't want to scare you."

"You told me about Vampires, you think I'm not already scared?" Willow said, angrily. Xander went to place a comforting hand on her shoulder but she shrugged him off. "You're this 'potential', and now it comes out that you and Xander are actively hunting them?"

"We've been going after easy targets, the ones that cruise the Bronze and the coffee house at the college. These things are coming to the places that we hang out and killing people we know, so yeah we're taking them out to make the places we go safer," Faith answered standing up for herself. "So far tonight was the biggest challenge we've faced, and that's more because we usually confront them where they have less room to maneuver. Does that mean that we should have left that Vamp to get Chad?"

"No, of course not," Willow snapped back. "You shouldn't have kept us in the dark!"

Xander refused to be shaken off this time, he took Willow's hand, "Will, I'm sorry, I should have told you."

"You're darn right Mister," His girlfriend said angrily.

"We would have, but this isn't a game, it's not like Shadowrun, We're not putting together a party to do a Run. Everybody isn't born and raised to fight. This is the real world."

"Maybe we should be," Jesse said taking part in the conversation for the first time. "You said it, these blood suckers are coming to the places we and our friends hang out. If we want to survive high school, maybe we do need to fight."

"Jesse's right," Willow said. "But you're right too, it's not something you can just ask people. We're not going to have a booth at club day signing people up to fight demons and the undead – but that's what you're doing – and that's what we're doing. Making ourselves stronger, studying martial arts, learning magic, and thinning out the ranks of the enemy." Willow wrapped an arm around Xander, and held her other arm out for Jesse who came closer and beckoned Faith. "The three of us have been friends since kindergarten and Faith, you fit right in with us. It's not your fault there are bad things and ignoring them isn't going to stop them from happening.

"No, but part of it is my doing, ever since I heard the name Sunnydale, I had this feeling that I need to be better, be stronger, be ready," Faith said quietly. "I thought it was about a fresh start and getting away from the road things were on with my Mom, doing better in school, getting into college, but," she trailed off.

"Do you think it's those Slayer dreams that you've read about?" Willow asked.

"Maybe," Faith replied, "Probably – Who knows."

Willow moved her arm from around Jesse and Xander's waist and wrapped Faith in a hug, "Whatever brought it on, your dreams and hunches may have been pushing us towards this but you're not the reason this town is dangerous and we're all going to get through this."

Shortly after that, Xander drove Jesse and Willow home. He dropped off Jesse first and after waiting to make sure that he got inside the house, drove to Willow's as was becoming more and more common the only light on was the porch light. Willow's parents were gone to a conference. Shortly they were in the living room cuddled upon the couch. Small things were said but it was apparent that the evening had effected Willow strongly, their kisses turned more passionate and soon hands were roaming under shirts, Xander felt the slightly roughness of the lace of Willow's bra scratching against his chest as his hands rested at the small of her back playing with the edge of her jeans. This wonderful feeling was interrupted by his pager going off. The teens disentangled themselves and Xander looked at the message

"My mom."

Willow just handed him the phone.

"Xander," his mom said without waiting for him to say anything when he called the hospital, "Didn't you say you would be home at midnight?"

"Yes Ma'am," he replied.

"Well, that a half hour ago."

"Thanks Mom, I'll be home soon."

"Love you kiddo, see you in the morning." she said hanging up.

Xander straightened his clothing seeing that Willow had already done the same.

"So do you want a ride to Andrew's tomorrow?"

"That'd be nice."

They kissed a few more times until Willow let Xander out the door with a wave good night.

The next day when they were driving back from Andew's, Faith brought up Andrew's brother.

"So I asked Willow to see if she felt any build up magical energy at Andrew's," Faith told him. "I reminded her what he said last summer about his brother said last summer and she said she couldn't sense anything."

"Good to know," Xander said, eyes on the road.

"We'll keep an eye on him," Faith assured Xander.

"Thank you."

The fall semester went by quickly, with Jesse and Willow on board with fighting Vampires, and the fact that they were back in school, they didn't go after any more nests and kept almost all of their hunting to weekend. As a group, they all took the Hapkido classes they were taking very seriously and the other two joined them in sparring and working on techniques with stakes outside class. Jesse and Willow both took the things that Xander and Faith showed them seriously. They didn't openly read the books that Mr. Post had, but Xander and Faith borrower books form the watcher's library and let the others read them. The second time that Willow used her sunlight crystal, they were able to see that it actually caused burns on the vampire like sunlight. They talked about how it could be used if they ever needed to go after a nest.

Willow came up with a weapon that although harder to conceal than a straight stake, turned out to work rather well, a short tonfa. They were able to order padded ones for sparring from a martial arts magazine and order wood ones that Xander then sharpened down the end of. The first time Faith blocked a kick from a vampire with one she was sold for life and hugged Willow after the vampire was dust.

In October, Xander's mom told him that his idea about buying another property turned out to be a good one. She purchased a house and a duplex on one lot in Davis near the university. Property values in the Central valley were recovering more slowly from the recession than Sunnydale had. She told Xander that she figured if he or Faith went to Davis they could live in one of the two smaller units and if she decided to move there, she could either live in one of the smaller unit or the larger house, but with the university medical center, it was almost guaranteed she could find a job.

Xander and Faith Saw Mr. Post in the Art Gallery that would be Joyce Summers' several times in October shortly before it was listed for sale.

It wasn't long after that that Post asked Faith to meet at his house. Xander as usual tagged along

"Faith, I need to tell you that I am going to be going back to England at the end of the Term and in the new year my replacement, Mr. Giles, will be here to take over. I also need to tell you that this is ahead of schedule and happening because Mr. Giles has been assigned to the current Slayer after her last watcher was killed in the line of duty."

"The slayer's coming here?" Faith asked. "You said the slayer normally is called when something very bad is going to happen if they don't stop it."

"Well, yes, I'm told a council seer said she needed to be here," he stopped and looked at her and then made eye contact with Xander for the first time in the conversation. "I've become very fond of the both of you and of your friend Willow, do take care of yourselves. Perchance I'll see you in Watcher's training in a few years."

"What is the name of the slayer?" Faith asked.

"Buffy Summers."