To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers

Part 18: Without Choice, There is Naught

I was actually the first one from our group to know about the vampiric killing on Asimov Station. I had gotten up early to do my katas and forms (no Capoeira, the other two styles were challenge enough in one-third gravity, thanks), so I answered the door when the chime sounded softly at a little after six-thirty in the morning, expecting to see Marta. Instead there was a man in the uniform of Station Security, and a woman in United States Air Force casual grays (like camo is casual and utilitarian for the army, grays are for the Air Force, these days). She had a captain's bars on her collar.

"May I help you?" I asked.

"I hope so, Miss," said the man in Station Security blue. "I understand there are several Slayers and a couple of Watchers in your party— and we've had a killing here on the Station that looks very much like it was done by a vampire."

"Crap on a railroad car," I said. "Come in, please, I'll wake the other Slayers and the Watcher and Guardians."

"You're a Slayer, too, then?" the captain asked.

"Yes, ma'am, I am," I said. "However, I'm not that experienced, and I'm thinking you'll want experience. Have a seat, may take a minute."

I went to the door of the big bedroom, tapped firmly, but not loudly— the space station was very well soundproofed, so I couldn't be sure, but I'd bet that if people were awake, there was some serious sex going on in there. I was proved right a few seconds later when the door slid open a crack and Aunt Rose looked out the tiny gap, her face flushed.

"I'm really sorry to interrupt, Aunt Rose," I said, "but there are some people here with a problem— it seems there may be a vampire on the station, there was a killing last night."

"Oh, shit," Aunt Rose said. "Okay, give us five minutes to get… presentable, and we'll all be out."

I told the station folks that the adults needed a few minutes to get awake and dressed, and they accepted that calmly. I offered coffee or other drinks, played hostess for a few minutes, until Uncle Ballard came out and took charge.

He greeted the two, and they introduced themselves as Chief Winston of Station Security and Captain Moran of the Air Force Security Police.

Uncle Ballard made introductions, and by including me in the intros, invited me to stay.

"So," Uncle Ballard said, "Jocelyn says you may have a vampire problem?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Chief Winston said. "We'd very much like your help, please. In an enclosed environment like the Station, this could go south very quickly. We take all possible precautions against vampires getting to the Station, but… well, with them being able to ride in on a cargo shuttle or other non-passenger vessel, we've always known that this would happen someday."

"Yes, I guess it is kind of inevitable," Uncle Ballard said. "I had a Criminal Justice teacher once who said that smugglers had been defeating 'perfect security' for millennia, and that there was no reason to think that would ever change."

Chief Winston grinned slowly, almost unwillingly, and said "You went to Illinois State University, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did," Uncle Ballard said. "How'd you know?"

"Because that's where Doctor John Lyle was from," Winston said. "I had him for Advanced Criminology at UCLA, the year he was out there teaching and taking an extended seminar on the new bomb locating devices— and he said that exact same thing then."

The men shared a chuckle, then got back to business.

"Okay, I think we can help you," Ballard said. "I'm guessing by the presence of Captain Moran that this happened in the science section of the Station?"

"Yes, it did," Moran said. "One scientist was killed. Nothing was stolen, but the vampire did try to hack into the database. He failed— but it was a good run. This is a vampire with some computer skills."

"Do you have any idea what the vampire was after?" Uncle Ballard asked.

"Yes, we do," Moran said. She hesitated, then said, "I must ask you not to discuss this, but I'm not going to throw warnings around or anything. START has never regretted trusting you people, so I'm just going to ask that you not talk about this and leave it there.

"What we think the vampire was trying to get was a new skin-applied ultraviolet protection compound."

"Uh, okay," Ballard said. "I see the significance, it might let a vampire go out in the sun— but why did you guys even make it?"

"Ballard, the special spacesuit you commissioned for Elaine to dance in," Captain Moran said (first name use having been mandated). "How much did it cost you?"

"Thirty million dollars plus," Uncle Ballard said. "What's that got to do with— oh."

Moran nodded, and Uncle Ballard whistled.

"Um, for the not-technical among us," Aunt Elaine said. "Let me say… huh?"

"Elaine, your suit is much thinner than most," Uncle Ballard said. "And clear, so that you can outfit yourself how you want under it, wear stuff that you can move to dance in. The pressure equalizing joints that allow free movement were expensive— but more than eighty percent of the cost of that suit came from making it proof against ultraviolet radiation while keeping it thin. If not for that, it might have been as low as five million— spacesuits of the standard variety run two-point-five million nowadays."

"You see, Elaine, if we could outfit people in suits like yours, we'd make a huge jump in space construction," Moran said. "The suits we use now are harder to move in, and thus take a lot of training hours for construction crews to get used to working in. If we could use the polarizing compound on skin, then use thinner, lighter suits like yours, we'd save the extra cost of the suits in training hours and transport weights alone— and we could build more in space, more and faster. What we're trying to do is expand into space faster.

"Now, we're being cautious, trying to keep this stuff so that it's useless to vampires on earth— not so hard, we simply make it so that it will deteriorate rapidly in the less-pure atmosphere of the planet. But we're a ways off yet. The stage it's at now, it's not even usable by living humans— it causes some serious problems with living skin. But for vampires—"

"No living skin," Aunt Elaine said. "Oh, boy. How'd they find out about it, you think?"

"We don't know," Moran admitted. "We suspect an inadvertent leak— my tech people are trying to lock it down now.

"In the meantime… can you help?"

"We can," Uncle Ballard said. "And we will. I need radiophone time for down on Earth, and as complete a schematic of the station as you can supply me with, with attention to ducting and wiring passages."

"You'll get it," the captain said. "Also… as a thank you, the Air Force is refunding your round trip ticket prices and taking care of your room service and hotel restaurant and bar bills for the duration of your stay."

"You don't have to do that, we—"

"You came here on vacation, and you aren't complaining a bit about losing vacation time to helping us," Moran said. "We're taking care of those things. Period."

"Okay, okay," Uncle Ballard sighed. "Thank you.

"All right— once I've talked to Whitey and gone over the schematics, we'll do a three-team sweep. Rose leads one team, Elaine leads one, and Jocelyn leads one. From th—"

"Uh, no," I said. "I can't lead a team, Uncle Ballard. Maybe you should reduce it to two teams. Or give the third one to Colin."

"Don't be ridiculous," Uncle Ballard said. "You'll be fine, Jocelyn.

"Now, I'll g—"

"Uncle Ballard, no!" I said. "I can't, okay? I just— I can't. I'm sorry, but I'm not— I just can't!"

For a long moment, there was silence. Then Aunt Dawn said, "Jocelyn, I think—"

"Please, I just can't!" I cried. "I'm not— there are reasons, I just— I don't know how to say it, but I can't lead a team!"

"We'll discuss teams later," Uncle Ballard said smoothly. "For the moment, if you'll get me those schematics…?"

"I'll have them here in half an hour," Moran said. "Thank you, all of you."

Moran and Winston left, and once they were gone, Uncle Ballard turned to me and said, "Jocelyn, I may not be your Watcher, but I'm the Watcher-on-scene— and I need you. Colin has no experience with hunting vampires, and neither do Mi Kyong or Autumn. This needs three Slayers, so you're just going to have to take a team."

I gulped down tears, shook my head and said, "No, sir. I can't do it. You and I could go out as a team, and I'll follow your orders, but I can't—"

"You know the rules," Ballard said. "Buffy's rule, from clear back before I even joined the team, Jocelyn. All field teams are led by Slayers, no exceptions."

"I… can't!" I said, fighting tears. "Please, just let it go, I—"

"Someone is dead," Uncle Ballard said. "More people could die, Jocelyn. Now, we can talk about what's upsetting you, but I need you to do this. I'm not asking, kiddo— I'm telling you, this is how it has to be."

"No," I said in a very small voice. "I'm sorry. But no."

"Jocelyn… you're putting me in a place I don't want to go, here," Uncle Ballard said. "If you refuse to do this, I'll have no choice but to send you home. We can't have this sort of argument in the field, you know that— don't make me do this, Jocelyn, please."

I stood for a moment, fighting my tears, lost that battle badly, and sobbed, "I'll g-go p-pack."

Absolute silence fell, one of those "I don't believe this" silences that are so uncomfortable that they're almost physically painful. I turned and started towards the room I was sharing with Colin, felt Royal's thoughts reaching for mine— I'd woken him up with my distress, one more thing to feel bad about.

"Wait, Jocelyn," Aunt Dawn said. "Just… wait a second honey, please?"

I stopped, but didn't look back, just stood there with my shoulders slumped. The door to our room opened— push-buttons, not knobs, very pseudo dragon friendly— and Royal arrowed out, landed in my arms, pressed his head to my cheek and sent a wave of absolute and unconditional love my way. It helped— but not enough. I still felt horrid, still knew that I was throwing away a lot of things I might never get back… but I couldn't do anything else. I wasn't fit to lead, I knew that, and if they couldn't see it, that was bad— but better this than getting someone killed.

I heard Aunt Dawn say, "Just… give me a few minutes with her, okay? Then we'll see. But I think… I think I can help her."

"Yes, all right," Uncle Ballard said. "Dawn… I'll have to follow through if you can't make her see sense."

"I know," Aunt Dawn said. Then she whispered something to him— to him and Aunt Rose, I guess, because both of them made "oh, yeah," noises.

"So you think he was right?" Uncle Ballard said, so softly that I almost missed it.

"Yes," Aunt Dawn said, also trying not to be heard. "Ballard, look at her— something's badly wrong, and whatever the cause is, the effect is exactly what Xander thought."

Aunt Rose said something in Chinese, then sighed softly and said, "Someday, Xander will be wrong. Hope I'm around to see it."

Aunt Dawn came to me, took me by one hand, letting me cradle Royal against my chest with the other, and led me to the little observation deck off of the living room of our suite. She pulled the curtain in front of the door behind us, so that no one inside could see us, then sat me down on the loveseat out there, looking out on space through the dome over the hotel. She leaned against the railing around the little balcony-like platform and her pseudo dragon friend, Sunset, perched on the rail a couple of feet to her left.

"Jocelyn," Aunt Dawn said, "we all know that something's been wrong with you for a while now, hurting you… and I think you know we know. Your dad, he brought the problem to the teaching staff, and they passed it around to all the adults who live at home, so that we'd understand if you were upset or made angry by something that you'd normally deal with easily— so no being mad at him, please?"

I nodded and kept cuddling Royal, stared out at the stars.

"So… we've reached the point where you have to at least try to explain, sweetheart," Aunt Dawn said. "Refusing to help in a situation like this… much as we all love you, that would have to go before the whole Council, we can't play favorites, Jocelyn, much as we might want to. If it goes before the Council and you can't explain yourself a lot better than you have so far… sweetie, they'll put you on inactive status for a long time… and maybe permanently.

"Please, Jocelyn… tell me what's wrong."

"I can't lead a team," I said. "That's all. I'm not fit to lead a team, even if it's just me and one other person. I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"I can't explain it." I looked out at the stars, wished I'd never come here and seen them like this, because it was costing me everything. "I'm sorry. I'll go p-pack."

"No, you really won't," Aunt Dawn said. "Jocelyn, you can go pack if you still feel that's how it has to be— after you've told me what's going on. Until then? You go nowhere. I'm witch enough to hold you right here until you tell me."

"You'll get hungry before me," I said— and Royal bit me!

*Stop it!* he sent while I was shaking my hand and staring at the tiny little bloody spots where his teeth had penetrated the skin. *Jocelyn, you know that I love you more than I love any other person of any shape in any universe— and sometimes, you have to tell those you love that they are being idiots!

*Now is one such time! You are being stupid and childish and stubborn and I truly wish that Angel and Faith were here to do this, because I'm sure they'd be much better at it than I am!

*Tell her! She wants to help, and given what she knows, she may be able to! TELL HER!*

I winced at that last telepathic shout, stared into the eyes of my best friend ever for a long moment— and burst into tears, full-bore sobs.

"I can't lead!" I cried. "I can't, Aunt Dawn, I'm not supposed to, it's not right!"

"Jocelyn, why?" Aunt Dawn asked. "Honey, why can't you lead? Why are you so… so insecure, all of the sudden? Where's the confident girl I remember, the one who shone every day of her training, who made us all so proud, and—"

"I was never meant to have the power!" I sobbed. "Aunt Dawn, I wasn't supposed to be a Slayer!"

"What!?" Aunt Dawn said, dropping to sit beside me and putting an arm around my shoulders. "What in the world are y—"

"I was never CHOSEN!" I cried. "Don't you get it? I got this power by accident, it was just— it wanted my Mom, and I just— got the power as a side effect!

"I was never Chosen, and I was never supposed to be a Slayer!"

Interlude: Normal, Illinois, the Penobscot house

"Oh, shit," Whitey Penobscot said, dropping the phone back into its charger beside the bed.

"What's wrong, darlin' man?" Gwendolyn asked, looking at him with worried eyes. "I heard you say Ballard's name— is something wrong up on Asimov Station?"

"That's an understatement," Whitey said, kissing Gwendolyn briefly before slipping out of bed and heading for the bureau to grab some clothes to throw on. "Jocelyn's had a meltdown, Gwendolyn— there's a vampire up on the Station and she's refused an order to lead a team to help track it down."

"Refused— she can't refuse!" Gwendolyn said. "She knows the rule, the first rule— in the field, a Slayer leads!"

"I guess Dawn's talking to her now," Whitey said. "I need to find Chantelle. Sorry, honey, but this is—"

"Get you gone!" Gwendolyn said. "She was plannin' on workin' with the young ones this mornin', she'll be over at Scooby Mansion."

"I remember," Whitey said. He shoved his feet in deck shoes, bent and kissed Gwendolyn, and left to find his first wife at a trot.

Chantelle stood at the end of a line of twenty-plus young Slayers armed with inexpensive fiberglass bows, each with an arrow nocked and drawn, pointing down range at targets pinned to bales of hay.

"Short range, no drop," Chantelle said, her voice carrying clearly to Whitey as he approached. "Remember, let the string roll off'n your fingers. And… loose!"

Twenty-odd arrows sailed down range, and each hit the target, if not in the bulls-eye or even the inner ring, all hit the circular target.

"Good shootin', ladies," Chantelle called. "Take five while I tell my husband good mornin'."

She couldn't have seen him, but Whitey had long since become accustomed to the sharpness of Slayer senses. Chantelle turned and kissed him greedily, then pulled back and said, "Uh-oh— what's wrong, Whitey?"

"Jocelyn's… honey, she's not hurt, but she's maybe in trouble," Whitey said. "There's a vampire on Asimov Station, and Ballard and company are going to help with it. He ordered Rose, Elaine and Jocelyn to lead teams— and Jocelyn refused. Multiple times, she refused."

"Aw, screw a goat," Chantelle said. "Whitey, if Ballard has to put this b'fore the Council, they'll bench her, sure as shit. Won't have no choice. What can we do?"

"Dawn's talking to her now," Whitey said, shaking his head in frustration. "She's good at this sort of thing— she felt inadequate for a long time, next to Buffy— so she may be able to reach Jocelyn. But I… Chantelle, do you think Xander's right? That this is about Jocelyn not ever having been actually Chosen?"

"I'm afraid I do," Chantelle said. She bit her lip for a moment, making her look like a troubled teenager, then said, "After seein' how our girl took to everything there is to bein' a Slayer so fast and easy, an' especially after that business with that vampire bastard Arminger, I… Whitey, I had some doubts of my own. I started wonderin' if the Scythe picked me just 'cause of Jocelyn, if it was her it wanted. I got past that, mostly thanks to Buffy bein' here right after. She talked to me, reminded me of how much I'd done, startin' with them H'lkordak demons over t'the mall, an' made me see how much help I been to the younger girls— got me past it.

"But it was there— an' I feel like a lot of kinds of dumbass for not expectin' this, not seein' that it was bound to come t'other way."

"Silly woman," Whitey said, and kissed her. "I've known you were a good choice since the first moment, and never doubted it for a second.

"Okay, let's find Giles and the others— can Lydia take over for you here?"

Lydia could, and once she'd been told what was going on she shooed Jocelyn's parents off to find the others and took over the archery class without any hesitation at all.

Five minutes later, Buffy, Xander, Giles, Kelly, Willow and Diane Hodges sat and listened while Whitey told them of his phone call from Ballard.

"Dear lord," Giles said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Jocelyn… oh, my dear girl, how could you be so bloody blind!?"

"She's fourteen, Giles," Xander said. "Insecure and stupid about it? Comes with the age."

"You still think this is about her not having ever been called, never actually being Chosen, honey?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, I do," Xander said. "Buffy— all of you— think about this. Jocelyn's fine for years, just fine— she's a sponge, sucking up everything we can teach her, excelling at every skill vital to Slayers. More importantly, she's smart— she thinks, she uses her head, she's not impulsive or stupid… and then the first Slayer from our kids gets called. Now, sure, Jocelyn performed okay the next couple of days, did a bang-up job of getting Mi Kyong out of that prison camp, okay, no argument. But it wasn't long after that that she started slipping."

"It was weeks before she… made a mistake at Alex's visitation," Willow said.

"No, there was slippage before then," Buffy said, nodding at Xander. "Willow, the morning… the morning after Alex was killed, when I went to get Whitey and Colin for our brainstorming session, I found Jocelyn shadowboxing. She was doing something— she was letting the wrong parts of the three martial arts she uses blend, and it wasn't new. I was too hurt to see it then, but what she was doing wrong, it was something at least a couple of weeks old. You don't make that kind of mistake that consistently overnight. She'd trained it into herself. Two weeks or ten days at minimum.

"And then she screwed up Whitey's simulations badly right after coming home— which is just a few days after the Scythe made Joyce one of us." Buffy shook her head. "No accident. Xander has done his usual."

"I agree," Diane said. "Xander, would you like to go into practice with me?"

"No, thanks," Xander said. "I'm a Watcher, Diane— that's who I want to be, and who I'm going to keep right on being."

"All right, we've identified the problem," Giles said. "Now what do we do about it?"

"That's not so easy," Diane said. "Sure, I know the magic is real— but I can't practice it. I don't even know much about it, past the fact that it's real.

"I can help her— but it will take time, and I'll need her here. In the meantime, I don't think you should push her to lead. If anything does go wrong, it'll destroy her."

"Oh, damn," Chantelle said. "Willow, isn't there someth—"

The door to the library opened, and in marched Belinda Penobscot, the older of Jocelyn's sisters. She wore a knee-length T-shirt nightie, bunny slippers, and her dragon friend Midnight draped around her neck. The irises of her eyes, the same icy blue as her father's, had all but swallowed her pupils, which were pinpricks of black. Gwendolyn Reece came right behind her, wearing a robe over skin and looking worried.

"You must accept the Guardian's solution," Belinda said in a voice that seemed to virtually thunder with command, though it wasn't all that loud. "She will have a stopgap solution. Jocelyn must learn that she was Chosen as much as her mother… and she will. The time will come.

"Until that time, you must let her deal with things as best she can. Help as you can, but take no drastic measures. All will ride on the choice of the Scythe… and on those it chooses twice. Also those it will choose for the first time… though it will be their second Choosing.

"The star in human form will need to reclaim his identity. He is Starpulse, and he must accept that. He will risk all to save many… and his fate we cannot see, for only partly of this world is he.

"Your enemies are three… and not three. One… is… many…."

Belinda trailed off, and her whole body shook for a second— then her pupils dilated to normal size, and she looked around.

"Mommy?" she said in a slightly scared voice. "Daddy? I think… I had another vision. Did I tell you…?"

"You told us, babydoll," Chantelle said, holding her arms out for Belinda, who ran to her for a hug. As the girl turned to hug Whitey, Chantelle stroked her hair and said, "You told us— and you helped, Belinda. You helped us, an' you helped Jocelyn."

"You did good, girl-o'-mine," Whitey said, and kissed her forehead. "You okay?"

"I feel… funny." Belinda shook her head and said, "Like after I had champagne at Felicia and Sam's wedding."

"Vision inebriation, wonderful," Whitey said wryly. "Okay, sweetie— you go back to the house with Gwendolyn and get cleaned up— I'll be over soon to fix breakfast."

"Okay, Daddy," Belinda said. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything too important."

"Belinda, don't be silly," Giles said, looking up from the pad where he had quickly and carefully written down every word that Belinda had said during her vision. "You've done quite a bit to help us— you may interrupt us so at any time, young lady. Please do, in fact."

"Okay, thanks, Giles," Belinda said, looking more relaxed. "See you at breakfast, Daddy."

"Thanks for coming with her, Gwendolyn," Whitey said while Belinda kissed her mother goodbye.

"Never a problem, I say," Gwendolyn said. "See you soon."

Belle and Gwendolyn left, and Giles heaved a sigh of relief. "All right," he said. "I know that Belinda said things that are not germane to the immediate situation, but I should like to concentrate on the immediate for now.

"It sounds to me as though either Sh'rin or Dawn— most likely Dawn, given that she is now Chief of the Guardians— will come up with a solution that will serve our immediate needs of… finding help for Jocelyn without forcing upon us the need of putting her before the entire Council for disciplinary action— thank the Powers for that. Then we simply do what we can to help her… and wait."

"That waitin', that sounds like a major pain in my pretty butt," Chantelle said. She pushed her hair out of her face, looked around and added, "I know— she's bein' crazy, and it's dumb, but she's my little girl, an' I hate not bein' able to fix this for her right the hell now."

"The perils of parenting," Kelly said. "But… hurt, scared, being a loon and all, Jocelyn is tough where it counts, Chantelle. She'll be okay."

"She better be," Chantelle said, smiling a little. "She ain't, I'll ground her for a month."

"And on that note," Giles said, "Let us move on to the matter of Colin, and what Belinda's vision says about him— and how we can best increase his chances of coming out the other side of whatever risk he will take whole and healthy…."

Jocelyn:

Aunt Dawn stared at me like I'd lost my mind for a long moment, then said, "Oh, spirits of Air and Fire! Jocelyn how in the world can you think that? That's— that's past nuts and into seriously ape-shit-donkey-screw-barking-cat insane!

"Sweetie, you're a Slayer, and that's exactly how it was meant to be!"

"No!" I cried, shaking my head violently enough to send tears flying in the low gravity. "No, I'm an accident! It wasn't me, it was Mom! It Chose Autumn, and it Chose Joyce, but the Scythe never Chose me! I'm just… just a st-stupid accident!"

Aunt Dawn dropped to sit beside me, grabbed me and pulled me close, not letting me resist her, even. She'd had some experience at comforting Slayers in pain who didn't want comfort— when Aunt Rose's younger sister, Laurie, got killed two years before in a stupid traffic accident, it was Aunt Dawn who managed to force her to stop beating the shit out of the big old maple tree behind their house and accept some comfort— and once she had me pulled close and in her arms, I lost the will to resist. I leaned against her, cradled Royal, and sobbed for… a while. I don't know how long.

"Jocelyn, you're wrong," Aunt Dawn said. "I know. I know, okay? I'm the Chief of the Guardians, honey, I know how they thought, how the parts of themselves that they put into the Scythe still think— and they don't allow accidents like that. Every choice is weighed and measured, and there are no accidents."

"No?" I said, not looking at her. "No accidents?

"Then how do you explain Claudia Steele, Aunt Dawn? Or Heidi Kauffman? Or N'daré Otumwara? They all went crazy and killed people! If those weren't accidents, what were they?"

"Mistakes," Aunt Dawn said. "They were mistakes. Their lives took turns that the Scythe somehow failed to see, and it made mistakes. There may be others. There are what, thirty active and fully trained Slayers without pseudo dragon companions? Girls that the other pseudo dragons don't like, and can't— or won't— say why they don't like them? One or more of those girls may yet go wrong— but we can hope not.

"The ones you mentioned were mistakes, Jocelyn. Not accidents."

"So how do you know I wasn't a mistake?" I asked. "How do you know I wasn't one of those mistakes, that the Scythe didn't make one its rare mistakes in its eagerness to have Mom as a Slayer?"

"I know," Aunt Dawn said, and kissed my cheek. "I know, Jocelyn. I know because I've known you for your whole life. I've seen you at your worst— new high on that, today, but still and all, not that bad— and I've seen you at your best. I've watched you chase after every one of us who could teach you something that might make you a better Slayer and bug us until we taught you. I've seen you fight as part of a team of newbies, and outshine every one of them, even girls older and technically better trained than you. I've seen your Dad, who never hesitates to tell someone when they screw up, even someone he loves, glow with pride over what you've done right.

"I've never had the privilege of seeing you fight solo— but I don't need to. I know from your father's reports and from Vincent's report on the Korea thing that you are a Slayer. You were born to the power, and it was a choice that none of us have ever doubted.

"We never had to tell you that you needed training. You came to us. We never had to drag you to class, you were always early. We never had to tell you to practice— we had to tell you to stop.

"Buffy respects you, Jocelyn. Buffy! The Prime! She thinks you're amazing, that you have the potential to be better than her, and no one's ever been as good as she is, let alone better.

"So how in the hell does that become an accident, let alone a mistake?"

I didn't answer, just cried for a bit. Aunt Dawn didn't push, just held me and rocked me, kissed my cheek and my hair, loved me as surely and strongly as Royal. After a while, I managed to slow my crying enough to speak.

"I still can't know," I whisper-wept. "Everything you say makes sense, I guess… but I can't know. I never will know, and I… it scares me!"

"Being scared is fine," Aunt Dawn said. "Not fine is—"

"Letting scared determine what you do," I said with her, completing one of Daddy's favorite sayings.

"Yeah, that's it," Aunt Dawn said. She looked at me, smiled a little, and said, "Jocelyn… you know that there's a reason that a Slayer has to be in charge in the field, don't you?"

"I… because Giles and Buffy never want it to go back to how it was before the Battle of the First," I said, pillowing my head on her shoulder in resignation. "They want it to be the Slayer in charge because that way the Watchers can never get so stupid again. And because… because we're the ones who will die first, if there's dying to be done."

"Yeah," Aunt Dawn said. "That's about it, sweetheart.

"Can you lead? Can you go in there and do what has to be done?

"Please, Jocelyn?"

"I'll be… scared to death." I sat up, reached to a little table that sat next to the loveseat and grabbed a handful of tissues. "I'll… can you make Uncle Ballard send you with me? Please? I can't— Aunt Dawn, I can't say all that again, not now. And I need… I need someone who knows."

"I can do that," Aunt Dawn said. She smiled, then, that slow, sweet smile that makes you feel like you're the center of the universe, and said, "But remember, busty and big hips, here— you'll be stuck with the tight spaces."

That actually surprised a laugh out of me. A couple of minutes later, when I had my breathing under control and my face clean, we got up and went inside.

"I'm sorry," I said to Uncle Ballard immediately. "I'll… lead a team. I can't explain again why… why I don't want to, not right now. But I'll do it."

"Okay," Uncle Ballard said with an explosive sigh. "Okay, kiddo. Thank you."

"One thing," Aunt Dawn said. "As your wife, I'd like to let you do things your way, dear sir, but as the Chief of the Guardians, I'm going to pull rank. I'm with Jocelyn."

"Yeah, sure, take the one person most likely to kill a vampire before it can even get close," Uncle Ballard said. "Cheater.

"But, okay. I'll take Elaine— we're the best in zero and micro-gravity, we'll work the hub and its immediate environs. Rose and Sh'rin have ring and spokes from radius zero to radius one-eighty, and Jocelyn, you and Dawn have the ring and spokes from radius one-eighty to radius three-sixty. When Elaine and I finish, if we're done before you guys— good possibility— we'll split up and join your teams. Jocelyn, which do you want, me or Elaine?"

"I'm gonna go with Aunt Elaine," I said, hoping Uncle Ballard wouldn't be offended. "Um… can I pass the leader hat to her when she catches up?"

"You two can hash that out between you," Uncle Ballard said. "I'll just sell tickets if it comes to a fight.

"Okay, here's the schematics…."

Uncle Ballard talked us all through our search patterns, and I pretended not to notice Aunt Dawn slipping off to their room to use the phone to call down to Earth. After all, she was helping me— least I could do is pretend not to notice her telling my parents what was up.