To the Power Born: A Tale of the Slayers
Part 34: Solution: Elementary
Buffy looked at Pointy, her pseudo dragon friend, and said, "Relay to all, Pointy; Jocelyn and Chantelle are in position. On their signal or on shouting from inside the gym, we go. Demons go down first, then terrorists. Acknowledge."
All Slayers and support personnel answered in the affirmative, and Buffy sent us the go signal.
Mom and I had positioned ourselves for what we did next, up in the ceiling beams with safety lines and harnesses affixed to the beams, and Tracer and Ripley had contacted pseudo dragons in the crowd, companions of some of the hostages, and they were sending us views of the exact positions of the terrorists— and their bombs.
Simultaneously, coordinating through our pseudo dragon friends, Mom and I dropped to hang by our knees from the beams we'd been crouching on. We took a few seconds to get used to the position and the view, then I let Mom count us down, the count relayed silently through Tracer.
*Three… two… one, throw!*
The two crazy-discs I had cocked and ready left my hands and hissed their way down towards my targets even as Willow's force field spell took effect and made sure the crowd wouldn't be hurt even if Mom and I missed.
We didn't. Both of us hit exactly where we'd aimed, and the four wires that connected the bombs' detonators to the blasting caps in the four bundles of C4 cut neatly, rendering the bombs useless.
*NOW!* Tracer shouted mentally to all points.
I dropped my excess safety line to the floor, grabbed it and dropped off the beam to slide down the line to the floor in perfect synch with Mom— even as Buffy and Piper kicked in one set of chained-up doors and Aunt Rose and Aunt Elaine kicked in the other.
Eleven Slayers, two armed and pissy Watchers, one Guardian/Watcher and a Guardian poured into the room, and Willow drifted in behind them, floating a foot or so off of the ground and watching for trouble that needed her magical expertise to put down.
We put down the demons first (though Aamira Nazari only kicked one silly on her way to her most-hated targets) and fairly quickly, and Aamira and Kelly put the four terrorists on the ground, Aamira getting three of them, beating them brutally (but not fatally) while swearing at them in Arabic, and Kelly, two years shy of fifty years old— in excellent shape, but still, forty-eight years old— beat the last one down with a pair of brass knuckles and a nightstick (to his knife and pistol). She's just too cool for words!
It had almost ended when one of the two still-standing T'lakren demons decided to make a play for hurting us.
The demon forced Aunt Rose and Aunt Elaine back by roaring out a truly HUGE gout of flame from his mouth— and while they were still recovering from the emergency dodges, the demon clasped his hands together, breathed fire into them, channeled more in from his hands— and flung the resultant ball of superheated gases (or maybe plasma, I'm not sure) at the downed terrorist that lay between Buffy, Kelly, Mom, me and Aamira.
That much sudden heat and the concussion wave as the air expanded when the ball hit the terrorist was enough to set off the C4 he had strapped to his body. Buffy, Kelly, Mom, Aamira and I would have died, very probably, if not for Aunt Dawn.
Aunt Dawn had long ago— before I was even born— worked out a way to deliver spells that required a diagram to a distant target, and she used one now, pulled a Frisbee (with a spell diagram drawn on it and cut into it) from the waistband of her pants at the back, flung it at the terrorist, and, as it passed over him just as the fireball from the demon hit him, shouted the last syllable needed to release the spell that the Frisbee carried the diagram for.
The explosion was mostly contained, and we five were only bowled over and knocked around some— I've been hurt worse sparring, really— but the explosion didn't seem to want to stop. It kept roiling inside Aunt Dawn's containment circle, heat and flame escaping from the top, and I saw Aunt Dawn's eyes go wide with shock.
"DOWN!" she shouted, tackling Kelly and rolling away from the circle of fiery energy. "WILLOW! SOMETHING'S WRONG!"
The spell didn't fail, not exactly— but a part of it collapsed, shot a gout of fire and… and bricks, what the hell? There were no bricks anywhere near the contained bomb, just a wooden floor!
The fire and bricks shot out maybe twenty feet, didn't hurt anyone— and then a human figure shot out, flew maybe ten feet, landed on its feet, stagger-ran a few steps, coughed hard and harsh, and fell to its knees.
Willow had started a second protective spell— but even as the guy who'd come out of the explosive mess tried to straighten up, I saw something dark, solid-looking and big sort of… well, it seemed to be growing in the center of the fire, or maybe more like… coming out of the fire, only the fire would have had to be incredibly deep, much deeper than the ten foot circle of Aunt Dawn's spell.
Screw the impossibility, no time to think about it. Instead I sprinted across the floor, eyes on the guy who'd knelt there with his hands on his knees, still coughing, and I tackled him— just as the shape burst out of the gap in Aunt Dawn's spell.
A freaking car, an old, antique car, on fire and tumbling end-over-end, slammed through the space where the person I'd tackled had been just a half a second before, bounced once on the gym floor— and jerked to a halt in mid-tumble, crashed to the floor maybe ten feet from the force field (which was, fortunately, opaque, to keep people from freaking out if the T'lakren breathed fire their way, or something).
I looked back and saw a thick strand of webbing running from Piper's right hand to the underside of the car, another strand from her left hand to an anchor-point on Willow's force field. Even as I looked back, Piper sort of… flicked her hands, and the webbing dropped. Awesome!
Willow, in the meantime, was chanting a spell. She gestured as she said the last syllable— and Aunt Dawn's circle and the fire within it… went away.
For a long moment, no one said a thing— then Aunt Dawn said, "What the hell was that!?"
The guy I'd tackled was moving, trying to get out of the grip of my arms, and I let him— only it wasn't a him, the clothes (heavy pants, a dress shirt and [Giles would be SO happy!] a tweed jacket) had fooled me. The English driving cap fell off her head, let a long, thick braid of black hair fall free, and the dirty, soot-covered face that looked at me in shock was feminine, if not heavily so.
Blue eyes, pale and shocked, locked on mine, and the girl said, in a raspy, choking voice, "What the bloody hell just happened, Miss? Am I… where am I?"
"Uh, the Shirk Center at Wesleyan University," I said.
"In Connecticut!? America!? That's impossible!" she said, her clipped British tones making her sound more insulted than shocked.
"Well, no, not Connecticut," I said, sitting up and waving Aunt Dawn over to check the girl over. "In Illinois. Bloomington, Illinois. But, yeah— America."
"Illinois," the girl said. She coughed, stood and looked around. "I see.
"I'm unconscious, then. Delirious. Odd, I wouldn't have thought I'd be aware of it.
"Or perhaps I'm dead? No, this certainly isn't… extreme enough for any sort of afterlife, regardless of my destination.
"But this certainly isn't London, and… what on Earth…?"
She'd spotted one of the dead T'lakren demons nearby, and now she walked towards it, unsteady on her feet, but still making a reasonably straight line. Aunt Dawn veered to intercept her and I stood to follow, but the British girl sort of… shifted her weight and her shoulders, and Aunt Dawn failed to catch her. It was a neat little move, and I decided to try and work it out for myself later.
The girl dropped to one knee a couple of feet from the dead T'lakren, reached out slowly and brushed her fingers over the leathery, almost scaly red hide of its shoulder. Immediately, she jerked her fingers back and swore softly (T'lakren have a body temperature of around two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and this one hadn't had a lot of time to cool down yet), then looked up at me as I stopped beside her.
"That," she said, nodding at the demon corpse, "is not some sort of prop, is it?"
"No, it's a dead demon," I said, confused as hell. Surely she knew about demons and such, everyone did!
"Bloody hell," she said again, her voice almost weak. "There were rumors of course… the Thule Society, the whole Nazi fascination with the occult, but I never would have believed…."
" 'Nazi fascination'— oh, crap," I said. "Miss, what year is it?"
"What— it's nineteen forty-one, of course!" she said, looking at me as thought I'd lost my mind.
"Oh, boy," I said. "Um, Aunt Dawn?"
She looked at me, then at the girl, and said, "It's probably best to just tell her, Jocelyn."
I never got the chance. The girl's eyes had been roving over me and around the room since I asked her what the year was, and now she said, "Oh, damnation. How far? How far have I come? What year is it?"
"How did you know –?" I started.
"Your watch, those weapons you carry, your shoes, the lights, this lady's clothing, and— good heavens!" She stopped and stared, her mouth open in an O of surprise, as Ripley flew down from the rafters and landed on my shoulder. "That… is a… very small… dragon."
"She's a pseudo dragon, actually," I said, not having any clue what else to say. "Different species, they never get bigger than three, three and a half feet long, and they're very friendly, as well as intelligent. Her name is Ripley."
"I… oh, damn, Mother would be so ashamed of me," she said, taking a long, shuddering breath. "I am rather afraid that I'm going… to…."
She fainted, and I caught her before she hit her head on the floor.
"Okay, let me check her over before we move her," Aunt Dawn said, moving to take her pulse and check her pupils, even as the others started cleaning up under Buffy's command (and trying to keep one eye on us while they did so).
(Also, Willow made Piper's webbing vanish— she'd acted in public as Spider-woman once, we didn't want people figuring out that she was one of us.)
Aunt Dawn finished her examination, said, "Shock. A mild concussion— probably from before she came through. Some first degree burns, a couple of second degree burns, nothing horrible.
"Willow? Come here, please?"
Willow drifted over, and Aunt Dawn said, "Wil, I think I want to get this girl out of here without the cops noticing. She's… not from around here, and she does not need our legal system trying to deal with her. Can you get her, me, Jocelyn and Sh'rin out through the roof and home?"
"Let me check with Buffy," Willow said, and looked Buffy's way. She turned, and I knew Wil was talking to her telepathically. After a moment, Buffy nodded firmly, waved at us, and Willow said, "She agrees. Let's go."
Willow grabbed me, the girl, Aunt Dawn and Aunt Sh'rin in her telekinesis, and flew us out through the roof access, then back to Buffy and Xander's house, since they had lots of spare rooms right now.
As soon as we'd been dropped off, Wil flew back to the Shirk Center to enact her personalized punishment on the three remaining human terrorists.
Interlude: Shirk Center, Illinois Wesleyan University
Willow returned to the big sports center to find Buffy and the others explaining what had happened, going over the limited video with the police and FBI. Fortunately, the video showed the demon killing the one terrorist who'd died, and (just as fortunately) the video feed had been interrupted by the explosion, so there was no footage of the Scooby Gang's new visitor available to the police. With Willow's force field having been opaque to keep the civilians behind it from panicking over what they might see, no one had seen her, so the police didn't know about her.
Willow landed near where several FBI agents and policemen stood next to an FBI van that contained the prisoners, and she saw Buffy coming over, the rest following her as she came, wanting to see what Willow intended to do.
"Um, excuse me, Special Agent… Sparks?" Willow said, getting the man's name from the ID that hung from his breast pocket. "Could I ask a little favor?"
Special Agent Sparks came over to Willow and shook her hand immediately, said, "Nice job with protecting the hostages, Miss Rosenberg. Of course you can ask your favor, though I can't promise to deliver."
"That's okay, I think you'll like this," Willow said.
She explained the unusual punishment that she wanted to inflict on the terrorists, and the man knew enough about Islam not to need the rationale explained to him. For a long moment after Willow finished speaking, he simply stared at her, his mouth open in shock— then he laughed, a short, sharp bark of a laugh.
"Yes, I can see how very… fitting that is," he said. He shook his head a little in admiration, then said, "I should probably say no— really, I should. But… well, sometimes you have to take a risk, and I'm due to retire next month anyway.
"Go ahead— but could you add a little rider to your suggestion for me?"
He told her what he wanted, and Willow nodded, liking his idea. "That's good. It makes this even more of what they deserve."
They went to the van, and Special Agent Sparks opened it for Willow. The three terrorists looked at her in blatant fear, and their fear didn't diminish when they saw the Slayers, Watchers and Guardians gather behind her and the FBI agent.
"Hi, guys," Willow said. She pulled a piece of heavy, tough crystal out of her pocket, blew on it, and it started to glow. The three Arabic men muttered and tried to lean away from her. "I have some things to tell you, then… then I'm going to express my religious freedom.
"Okay, all of you look at the crystal, now!"
Almost unwillingly, the three men did look at the glowing crystal, and Willow recited a short spell as they did so. Once the men had succumbed to the effect of the spell, Willow said, "Okay, here are your geasa; first, you will never again harm a human being, regardless of their race, religion or sexual orientation. Second, you will never, ever make any effort to do yourselves harm or end your own lives, including by simple inaction— you're to make every effort to live as long as you can, except where it conflicts with the first geas. Third… you're to answer honestly and completely any question put to you by any member of the FBI or other law enforcement agency.
"Understand?"
All three men said (in thick, gluey voices) that they understood, and Willow wrapped the glowing crystal in her hand, extinguishing it. She then wrapped the crystal in a heavy bandanna and tucked it in her pocket.
"How long will that last?" Special Agent Sparks asked.
"Until they die or the crystal is destroyed," Willow said smugly. She grinned and added, "When we go home, I'll box the crystal up with lots of tissue paper and Styrofoam peanuts, then put it in the vault we use to store things we want to keep safe. They'll die of old age long before it gets broken."
"And the other thing?" Special Agent Sparks said, wanting to be sure. "That's temporary?"
"Forty-eight hours," Willow said, grinning. "Long enough for you to get them to a place where other jihad-fanatic-types can see when they turn back."
"All right, then go for it," Sparks said, and stepped back.
"Hey, terrorist guys?" Willow said, smiling brightly at them. "I know that you're sitting there thinking that what you did was all right-thing-to-do and brave and insured you'll get into heaven, because that's how dummies like you interpret the words of the prophet, which, by the way, really don't say that, Mohammed was a gentle man and would hate what you're doing.
"Well… you guys made me sorta cranky. I don't want any more of that from you, or anyone else, so I'm afraid that you three are about to be made into an example of what you get when you try to kill innocent people.
"You know how your religion teaches you that some animals— pigs, for example— are totally unclean? Well, my religion teaches me that those who would murder innocent people to achieve political goals are totally, irredeemably unclean. Since you guys are unclean in my eyes, I think it's time everyone sees just how unclean you are— especially the people who think like you."
Willow lifted a few inches off of the pavement, raised her arms in a supplicating gesture while chanting a spell— and when she shouted the last syllable of her spell, three flashes of flight came from within the van. A moment later, three horrified… squeals came from inside the van.
Where there had been three human terrorists now stood three pigs, struggling to get free of the badly-fitting clothing that entangled their new shapes, squealing in blind, panicked terror— and Willow smiled cheerfully at them as she closed the door of the van on them.
She turned to face the Scoobies and law-enforcement people behind her— and was met with a wave of applause and cheering that nearly deafened her.
"Remind me never to make you mad!" Special Agent Sparks said as he shook her hand again. "We'll get them to a prison that has a lot more Islamic-extremist terrorists in it, make sure that they're all watching when these three turn back to human— and be triply sure that those whose sentences are nearly up— they only attempted acts of terrorism, didn't succeed— see it… so that they can spread the word."
Willow nodded, smiled, and went home with Buffy and the others, smiling a quiet little smile of satisfaction.
She'd thought long and hard about doing that— in the eyes of those men, she had doomed them to the darkest of hells, made them so unclean that they could never hope to enter paradise. But… like the Goddess, the Lord and Lady, Jesus and so many other figures in whom humans had faith, Allah was great at forgiving. If those men truly repented their actions before they died, they could still go to their version of paradise.
That made what she'd done acceptable in the eyes of her Goddess— that and the possibility that she had saved lives by throwing a new fear in the faces of those who might be tempted to play terrorist in the future.
Willow snuggled up to her wife's side and relaxed for the rest of the ride home.
Jocelyn:
Aunt Dawn had me carry our inadvertent guest up to a room on the second floor after a brief consultation with Xander (who was very pleased to be proven right about the wisdom of extra rooms so very soon). I laid her on the bed and waited to see if I'd be allowed to stay. Neither Aunt Dawn nor Aunt Sh'rin said anything about me leaving, so I simply sat down in a chair to one side and watched as they checked the girl over. They stripped her, needing to check for burns, cuts and bad bruises, but I decided to look away for that— after all, this girl had a really different set of morals than I did, coming from seventy-seven years in the past, and might be really, deeply embarrassed by people who weren't… healers, they weren't doctors, seeing her nude.
"Her clothes are very odd," Aunt Sh'rin said. "Especially her underclothes."
"You were probably too busy to hear, Sh'rin," Aunt Dawn said. "She's not from this time— she's from seventy-plus years ago. Things were pretty different back then. Not anywhere near as different as things were for you, but… different."
"The poor girl," Sh'rin said. "Perhaps it will not be so hard for her to adapt."
"Well, she won't be afraid of cars, at least," Aunt Dawn said in a light, teasing voice. Then she actually giggled and corrected herself. "Unless she rides in one that Buffy's driving, anyway.
"English is her native tongue, too, by her accent. But still… lots to learn, to adapt to. If we can't send her back, at least, or discover that we shouldn't."
They worked quietly for a little bit, putting homemade ointments on the girl's burns and a few small cuts, bandaged her where she needed it, then got her back into the camisole and underpants (long in the legs, almost like bloomers) she'd been wearing. After that, Aunt Sh'rin looked at me and said, "There was nothing in her pockets but what Dawn says is money of the country England, no identification or anything, Jocelyn, so we haven't a name for this girl yet. You saved her from the car-thing that passed through that spell, would you like to stay and help us tell her what has happened to her?"
"Yes, please," I said. I stretched, shifted position, then stood. "But I'm going to get something to drink— what can I get for you two?"
I got drinks for us, and some bottled water for when the girl woke up, then went back up and sat to wait for her to wake, talking quietly with Aunt Sh'rin and Aunt Dawn. After about an hour, the girl sat up very suddenly, looked around, saw the three of us and our pseudo dragons and said softly, "Damnation. Not a dream, then."
"No, not a dream," Aunt Dawn agreed. She stood and went to the bed (leaving Sunset on the couch so as not to make our guest more nervous), sat beside the girl and reached for her arm to check her pulse. The girl saw the motion and proffered her arm. Aunt Dawn took her pulse and asked, "How are you feeling?"
"Bit of a headache," the girl admitted. "A faint ringing in my ears— I suspect that is from noise, not a concussion— and rather stiff. No sharp pains, and I'd expected some, after that fire."
"We treated you for burns, concussion, a few cuts and scrapes," Aunt Dawn said. "Do your ears hurt, or is it just the ringing?"
"Just the ringing, and it's diminished from… earlier," the girl said. She glanced around, saw me, and immediately said, "Thank you, Miss. That automobile would surely have killed me, had you not knocked me aside."
"You're welcome," I said, standing. I saw the girl's eyes track on Ripley, looking a mixture of curious, delighted, and slightly apprehensive. I walked to the edge of the bed, stopped without reaching for the girl, and said, "You might remember my friend Ripley, here, and I'm Jocelyn Penobscot. The lady taking care of you is my Aunt— by friendship, not blood— Dawn Innes, and her helper sitting over there is my aunt-by-friendship Sh'rin Innes. May I ask your name?"
"Of course, I'm sorry," the girl said, and offered me her hand as she continued. "I'm Judith Holmes, and— are you quite all right?"
I'd inadvertently frozen in place, staring at the girl wide-eyed and in shock.
"Judith… Holmes?" I said slowly.
"Yes, that is what I said," the girl said. "Perhaps you should sit down, Miss Penobscot."
"Call me Jocelyn, please," I said, still not moving, even though Aunt Dawn had come around to stand beside me and had placed a hand on my forehead to check if I had a fever. "Your name… your full name… is it Judith Jane Holmes?"
"Yes, it is," Judith Holmes said, looking a little wary. "How did you know that?"
I let go of her hand and sat on the floor. Just… plopped right down, mostly because my legs wouldn't keep me up anymore.
"Jocelyn?" Aunt Dawn said, kneeling beside me and taking my pulse. "Honey, what's wrong?"
"I… shock," I said. I looked at Aunt Dawn and saw how awful I must look in her worried expression. "I'm in shock, I think. Because… because now I know how Uncle Ballard felt when he met Colin, Aunt Dawn."
It took a second for Aunt Dawn to work it out— then her eyes went wide.
"Is it… like the Battle of Bloomington?" she asked. "The Matrix people, the Jedi knights, the Amberites?"
"Yes, just like that," I said. I nodded stupidly and repeated, "Just like that."
"Excuse me, but might I know why my identity shocks you so?" Judith said from the edge of the bed, where she'd moved to sit (with a sheet draped across her legs and held across her chest for modesty's sake).
I looked helplessly at Aunt Dawn, and she said, "Judith… that's a hard question to answer, and you may have a hard time believing it."
"I've already traveled god only knows how far into the future," Judith said in an exceedingly dry voice. "After that, I'm afraid that most other things will fail to be unbelievable, Mrs. Innes."
"Just Dawn, please," Aunt Dawn said. "How did you know I'm married? I took my ring off for the fight earlier, haven't put it back on yet."
"There is a pale stripe of skin where it usually rests," Judith said, even as I said, "She saw the wedding-ring-tan."
" 'Wedding-ring-tan,' yes, I like that," Judith agreed. "How did you know I'd spotted that, though?"
"Because you can't help it," I said through numb lips. "You are the daughter of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, after all."
Aunt Dawn turned and gawped at me.
Judith recoiled just a bit, then said, "I did something worthy of attention in my own time, then? Then you shall have to help me return."
"I don't know about that," I said, feeling almost drunk with shock. "In the books about your parents, you're only four years old, so far."
" 'Books about my parents'— oh, of course, history books," Judith said, though she sounded a little uneasy.
"No, Judith," Aunt Dawn said, standing and pulling me up. "I'm afraid it's… more weird than that."
"Judith," I said, pulling a chair over to sit in front of her. "Judith, have you ever heard the phrase 'parallel worlds?' Or maybe 'alternate Earths?' "
"Yes, I've read most of the works of H. G. Wells, including Men Like Gods, in which several men traveled to what Mr. Wells called Utopia, which he referred to as a parallel world," Judith said. She made a face and said "I much prefer his earlier works."
"Okay," I said, sighing and pushing my hair back. "Judith, parallel worlds are real. They exist. In fact, the Utopia of that book… it probably exists somewhere. We know that parallel worlds are real, we've met people from parallel worlds on more than one occasion. Heck, my boyfriend hails from one parallel world, and my— another friend is from still another alternate Earth.
"Thing is… apparently, writers of fiction sometimes… their ideas seem to come from these parallel worlds. Maybe all the time, I don't know.
"What I'm trying to say… oh, damn."
"I'm from a piece of fiction you've read, is that it?" Judith asked, her eyes growing wide.
"I… yes," I said. I couldn't think of a way to soften that statement, honestly. "Yes, you are. The books I've read were more about your parents and their partnership, but… later in the series, along you came.
"But like I said, in the latest of the books that have been published, you're only four."
"Oh, damn," Judith said softly. She slumped a little bit, shook her head, and said, "I don't suppose you own these books? That I might… see them?"
"I own them," I said. "All of them, they're among my favorites. But seeing them… let me ask a lady who's staying with us right now, she's a psychiatrist and psychologist, before I commit to that, okay?"
"That seems… reasonable, yes," Judith agreed. "I'm… damn. What is the year? That I might at least know how far into the future I've come, if not… what world this is."
That I decided she could know, would find out on her own if I didn't tell her. "It's two thousand eighteen," I said. "Early September. Sunday the second, in fact."
"All right," Judith said. "It was March the second and a Sunday, whence I came.
"Seventy-seven and a half years and a world away. Dear lord, this may take some getting used to.
"Might I borrow a housecoat? I think I need a water closet."
Aunt Sh'rin looked puzzled, but Aunt Dawn at least knew the old fashioned term for bathroom, and went to ask Xander about borrowing something of Buffy's for Judith. While Aunt Dawn was gone, Ripley decided that Judith was in pain, and being young and not so aware of the why of the pain as the other pseudo dragons, not realizing that the shock of seeing her was at least part of the problem, she decided to go and help.
She did it right, though, didn't just go and land on Judith's lap or shoulder. Instead, she flew to the bed, landed a few inches from Judith's leg, and burbled a sound that those of us who knew pseudo dragons recognized as, "Can I help you feel better?"
Judith looked sideways at Ripley, quirked a small, slantwise smile that I knew she'd gotten from her mother, and tentatively reached over to stroke Ripley's head. "Ripley, wasn't it? You certainly are a cute little thing— who'd have thought something built along reptilian lines could manage cuteness?"
Judith looked a little surprised as Ripley flap-hopped to her lap, but didn't seem put out. As Ripley settled on her leg, feet all tucked under herself like a cat, Judith chuckled, and ran a delicate finger down the length of Ripley's head, neck and back. "And you know you're cute, I can— good heavens!" She started, then looked down at Ripley and up at me. "She… spoke to me. Mentally, I mean."
"Pseudo dragons are telepathic and empathic," I said. "They read thoughts and emotions, and can project both as well."
"This is going to take a bit of getting used to," Judith said, shaking her head ruefully. "However, you may rest assured, Ripley— I like you, too."
Ripley answered by starting to purr, and Judith sat there and stroked her silently, a little smile playing around her lips, until Aunt Dawn came in with a robe for her, then went to Aunt Sh'rin and gently turned her around even as I turned around myself. (Aunt Sh'rin, not much on body modesty to begin with, saw no reason for there to be any modesty at all between healer and patient.) Ripley flapped back over to my shoulder, and Judith stood up and put on the robe.
"Is that the door to the water closet on the far wall?" she asked, and we all turned back around.
I managed not to laugh at the sight of her in Buffy's robe. Buffy's five-two, and Judith stands five-ten (not surprising, her mother was tall, and so was her father). I said, "Yes, that's the bathroom. Water closet."
"Thank you," Judith said, and disappeared into the room.
I dropped back to the chair I'd been using, shook my head violently, and sighed. "This is just… weird. How did Uncle Ballard handle it?"
"A lot like you are," Aunt Dawn said, and Aunt Sh'rin laughed and nodded as she continued. "Shook his head a lot, bemoaned the weirdness, then pulled himself together and told us what he knew about our guest."
"Uh, point," I said. I looked at the closed bathroom door and said, "Short form; Laurie R. King has written twelve novels featuring Mary Russell, a British-American Jewish lady who, at fifteen, while living with an aunt in Sussex, England after her parents death, met a semi-retired Sherlock Holmes one day while wandering the countryside. They spoke, she startled him with her intelligence and powers of observation, he took her under his wing as an apprentice. Six years later, after she reached her legal majority and had proven herself fit to be Holmes's partner in investigations, they were forced by circumstances to acknowledge that they had fallen in love. They married in 1921, solved many cases together, and, after returning from San Francisco in 1924 and solving an immediately-entangling case, Mary discovered that she was pregnant. In March of 1925, Mary gave birth to their daughter, named Judith Jane for Mary's mother and Sherlock's best friend, John Watson. The girl is four by the twelfth book, and already exhibiting signs of having her parents' intellectual capacity, speaking and reading English at the level of a freshman in high school, and has already exhibited a talent for and love of music. Already played the tin whistle, was learning the piano. And that, I'm afraid, is all I know. The novels haven't caught up with when Judith came from.
"Oh— and no acknowledgment of the supernatural at all in the books."
"Anyone else in the family read the books?" Aunt Dawn asked.
"Mom has, and Stephen's read the first couple, is on my copy of the third," I said. "Thomas Dunlap has read them, so I wouldn't be surprised if Graham has. Past that… I don't think so."
"All right," Aunt Dawn said. "I'll go prepare them and talk to Wil— we need to find out if it's possible and safe to send Judith home. You guys bring Judith with you, which means finding her some clothes, Jocelyn— hers were pretty badly damaged by whatever that fire that hit her was— and prepping her a little."
"You're the fashion-lady, Aunt Dawn," I said, shrugging. "Or at least more than I am. Can you guess what sizes we should get her from the emergency stores?"
"Yeah, hang on," Aunt Dawn said. She patted her pockets, found a pad of paper and a pen, wrote down sizes for sweats, T-shirt, panties, bra and deck shoes, gave me the sheet.
As Aunt Dawn went off to talk to people I looked at Ripley, asked her to call Giles's friend Bookmark, relay the appropriate sizes to him, and have him send someone over with clothes for Judith. Five minutes later, Linnea, Aunt Dawn's bio-daughter, brought the stuff, handed it to me, hugged me and her Sh'rin-mom, and took off again. Less than a minute later, a much cleaner-faced and composed-looking Judith Holmes came out of the bathroom.
"I don't suppose there's some clothing around that would— ah, you anticipated my request, thank you." She took the pile, disappeared back into the bathroom, and Aunt Sh'rin and I heard some muttering that sounded a mixture of sour and amused by tone. In very short order, Judith came out in sweats, a T-shirt, socks and deck shoes. She had her own folded under-things in her hand, and said, "Is there by chance a laundry machine in the house?"
"Oh, sure, just throw your stuff in the hamper in there until we figure out what's what, please," I said, and Judith went back into the bathroom for a moment, and I took a good look at her as she went in and came out.
Five-ten, yes, and actually thin, not just slender. She couldn't have been much over a hundred and twenty pounds, though she did have muscle tone on her thin arms. A small waist made her narrow hips look less narrow, and she had small breasts— easy to disguise herself as a guy, what with the A-cups. Her shoulders were just broad enough to avoid looking narrow, her arms thin, and her hands… long, slender and tipped with long, slender, graceful fingers. Her face was long and thin, but not homely— her sharp cheekbones and slightly angular jaw were attractive, her bright blue eyes in their deep sockets actually worked well with her slightly long and prominent nose. Her lips were the only truly feminine feature on her face, slightly full, nicely curved, and naturally pink. Her hair— thick, heavy, raven's-wing black and hanging in a braid to her waist— looked as though it were only slightly naturally wavy. She wasn't pretty, really, but she was attractive, and I got a real kick out of seeing those features, the blending of two of my favorite fictional characters.
She came out a moment later and said, "I believe that the shower-bath is perhaps the most complicated I've ever seen. I do hope there will be time to try it— I still smell of smoke."
"I imagine there will be," I said, sitting down on the couch with Aunt Sh'rin and motioning Judith to the chair I'd vacated. She sat down and I tried to decide where to start, since Aunt Sh'rin had settled down and turned to me. There were things Judith had to know, but in what order should I tell her those things? Well, okay, most likely to shock her (short of the supernatural) first. I said, "Judith, there are a few things you need to know to… to avoid shocking you, or even… well, scandalizing you."
"Aside from the existence of demons, you mean?" she said with a wry smile. As Judith spoke, Shimmer, Aunt Sh'rin's white-but-picked-up-colors-from-around-her pseudo dragon, flew over and landed on the arm of her chair, and, when Judith moved her arms to make it plain that she was welcome, into Judith's lap. "That wouldn't scandalize me, I suppose, though father might well have become… apoplectic, I think."
"I can imagine," I said with a sigh. "Look, there's no really gentle way to say this, or at least none that I can think of, so I'm just going to say it; the world's attitudes— or at least those in America, Europe, Australia and Japan (though not so completely in Japan, I don't think) towards some sorts of relationships have changed since 1941— some, at least. The attitudes here in the nineteen-twenties were pretty much identical to what they were in the books with your folks in them, anyway.
"What I'm trying to say is that… well, being homosexual or bisexual in this time is not nearly the problem that it was in the time you come from. Yes, there are still people who don't approve, but not nearly so many, nor so automatically. In addition, relationships other than the standard heterosexual monogamy are… more common. Not hugely common, not at all, in the rest of the world— but in my family and my extended family, they are common, and we're all very relaxed about demonstrating our affection for each other. People… well, they may tone it down some if you stay for a while, but they may not, or might forget to. So you may see women kissing women romantically, or, if some of our friends come by, men kissing men romantically, or… well, look, I'm in a romantic relationship with two other people, a girl and a guy. We all love each other and we… express that physically."
"Ah," Judith said, blushing slightly. "Well, rest assured, I have never judged a person based on who or how they love— that would be quite silly, actually. I am in no way religious, so I certainly couldn't base such feelings on theological convictions, and since it harms no one, I see no reason to feel any animosity towards those who feel romantic affection for people of their own gender— or for both genders, for that matter. And I have read Mr. Wells' works on the future he believes in, and he does mention Free Love, at least in passing."
"That's a relief," I said, blowing out a sigh. "I sort of figured you had to be too smart for bigotry, but… the environment we grow up in does have something to do with who we become.
"That being said… I'm not the only one who is involved in a non-standard relationship in my extended family. Aunt Sh'rin, here, is in a five-sided marriage— well, relationship, marrying more than one person still isn't legal, but they think of themselves as married— which includes Aunt Dawn, my aunts Rose and Elaine, and my Uncle Ballard, and they have a total of six kids. Those are all friendship-aunts-and-uncles, not blood, but still, they're family. Then Willow— the lady in the dress back at the gymnasium where you appeared?— she's married to another woman, Lydia Heller, and they have an adopted daughter. My mom and dad have a girlfriend. And… I think that's it, for unusual relationships. I just… didn't want you to be shocked."
"Thank you," Judith said, and I noted that she still had a trace of blush going. She looked down at Shimmer and said, "I shall do my best not to react overtly."
Aunt Dawn stuck her head in then, saw us all sitting, and looked at Judith. "Judith? Are you ready to meet the rest of our admittedly huge family? And to swap explanations and backgrounds?"
"I very much am ready, thank you," Judith said, standing as Shimmer launched herself back to Aunt Sh'rin's arms. "I should warn you, I'm insufferably curious, I never let go of anything until I'm satisfied, and I may very well drive everyone insane with my incessant questions."
"Don't worry," Aunt Dawn said, and grinned at her. "We're used to it."
We headed for Giles's place and a whole bunch of questions, and Judith chuckled as she followed Aunt Dawn out of the room.